Doubt & Hope

Twin peaks of infinite thirst 

moulded by ancient, forgotten gods;

Doubt and hope, keep watch on life

And like dawn and dusk,  

Relate neither to time nor space 

Millions of gods have been crushed 

When heavens churned and roads

leading up to those peaks perished 

Uncounted pennies have been minted 

One day's loot, just enough for the next

Treasures, pleasures, lives; gained

In the inner sanctum of one or the other 

At times one is lost in cloud shadows 

Of past lives and an unrepentant present

Or in mystic mountain sunsets. But always 

Doubt and hope, like thought and word

Remain as heavy paperweights do

Keeping together the unwritten pages of 

Life's pointless lengthy short tales 

Your story and mine, together or alone

Loss

In the beginning was the word, they said

But was there a silence that shattered

When words poured out of lonely spaces?

First came darkness and then streams of light

But without you in my mangled thoughts 

Where was light and its need for dark spaces?

Beaten or lonesome, the path precedes a traveler 

But when well-travelled roads are lost in doubt

How did you find a home in unmapped wilderness?

At first there was an imagined you, then came you

But when the "you" disappeared into dream-vapors

Which blackhole devoured every atom of my world? 

Temple tunes left fragrant scars on moonless nights 

But at dawn when rituals lie abandoned and forgotten 

Who was it that smeared colors of loss on this sky?

 

Laughter

Laugh if you must, dear friend,

At this mist-filled, musky season 

You have ushered in; herein

Darkness crumbles nakedness,

Finger crush each whim of the soul

And eyes flood memories with light 

To lay them all to dry on the 

Banks of tomorrow's hope

While laughing, perhaps you will see

A new writing on lonely walls

Fresh flowers, waterfalls, silent nights 

Fragrant, stolen kisses and a lifetime's 

Bliss blistering his mark on my head 

You and I

You and I had written a note to life

And threw that bottle deep down the sea

That message, you and I, remained forgotten

One night, a new moon brought his lust-ridden waves

Loneliness fueled a million star- lantern wicks to light up 

Those discarded sands, buried lifetimes, a time-smoothened glass shard

Suddenly  a sweet miracle smiled right into my eyes 

And I said to her, somethings are only found 

When they are lost. She said it's true

For memory is just lost time; love, lost self

While truth, loss of everything untrue 

And life, a lost message in a broken bottle 

Dream

On wings of yesterday's dream

O traveler, you have come this far

It is time for dreams to melt into dawn 

When the dusk descends again, 

Who knows if we will meet again? 

Fistful of sand

Blow gently over these sands today

I laid these out carefully, one palm

to another, hours poured out in imperfect 

Synch, a few grains more, a few less

I shaped these stories right here today

Embellished in could-have-been-pearls

Broken figments bound to wet sands

Your story and mine with so many others

Powdered moonlight swells wavelets

of unabashed desire today. Dear moon, 

stay back and curve gently over the clouds

Time is only measured out by the sun, after all

On ancient shores of an ageless thirst, I ask of you 

A will to seek, beyond hours, years and ages

Secret deaths and silent resurrections,

One hundred moons in a fistfull of sand

Loss, Gain and all in between

One passing moon said to another

I have been missed, and so were you 

And then all those valiant silent night stars

laughed their contempt out for life, 

Because all is still without you,

I stood in peace meant for eternity 

But death made a mockery of gain

For what was lost, remained elusive

And all that's gained was unpossessed

Because loss is infinite without you 

One tender finger lingered on another 

I have been touched, and so were you

And then all those salient, nightly kisses 

Cried oceans' worth their tears of salt

Because loss is worthless, with you within 

Born to be Free

My crushed heart yields sweet cranberry blood

Have a taste and let me know if you like it warm

My breath still burns its winter passion flames

Drenched as it were by tempests of gloom

Do not worry dear friend, my madness touches those touched at the brow by the burning ashes of life

Who shed daily driblets of tears and laughter and fill 

Pots of time with plastic trinkets of nostalgia

Their moods mingle with seasons and light, with 

Rain clouds and summer winds, sultry afternoon sands

They search for the source in sunsets and tsunamis 

Dramas, other people's traumas, in pride and the self

In losing and giving oneself, they seek to find you,

Who have never lost yourself. You, my prince.

My peerless friend, you, who needs neither 

ashes nor sands. You, who have been 

Born blind to pain. You will be free. 

You will be Free

My crushed heart yields sweet cranberry blood

Have a taste and let me know if you like it warm

My breath still burns its winter passion flames

Drenched as it may by tempests of unknown gloom

Do not worry dear friend, my madness touches only

Those who were touched by the burning ashes of life

Their tears and laughter mingle with seasons, light 

Rain clouds, summer winds, sultry afternoon sands

You, my priceless friend have been born blind to pain

You will be free. 

Darkness

Down under on the sea bed, does it

Feel as it does up on the mountain?

Breathless quest for life 

beyond a singular reality, 

And it's search for eternity

Up beyond those mountains, would you 

Hear dark clouds sing, cry or laugh?

Their songless journey transcending 

heavens, rivers and all in between

Into the very ocean's depth

How many voids will you consume

In all of those lives you enter?

With each bed, a new hunger; 

And each tear a shattering cyclone

A twisted corner, that shaded nook

Imagined mango groves,

Flowered mountain paths

Soundless wind chimes, 

Music on a loop, heard once,

Unheard at once, and then never

Is darkness always deeper 

Around you more than where 

You stand? 

And you, the void to

Suck in all of those dark, 

soulless cyclones?

That Death

Spirits rage, swell and seek what kisses quell

Bodies tangle to untangle tight knots within 

Our nerves split into a hundred moons and 

Blood spills out to quench each other's thirst 

One moment sings of an ancient paradise 

While another of wilderness, untamed, bespoke 

I worship the memory of your scars, your moles

And you build a shrine to an unspelt past, lust, love

Sweetness, sadness and togetherness mingle into one

Desire outweighs our will to live, ah for that death!