Friday, June 27, 2014

breath

So what is this, this breath?
It has helped me live, grow
I did nothing.
Blood flesh height weight
All formed effortlessly with the guest
Coming in going out,
I see some airtight food there on the shelf
Fresh as mommies!

So what is this, this breath?
The outsider takes me slowly to death
Air intrudes in moments immeasurable in me despite me.
Balances life and death,
I have inertia so to fight to defend,
To offend to maintain my stance dignity,
Grace and position,
Cause it’s healing and killing in the same stretch!

So what is this, this breath?
Like an invisible invincible paranoid
It comes and goes.
Creation and destruction at one go.

I have all the reasons to live,
In the way it is…
With the constant conscious companion!
Who teaches me to live in the moment!
I won’t give in till my guru gives up,
But I’d have this question still in me,
Thrown up in the air,
Be it fair unfair,

So what is this, this breath?

I am

i am

I have the power in me
To be bound by my own ecstasy
I have the power in me
To be chained by my own sympathy
I have the power in me
To create my friends enemy
Deliver my thoughts thinking waste
From works that only cut and paste
Focus at the point without haste
I am in all my universe
Floating with it I traverse,
With its rise with its fall
Tiny puny little small and tall
Steady unmoved with every little bit
I am in it, for it, and I am always with it
I am in every single all

27 June 2014

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Hidden clarity

Hidden clarity

The moon,
Hiding in broad daylight;
The city,
Inside the clouds;
The sun,
Keeps the world in the dark;
Relatives,
Inside death;
All outside the purview,
To emerge in the mind

25 June 2014

mess

mess

Complete mess
No one works
No one
Stars, brooks, mountains smile at the working-ness
Winds are perpetually playing
Flirting with the livings
No seriousness
Everything that is so much in abundance
Is on a sabbatical leave
Learning how not to work,
How will the world survive if it’s only rolling and
Giggling without trace!

25 June 2014

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Poverty

Poverty

Blades of grass,
Never been able to count
The leaves in shrubs or from hanging ivy,
Fruits effortless of plenitude,
Yet, amidst all of this,
Poverty doesn’t count.

24 June 2014

Margin


Margin

Sand and the sea,
Pushing an elastic margin, bit by bit,
Territory is marked… for ages now
Different colours fight,
The outside bleeds into edgy foams,
The inside is colourless and hollow.

24 June 2014

Friday, June 20, 2014

raindrops

sudden big raindrops
type-writing in ample space
non-stop emotions

Some triplets

Falling leaves

Leaves falling from trees
A boy underneath watches
A barber at work

Counting

Heaps of fruits grounded
Counting fails the colour huge
One to nine numbers

Flowers 

Flowers in full bloom
Smile, ready to go places
Or just dress the ground                                      


Thirsty

Crows with open beaks
Look above with thirsty hope

Clouds waiting to fall

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Losers

Losers

We like to talk and write about success
For losers to listen and read,
All in the name and hope of encouragement;
Would we ever embrace a loser, sell a slice of penned speech
About the courage to sail through life as ones,
Reading stories of success mongers who made it big and great
Alas stories of readers never sell for here it’s not
The trading of value at any silly rate!

Come closer, take a deep breath and see how
Stories are written in the kitchen, at work, in families,
On the buses, on the roads;
How bills and taxes and piles of other fate
Refuse to open the famed golden gate,
How bad days are written off in the books of nights
First of every month runs for the next
How life is an imprisoned text!

Come closer, take a deep breath and listen how
Heartbeats of millions,
Want don’t want to sing, how gatecrasher legs steal the rhythms;
Of beats hammered around the Halls
Half-accomplished marks written off in the crack of Walls,
The soggy eyes, blue with jealousy ask a somber why
The imagined feet crashed into the red carpets
Life consumed in this thread of utter lie!

What is so wrong in losers
Who are never to be sung,
Not a tune for the real survivors;
Successes in ways that mock through the paths
Bit by bit, moments of sighs and highs go waste and cherished,
In and out of bars with attempts and tries
No one, none at all talk and write about successes of failures
All lovers blinded in their ears and deaf in their eyes!

Why is the word a sound so averse
A word that walks with most to traverse,
As losers in life write poems and tell;
Out of the mind and out of the shell
Straight on our faces, for those who survive,
Live without plugs with volumes of breed
Come on friends, bring it on, for those alive
Strong simple stories of losers indeed! 

17 June 2014

Monday, June 16, 2014

Coffee Poems

Coffee Poems


Clean cover

Debris on the earth
Dirt muck need complete cleaning
Child locks the cupboard

Misguided

From the cradle
I came to dance, sing and play
Daggers of thoughts born
To drag me till the grave

Sunlight

Sun from my bedroom
Hides behind the edifice
The light wakes me up

Elusive

Sunset in the horizon
Truths lie in front of our eyes
Sky falls in blue smile




Poems you could enjoy over a cup of coffee.
16 June 2014

Friday, June 13, 2014

In time


Birds flew away
With the quiet evening sunlight
Night wakes up from sleep

Deforestation



Lost forest, tonsured
Angry winds blow without pause
In search of some trees

Game



Old man on terrace
Feeding the pigeons, watching
Football match is on

Space



Maid left for today
She will with tomorrow come
Wash and clean my space

Work



Bees at work like ants
The stars, birds, trees, brooks, toil quiet
No automation

Reflection



A beautiful pond
Water steady and peaceful
The sky shows so clear

Thursday, June 12, 2014

An interesting game


An interesting game

When will you come to me?
When will you set me free?
When will you let me be?
Eyes wake inside and see!

Am I in search of what I am?
With meaningless traffic trapped in jam?
In the way of the road, what is clear unclear?
Ears inside the wheel can so openly hear!

At the centre of the mind is the puny little quiet,
At the centre of the being is a living small sight;
The silent in the middle is at ease and at peace!
The light in the middle a universe of bliss!

I am engaged, occupied,
Absorbed, involved, nothing denied,
A game so engrossing where every time I choose,
Whether to win or simply to lose!

12 June 2014

Waiting to clear


Sheep block winter road
People in cars wait, shiver
Take out woolen clothes

Back into the future

Maid washing clothes; brushes softly.

It must be my father.
That sound of his shoes at the last two steps is his.
He will catch me not studying.
That must be my father.
His almirah opens. He arranges his dress,
Takes out his dhoti and banyan;

That must be my father
Water drooling in the bathroom
To relax his fatigued machine.

A child jumps into a pond. Splash!

It must be my mother frying fish.
Rainy day today; no school, what a welcome to the changing season
Fresh smell…rhythmic rains…
Good…good things are happening in the kitchen.

Back into the future

Pressure cooker whistles to the sound of my mother’s conch.
Pooja at home.
Prasad waits for the owners of slippers waiting outside.
Ma smelling of dhoopdhoona.

Train whistles to take the holdall and us to a faraway place.
Clothes washed and hanging;

Treasures intact; to take the old man
Back into his protective and stable days,
And bring him back again into a changing state;
Back, all the time; into the future!



Note:
1.      Almirah – cupboard;
2.     Dhoti - is a traditional men's garment worn in India. It is a rectangular piece of unstitched cloth, usually around 4.5 metres (15 ft) long, wrapped around the waist and the legs and knotted at the waist, resembling a long skirt.
3.     Pooja – worship;
4.     Conch – a large spiral shell used before and after pooja;
5.     Prasad – foods and fruits, as offerings to Gods and Goddesses; after the pooja, it is to be consumed by the devotees.
6.     DhoopDhoona -  dhoop (incense stick) and dhoona – a special powder put on coconut skin and burnt to create a good atmosphere for pooja. It is also believed to be good for health, and is used as mosquito repellent.

12 June 2014

Monday, June 9, 2014

Rape

Rape

Rape appears again.
With its creative pare, faking pain
Fruits of pleasure hanging, lying, floating
On parts of nature,
O beauty!

India ‘is the cruelest’ place.
Where grimace is the name for the powerful grace;
Green shames unleash red tapes and lace
Horror blue showers on fertile lands,
Grasses hang and leaves drop from the naked tree
From where these rights become so wrong
How I’d pen a different song!

Though nothing stops.
‘Move on’ the weakest call that survives,
Buildings don’t collapse on insolent mud,
Businesses don’t crash on sticky thud,
Works don’t smash on the crackup grounds,
Ladies, women, girls don’t cease to solemnize birth
Gentlemen, guys, boys don’t tire to comply.

But I am guilty; burn the poem for in here I solicit a revolution,
You will not allow me to enter this pious premise I know
For I write here to stop everything on this treasured soil,
What is the need for growth, for wealth of any kind!
When being a rapist is our potent pride.
I am guilty of taking law, the blind into my own hands.

I am guilty; I should be punished in no time,
Curb me down I know I will get my judgement so quick
This bard is guilty with poisonous stings
No girls, and they’re not my ‘ma’ and ‘behen’, they’re girls with wings
See! On grounds of disrespect you could put me behind the bars,
No girls I say are safe in India,
Violated in this failing country of ‘dead habits’!

Let the world know how virile we are.
India tops in honor killing and rape,
We are here to nail down love, and drain our lust without escape
My country is the cruelest country,
You have another ground to bring this brute to book.
With a foolproof pen inking so openly white
Go hunt and hurt with all your might.

Laws will wall you save your claws
And tell us stories of women’s flaws.
O beauty!
On parts of nature,
Fruits of pleasure hanging, lying, floating
With its creative pare, faking pain
Rape appears again.

Note: Ma means mother, behen means sister. One of the common ways to refer to Indian women to show respect; however, men are seldom referred to as Baba (father) and bhaiya (brother). In India, we think that women are more respected if they are referred to as mother and sister, and not just as women. The poem has 47 lines, crafted and hammered as a reminder to lot many things for no use at all.

I was not sure of whether I should share this poem until I thought of keeping my being sure aside. Yes, 'rape' has become a statement of power in India. Women of all ages are first raped then brutally murdered with the relatives of the victims running from pillar to post for justice.
09 June 2014

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Free show

Light and sound on stage
Crickets playing with fire-flies
Audience hiding in trees

Times

Numbers, passwords scare
Memory under arrest
Times to modern times

Child's play

The child sees first rain
Captured in video
The wet smell escapes

Passengers

Train reaches station
Passengers chatting so long
Leave with moments passed

wave

Train running away
Children on the meadow wave
Passengers wave back

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

A drop [from the son’s diary]

A drop [from the son’s diary]

Mom teaches Chemistry to her son
From her school book, neatly covered in brown paper;
A drop, in the middle of the label
That blurred the year with an off blue splash,
Was that of an ice-cream, she recollects…
‘Time didn’t run away
From the indolent soporific book why,’ she thinks;

A drop wakes her up, turns old in a whiff
In a room, with an impatient son,
Waiting to figure the bonds!

04 June 2014

Said unheard


I am Om Amen
Sounds roaring on the deaf beach
Snails hiding inside

Father, child


Father walks, child runs
To keep pace… child grows…walks still
Holding the old hand

All stars


All stars
Throwing light to sleepwalkers
Buds and seeds awake

Monday, June 2, 2014

closed it firm

closed it firm

Through the pages,
There were stories trapped,
I was reading me, in all of them;
Who are they? I wondered!
In folded time, dressed like me,
Paged for love innocuous like me,
Banished in pen, like me,
How horrid is the link!

If I had thought and lived like them,
Am I their devil or are they my spook?
Where is the link?

I closed the book as a norm,
Looked at nature,
Yes I told I was quite like it,
In a way,
Yet unlike;
I opened the book and closed it again,
With fear and doubt,
A swelter mere, so should I fling?
What is the point I thought,
I am happy to link!

I opened the book, and closed it firm.


This poem is about taking responsibilities. Closing link (done three times in the poem) does not mean closing ties and bonds. However, living a life that has been lived thousand of years ago is something with which the poem doesn't comply. If you remember three shots of Meuresault in 'The Outsider', the first shot was a reaction, as a norm, the two following shots were conscious. It is about taking charge of the action, however sad it is; once one has committed an action, one has to stand by it. Here in this poem, only the third shot (action of closing the book) is done consciously. So when the book is closed for the third time, the poem is taking charge to withstand the discomfort and other consequences without blaming anyone. Closing here is a creative beginning. However, it is open to interpretations.

02 June 2014

Mist

Mist

Moist morning in mist
Meadows trees shiver in lakes
Clouds erase the paint
Eyes open vision vapours
Steps smoke through the way

02 June 2014

Missing

Missing

Rain and the Sun
Playing hide and seek for long
Rainbow on the sky
Rain hats and umbrellas on
A child peeps, hats off

02 June 2014