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!