Momentariness

A moment stretched its leisurely arms 

When Jupiter rained on Canterbury road

Eyes held and caressed through

Collective noses; lips glued to

Shoulders; legs entwined, burrowed 

In a red cave of evanescence 

Tall dark shadows of trees swayed 

In the sheer bliss of framing that night sky

For two wanderers on a looped path 

No longer lonesome, nevermore alone

In an unlit road that lead nowhere 

Buddha smiled into frugal transience 

We kissed that night goodbye but then 

a star sprinkled its mirthful disappearance 

And your smile brought him back again

And again and again surging into my veins 

Who will unwrite these lines you were made of

And lead our song to its epehemeral blue sky?

 

Fated to Drift

Fate of flowers, rivers, fire and earth

To die, if not today, tomorrow. Alone

 

Fate of plants, clouds, bees and stars

To seek new love before time runs away

Among these clouds and stars, 

I flow like a forsaken garland of flowers

Seeking to find that one moment, 

That space and those hands which made me

While all along, this current drifts me

Away and into a relentless roar of the ocean 

Here and Now

For that space between your pillow and mine,

And your head in the crook of my arm

For those dream weddings with green sarees

And the burning sun of memory laden vermillion

Those walks, those parts of your heart

You left with mine under the stars, 

For morsels that will fill a thousand births to come

Tears and songs, for skin, for lips, for hands and feet

For each of these, I can thank you tomorrow 

But this deathless life that you leave me with

Here and now, peerless prince, I bow to you 

Kill Joy

I heard stories of  black holes born from stars

And of nothingness dying into a million suns 

Of creatures in dream-state mirrors of unheard truth

Far below the ocean's depths, 

I know they are stars too

I close my eyes at night in your arms

And wake up to beauty and joy that can kill

Never Enough

Never enough, all of the blue sky 

With its zillions of light ampules 

And an evening holding your hand

Will hunger ever die and leave me alone

While alive, I will crave again and again

For another night, that is never to be 

Never enough, those moonlit evenings

Monsoon kisses, your feet on mine 

And an afternoon spent on clouds 

Will my eyes ever stop seeking your smell

Among all the voices I will hear while alive

For three words, that were never meant to be

Krishna, Do You Know Her At All?

Among your thousand loves, you danced

On full moon nights in secret groves 

One knew not that there was another

Krishna, did you give her your all?

Her sleeping life, children and home

Sandbanks, timerafts, rivers of loss

She crossed drawn in by a playful flute 

Krishna, did you play on her will?

She talked of delight and dreamt of dungeons

To stay was death, to leave, even worse

Her whole being burned in hell-fires of trust

Krishna, did you touch her ashes at all? 

Lack of Love

This crazy fuck means nothing 

But then, I am a crazy fuck too 

And two crazy fucked up lives 

Can they make up for a lack of love?

These rootless words mean nothing 

But words are dreams to hold on to

All these rootless, wordless, endless dreams

Can they make up for lack of love? 

Love that we spoke of, had no love

Tainted bedspreads, bottled water 

Windowsills of leisure, 

rolling arms of pleasure 

No love, not love, what love?

Whose lack of love can make up

For all this talk of love without love?

Happiness in curved mirrors

Happiness poked its knees into my stomach 

And held me tight lest my nights run amok

Somewhere among unweary sweeps, rife

We held hands and watched stars come to life

There were days before you, spent on desert sands

Fire and fear; lament that no one understands 

This rush of blood in my veins for you; 

churning karmic wheels of cause askew

Who brought you here straight from tinder realms

On a magic carpet of our shattered dreams?

Life is a count of breaths, can we trust its errors;

And come to be unmade into its curved mirrors?

That moon received her blessings in shades of blue

Your upsidedown image is but I, my magnificent self; you.

How The Moon Lives

History is a cheat, you know that well

He hides those stories of your genes that sing

And makes mountains of men who did massacres 

You, a poet, whose words paint unneeded love

What use you are to those who see 

With twin eyes of wins and losses?

Geography; She doesn't mean to, but she lies

One day's contours on a map, meant to live 

For as long as memory and not a day more

You, a sailor whose maps are drawn from the stars

What use you are to those who use 

Quarter books to define boundaries of islands?

Footprints of false histories all through your maps 

If you care to know,that lonesome moon was lost 

And ever since she came under the spell 

Of a spinning globe weaving ancient tales

She stayed on for the wedding feast and learnt 

How to marry words with lost maps and live 

Upside down Songs from Mars

Somewhere near the mole on your ankle

If you find my evening lost, give her 

A cup of tea and sit down next to me

What if two pairs of moist eyes see

Your feet on mine on a windowsill

Lift them up to the sky and smile

You will see how far they can fly

Tonight, I will dream of yesterday 

Of Sirius, of Orion, of mercury's ring

So tell tomorrow to linger a little longer

On those ports where dreams anchor 

Before they soft-land their heavy sighs

Or disappear into sunlight 

While I go looking for you 

In upside down songs from mars 

Making of Memories

My memories are textured. 

Smooth scars, translucent moles,

foam-warm lips, sandpaper jaw, silken skin, 

hands on your chest feeling as though 

I were digging warm wet sand for treasures. 

Your voice, at once my memory 

and the making of it. 

Your eyes, like bubbles from hay straw, 

lighting up the evening, 

piercing through my being 

and landing gently 

on some side of my heart 

that's turned away from the sun. 

I miss you, 

but in all these textured memories, 

my man is next to me holding my fist 

in his perfect-fit palm. 

Just How?

If I can shut away the cynic for a minute 

Then, perhaps this world will dance 

With me to my tune 

Or swing me to the moon

Pray, how does one shut one self off?

If I can close my eyes to tomorrow

Then, perhaps today will be golden-hued

And paint your colour on my hand

Or fly me on her dreams to your land 

Pray, how does one close what isn't here?

All day long, I search among words

Those thunderstroms and volcanoes

All night long, I ward off waves of death

If I can drown myself in ashes of moments

Burnt by our bodies and souls together 

Then, perhaps, this story will stop to haunt

Pray, how does one seek a day without desire?

Let It Go

I took your name a hundred times tonight

Like Meera of a hundred dreams

Prisoner to her marriage of norms

Poisoned in her longing for you

And yet, Meera took your name

For a hundred nights and more 

Your breath, she breathed in

Your pain, she poured out 

Until you came to her saying

You are mine now, let it go.

And I wait now, to be Meera

Of a Krishna who knows me not

Fujisan, whatever version

Some pictures say more than what you and I can ever know

They speak of stories beyond men and women

Of boiling couldrons  of grief under a magnificent countenance 

And of a zenness that is afforded to those

Who truly know the poetry of time, 

Or do they lie? 

His heart is open to the sky and his body spilt over this earth 

As though he were their promiscuous Son 

Only hard to make them meet

They said he was born tiny and then he grew; who knew

In grief, in love, in vanity or jealousy, in strength 

Did grief bring him closer to the sky or love

Who saw his birth, who knew this girth?

They said if you listen closely, he sings for you, 

But if you want it too badly, he will close his lips

 Fujisan weave clouds as we weave our punctured lives into blurred portraits of lives that should be lived?

Do we like mountains, live in those stories of daily deaths and infinite moorings?

All of It

Does it all fade?All of this? 

Poems, words, moments pressed into time? 

Newness, oneness, togetherness in being-aloneness?

All of it?

It did, it does and then, it doesn't 

So what lives, what loves?

What craves for shadows to hold on to in sleep?

And how did you cross this river?

I rode it too in spate, 

But there you are, on the other side

Where it was gently swallowed by the sea

And all of me asks,

Will it stay with me, all of it?

All I ask for

This nose, this skin, this globe, 

this sand, this mirrored maze of my mind

I didn't ask for you, for mothers, grandfathers, 

for teachers, for bosses who betray, 

for friends who do not stay.

Did I ask for rain, for the sun, the moon, 

or the way my palm points upwards 

when I rest my arms;

And downwards when you lie next to me,

especially when you aren't with me?

Who asked for butterflies, flowers, truth and lies,

who asked for holy grails, coffees and walks?

All I asked for is that I wasn't made to be me

But that was too much to ask 

Was it? 

Promise of tomorrow

I left my kiss on your bed last evening 

Can you try not crush her when you reach?

There, beside your pillow, she must nestle 

Until your arms lift her to the skies again

I sprinkled some memories of sunlight 

Green words recited as sacred hymns

To repeal questions from two cups of tea, 

an intruding glass. Speak softly, lest they shatter 

I hugged air in each corner of your space 

Faint fragrance of a never-to-be forgotten day

Hung there waiting to be spoken to

Until I came away with a promise of tomorrow

Empty Moon

The errant moon was hung to death by stars 

Yet heaven is only a dream for mortals

He remained pale across the flattened globe 

Watching, waxing, waning and all through it

Carrying half-soaked messages of unborn lust

He was here last night too, empty handed 

I let him in, full that he was in his lonely quest

We played holi with shades of each other's memories 

And wove people, places, moments into Colours,

lost stories, togetherness and all of the world's senses 

We burnt them all with the holika. 

He is back up there again

Perhaps a shade brighter 

If only for tonight

Black Holes Kissed

Tenderness, angst and greed

merged with each other and then

was re-born that dead god.

Nothing escaped his black hole

Life slowed down 

and the globe curved on itself

He kissed a black hole to death 

And lo, it came alive on the 

Dark side of the universe

Memory Of an Afternoon

Blue Jays fluttered past like memories 

Which neither keep still nor run away

Deepened greys of that shadowed afternoon 

revealed what's to happen with the 

melted day's shape, sounds and textures 

Time-lapsed moments playout in slow motion

My voice and your story, or was it the other way

The afternoon sun flirted with our penchant for pain

Fitful tears paid homage to sheer joy of togetherness

Rolling back an upside down hill of all forty years

Tracing sharpened wounds and hardened scars

With warm mouths and  hungry glances

A man and a woman, behind all masks

Two non- swimmers, foolish, mad

Explored an ocean of loneliness 

Seated on a fast boat under the stars 

Far away, where senses transcend reason

Holi

They say the love god was burnt to ashes

As such desire lost his body 

and then came to haunt ours 

The air will be strewn with 

Colours of spring 

Where Aparna found love 

that Rati lost to fury

In that deep crevice of time,

Powdered vermillion lays out 

Blood red paths of the unseen

They say, from ashes rises desire, each day

They say, nymphs seduce hopes, each day

And somewhere in a distant dream

I play holi with you dressed in white 

Don't Hurt My Kiss

Don't hurt my kiss lying on your windowsill

So what if she turns lazily in her sleep

And half-heartedly claims what she knows

Is not hers for all time to come?

Wet, warm tears might be oceans of storm 

She dreams of being the river that yields

Blue-green sarees, vermillion memories

Treasured arms holding onto

hopskipping tomorrows; sweet nothings

So go on and sink your teeth on her lower lip

Her thirst, and deepest sins are all but

Yours to take for all time to come

Cards and keys into a bitter sweet world 

One that is at once one's and owned by none

Will You Teach Me?

I will walk with you down those hills

As the shadow follows it's sunlit self 

Across those untouched desert sands

Places named after sounds and winds 

Will you follow footsteps of tomorrow?

I will be in the starlight that you seek 

At a full moon dusk, half-lit, half-drowned 

In an ocean that churned without remorse

And gently curved your fatelines into mine 

Will you set your palm upon mine? 

I will wait for you near our river at the alcove

A hundred years ago, a million years from now

You parted my hair and painted scarlet kisses

And brought me sarees woven of cardamom scents 

Will you tie those jasmine dreams in my hair?

I will be the name that you will spill your smile into

Made of unicorns, moon swings, knights on wings 

A million wounds feathered with your fingers, I am 

That silence you seek in music, woodfire and the sea 

Will you teach me to forget footsteps, palms, dreams?