Monday, September 1, 2014

Commuting Lines


Over the tracks that
Walk everyday through
Miles and miles counted
In hours and minutes
Imbibing the perspiration
And smelly smoke
Of stale breaths
And hawker calls
Every day, every hour.

The men chat…
Of school and candles
Of fishes and scandals
Of banks and trunks
Of home and bunks
Of holidays and rape
Of chicken and grape
They chew on paan
And watch the snaan
Of women under taps.

The men cheer
And maliciously sneer
At youngsters who join
New jobs and point
Their fingers at faults
At desperate jolts
Made in fear
Made in hope
Made in attempts of
Mere survival.

Homes of cards
They build everyday
Losing and winning
Bids they make
Challenging in games
They never could play
To lose happily
To friends any day.

And friends they call,
Travellers, colleagues
And fresh youngsters
They consider weak
The new job band
The nurslings at hand
To tease and pluck
Like chickens they cluck
The men gossip
And talk talk talk.



Monday, August 18, 2014

THE MONSOON RETURNS

Not soon, my love, but I return
From the days of darkness old.
Not soon, my love, but I return
With stories untold.

Not soon, my love, but I return
To your shining warm eyes.
Not soon, my love, but I return
To soothen your midnight cries.

Not soon, my love, but I return
To fill your hopeful hours.
I return, to you my love,
To write across the stars.

Our fates entwined in words and sound
Our fates entwined in water
Our thought bars no hold on time
Nor erase the lingual barter.

Of words, my love, I build 
Palaces, homes and pillow fight.
With words, my love, I make
War, destructions and deaths slight.

Not too soon, but I return
To wish away the tales of death
Not too soon, but I return to
Embrace you with my breath. 

Friday, January 3, 2014

Vermilion Ants

A red brook flows alone all day
Silent yet so trepidly busy
That it fails to falter on uneven
Stones and rushes down
To some unknown unchartered map.

Through nooks and crevices
One notes it's devices
To overcome all hurdles
It stoops to bargain
Over a sugary corn lane
Intricately dividing it's cleave.

Vermilion streak in a line
On the paths of silver shine
The business of existence.

One wonders whether love or pain
Or memory, so loved to regain
Cross those incessant minds.
A closer look then does reveal,
That trunk to trunk they do appeal
As if a talk in kiss.

The ants show us in trembling forms
Of lives lived alone, forlorn,
Across miles of distance.
O such that we'd walk so close
And touch our hearts with 
Silly pose, turning the
Streets vermilion!

Friday, August 30, 2013

In Remembrance

Meri adhoori kahani
Lo daastaan ban gayi
Tu ne chhuya aj aise
Main kya se kya ban gayi


White pages and a long silence
Wrapped in a quiet deep wish,
A little prayer, and unspoken hymns 
Shyly pass your moulds of words
Through the shadows of countless
Heart broken, tired lanterns 
You light with a sooty flame
Like the kohl in my eyes.

Like whispers of white
Among the petals of a faint rose
I ask my heart if you do
Recall my image, in dusky fragments
And bursts of cloudy aspirations,
Like a long lost music, 
A half forgotten letter,
A missed heart beat.

In remembrance sudden and intense
Puddles of golden light
Accumulate at my eyes and unfold
A screen of tales, a hundren mischiefs untold.
I wish on the curling smokes of incense
May you live well and be happy
O Flier of blue kites.

A tear for you,
The purest gift 
In remembrance
Of times lost in dream

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

KALEIDOSCOPE


Every morning as you wake up
And hold me to your lips like
The first glass of awakening
Water --- I become your need.

You cuddle up with the pillow
One last time and in your thoughts
You look at me 
Like a deer looking at its fawn.
I become a tender drop of dew.

You smile and hold my face
In your palms, cupped into a chalice.
I melt like sunshine and
Become a golden winged dream.

You kiss my eyelids
I feel like the luckiest starlet
Fallen through miles of silent skies
Only reborn to be your love.

When you rest your cheek 
Against my velvety skin
And touch my dimple with those lips
I feel like a wisp of cloud.

I want to spread my wings
Among the bluest of the royal skies
And take you with me
Among the petals honeyed with care.

I want you to hold my hand
As I take us away on green extremes
Afloat across life
Like evening flowers in a rippling stream.