Nothing

Those stars that draw lines on our hands 

Pull people together into random virtual spaces 

And then laugh and say, go figure 

Ever wondered about all those stars in our universe?

I drew them out in your laughter nets 

Counted them in your garbled teeth 

The biggest of them is bigger than the sun

They say, but the smallest draws us all in 

Worm hole of endless possibilities, infinities

Mutiltitudes, potentials, unborn fecund wombs

Of imagination dancing face to face with reason 

Ever wondered which star is me, in your galaxy?

Spiraling its way into another, bigger multiverse

While you and I remain caught in a black hole

Of memories that draw every atom of us in

Ever wondered who traces those outlines of  

black holes, 

Is it the hand of guilt or regret, that measures out loneliness 

Mother

Your warm lap thawed my ice cold world, just a little 

And your tuneless hums molded my days, just a little 

Your anger, longing, those lengthy years of loneliness 

Amma, did they give birth to me too, just a little? 

Here comes another moment of thwarted desire, another loss, yet another thorn in hidden heart's flesh 

Gathering pebbles in the sand, we played, just a little 

Amma, where does one learn to play with people?

I emerged from your womb as he did from another 

Into this ocean of fathomless need for the other 

In each other's boats we glimpsed dry land, just a little 

Amma, how many boats lie buried in an ocean's womb? 

Is it love again?

Who decides which of those seeds sprout this season

Perhaps he, whose quiet presence pervades all dreams

Laughter and tears at once drenched my sleep today

A blush of color spread across my field as sinless stain

Moonshots of Lust

I knew when I was born into this longing 

That my lord was made of a thousand eyes

Sands of time pass through his relentless seive 

What remains then of all these moonshots?

I knew when I roamed the world with him

No eye sees another's star be it a thousand, or two

My planet turns at its own pace, that moment's 

crystal held in our invisible ring will fade too

I knew my hand will be held again on misty nights

And time's dark child will slip out of his cell 

He will cross the Yamuna again and Radha will   

Ask, what remained then of all those moon shots? 

My wordy paradise

These words I write are mere bubbles, butterflies,

Shape-shifters, dream-catchers,  hot air balloons 

To blow me away from dreary drab disdain of today

In delicious twirls of could-have-beens, the moon, your fingers, those jumbled letters, open skies,

But they are dumb, my garbled words, 

neither sense, nor sound, neither rain nor rhyme

Lonely, empty white sheets of unbearable nights 

Painless ache for unnamed desert sands, mountains, soft swells of warm skin melting into sweet sweat 

And yet some days, the skies align

Your clouds meet mine in my wordy paradise

And rainbows emerge from crumbling starlight

Murakami's Anger

From whose killing fields should you rebel

Always to the side of the correct, never the right?

In which foreign tongues must you think and write

How many words does it take, did you wonder

To earn gushing praise and love?All hail theNobel

They sang a song for it, they took the bullets for it

And came to the podium, they know it all, the how

Why and when of the universe. 

Neat speeches to tie up life, practiced ceremonies 

A prize for the country, after all 

For the entire human race, but Murakami, 

How many words does it take then

to lose something one has never won? 

Radha's Blue God

A piece of the blue sky rumbled somewhere within 

As your eyes pierced tattooes into my tomorrows

I held up your smile to the ocean's swell moon 

And counted those pearls that welled up inside 

In footsteps and moans, sweet tears and sweat

Your tight embrace, once and for all, just mine 

For a moment; as was the whole of blue god, Radha's 

As He danced sixteen hundred steps ahead and beyond

Tracing my ancient past in forlorn songs of the dusk

Each mole on your skin, added up to those seven steps

We had taken together, on a sharad full moon night 

Of another planet in another time 

Wounds

If words could tug, pull and tear open

Would they have ripped these masks

And weave brand new ones to hide tears

We pulled so hard, perhaps the fabric tore 

And each stich of shame fails to cover

The nakedness of our needless anger

I run towards and against you each time I fall

You pull away and towards me with an apology 

Later when night lights up the sleepless soul

I weave new fabric that will never be mine again

Healing

You came gently as the first flush of summer rain

And I poured into you all of my needless pain 

Silently you asked what it is, where does it live

Who causes it to fade like water through a sieve 

I knew then, how time contrives to heal 

New Page

They say our fate is written in stars, palm lines 

I write again and again to wipe those designs

When I held you in my arms, did our lines meet

And did stars bend down to kiss our angels' feet?

Breath, blood, bruises waited at the door

Desire unrobed ageless thirst once more 

Hands crushed each other's secret rage

But life smiled and turned a new page

Time

Where there is neither yesterday nor today

Neither you nor me, to that place shall we go

And watch the fireworks in the sky

The beginning of the end, 

or maybe just the end

Time flows and curves around space 

I will follow you through those curves

Bring your scooter, let's go there again 

How?

I crave to etch into these pages, your image

But sweet friend, how does one write of a smile? 

All of the oil lamps in abandoned ancient temples

And crashing waves of an agonized angry ocean

Can they speak of the earth's silent molten truth?

Or of your voice that cascades into my being as hymns

From a hoary past in an alien, intimate tongue 

All these mythical secret rhythms of a waterfall

Can they speak of the water's deepest wish to melt?

The sky was born muted in its desire for the earth

And split into a thousand stars the day I was born 

And I crave to hold your warmth in my memory

But sweet friend, how does one kiss desire's dreamy song?

Past the sell-by date

Your shadow falls on my parched soul

All dreams freeze and reason fails 

But there is no time to become whole

Right under those blue mountain trails 

He has flown across that cotton field

And your wrist watch remains concealed

Unsealed

Each day's vetiver-woody paen to the night

Deepens memories of an unshared sweet delight

And yet, 

Not all smooth silken skins melt into each other

Nor do all names stamp a mole for the tither

But still 

Plates, knifes, edges, corners, clouds without fetters,

Scars linger longer than wounds in my unsealed letters

You see

Stars crush their dust on my dreamy lashes 

And songs pour out of life's grey ashes 

They are

Coffee mugs, chocolate cookies and sweet adieu 

Tiny mustard sprouts, those hours stolen for you 

With them

I will buy a pound full of television-life again

And sleep in the arms of endless ache, sweet pain

Who knows

When clouds pour out their heart in a cold white land

You will open my unwritten letters, dear friend

Churning of the Ocean

All my dreams are signed and sealed today

In the murals your bookish thoughts drew

On my unbelieving lashes 

The ocean churned sans a snake-wrapped mountain

And I flew along the coast of that earliest dawn 

To gulp the poison in your throat

No sound emerged, just the crescent of pain

And the gorgeous damsel of hope 

Carried your voice in her celestial pot

If only, I could have it all!