sharp escape

sharp escape

Forest. Deep forest. 
I can hear the fox 
that follows the tiger... 
pitch dark. nothing is seen...everything heard... 
fluttering of birds, owls chatting 
stabbing the dark 
i see two fire balls and don't hear the fox 
no heartbeat...nothing at all...only the fireballs 
i can here the smell of rotten flesh 
i am like a piece of cloth soaked in a washing machine 
waiting to be washed 
waters flowing downstream 
without form and shape 
i just woke up with a scream 
imagined a sharp escape 

habitat

Notes in the book..
Words fall like water singing
Cattles facing down 

Lime Lyte

Everyday I drink 
Lemonade in Halloween 
Words sweat in darkness 

A year is just a day

A year is just a day

A year is just a day...
Like a chip in the archive tray.
 
We pass it heavy so very slow...
Yet moments alight it flies to go.
 
We talk it out like days that grew...
As fruits and flowers old anew.
 
Some tunes unsung in silent note...
A boat that’s sunk yet sets afloat.
 
We walked through days that’s so very short...
No backup of acts in the river of thought.
 
Happy sad have days gone by...
Stories lie of alibi.
 
Freshen up for another day...
Until it chips and goes away.
 
Live it up with plane love and cheer!
The day’s here to make a year!

Wall of meanings

Wall of meanings

Right in the middle of a leaf
The inks laid down its say,
They came from a trained wind stiff
That stormed the feelings away.

Painters and writers trying to link
The stable with the change so tense,
Their works gained and lost to think
Of the scratches that made no sense.

Scientists are looking for the dice
Unable to find the funny ball,
In the game of virtue and vice
Stays the still and stubborn wall.

Rules of yeses and noes,
Sides that flow the running river
Are those that run the eyes and nose
To play this nosy game forever and ever.

Good and evil, words to understand
World for its word, gives us all a hand,
For guarding right and wrong
Hearts could melt the wall, so strong.

Never wondered why as people we divide
In the world that's round and without any side,
Never pondered why the world is still with us
It doesn't have a rule that judges, makes a fuss.

Right in the middle of a leaf
Inks have melted into clay,
The wind emerged from cliff
That's softened the walls away.

let me

let me

Let me see
If desires cease
Mirror cracks
Images freeze.

Let me hear
The wheel of my hearse
The curtain falls
Actors rehearse.

that which is

that which is

Silence is near without voice,
What is far is noise;
What's near is unheard,
Unseen without choice.

Image is so untrue,
In between me and you;
That for what it's not meant,
Freezes and denies to melt.

That which is in us,
Seems outside campus;
That which's way too false,
Within us it falls.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

I was trying to nail down
the painter in me,
but it came out in the open just for free.
It had to draw upon a canvas,
Jesus standing like Krishna,
with a flute in his hand;
playing the tune Merry Christmas.

I tore the canvas and broke it into pieces
I am not possessed,
I do not have the right to melange,
I do not have the right to speak,
I do not have the right to offend,
I do not have the right to imagine,
I do not have the right to paint;
I kept it deep inside the wishes.

Curse me o my friends,
Hang me until death,
I'd for the shepherds,
Cease to take my breath.

Yet I see up in the sky
thousands of balloons dancing
free and high
paintings fresh and new are singing inside us
The only single tune
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

climber

Hopes climb up the tree
Full with fruits and deadly ants
Ladder goes missing

The Sun is tipsy

The Sun is tipsy
with a couple of pegs..
Dances the rainbow

listen

Crow and cuckoo sing
One's at home with the other
Listeners not at ease

choice in words

a,b,c,d,e
Teacher sings to a student
Gun, guitar dreamer

kindness

Passer-by watches
Mother loving her child
All are beggars here

Act and play

Urchin faking limp
Actors rehearse for the show
Alms fall in plenty

Vegetable market

Vegetable market
Cooks plan for the courses
Dogs smelling the food

tigeready

Tiger preys walks slow
Moments still sharp and measured
Eyes claws jaws ready

rosogollas

Sweet shops smell of sauce
Rosogollas are in heat
Greedy flies and eyes

gap

Eyes closed half asleep
cracking sound feathers flutter
Thief steals in the gap

workers

workers are busy
building homes houses villas
crows watching on cows

mindberg

mindberg

Peace is for the weak,
anger for the strong;
fighting men in groups,
all are angry, none wrong.

This is the mindset that's cooking in the mind,
conflict is the salt easy and cheap to find.

Winners need losers,
to highlight the win;
if all won in life,
winners won't be seen.

This is the urge that's making all the bread,
trick is here the salt that is mixed for the trade.

Clever is married to power,
is divorced with the fool;
warmth and wealth to shower
for partners in the pool.

This is the taste that's blending in the dine,
grapes that are sweet make up all the wine.

words in the woods

words no feeling..
feeling is the other word
echoes in the woods

out not free

It is out not free
Sun and moon are locked alight
From the wooden box

Passtime

Passtime

Morning works the day,
Sleeps the afternoon,
Wakes up evening,
Over a cup of wind,
Returns night to bray
Like a curse or boon.

Clumsy little things,
Imagine their wings,
Fly inside the frame,
And take it upon them,
To win the losing game
As donkeys without shame.

The circus of the fate,
Entertains the stage,
The chores are not to change,
The dog and the cat,
Forever fight and date
At the drop of a hat.

Sun in the eyes

Sun in the eyes ..
Images reflect everywhere
Snakes coil in the holes

They have the heaven in them

They have the heaven in them

They have the heaven in them,

For years of blessed seed and sperm,

Grown and sown to breed and feed millions

Of countless saints and villains;

All born of mothers,

Fed by farmers,

They have the heaven in them.

The nurtured children,

Create horrors everywhere,

For ages kill with skill,

Shoot and poison;

Borders burn with deadly scare,

Mothers and farmers decide

To break the delinquent pride!

The blue seas and oceans surrounding the world

Have turned red with wombs that once held

The germs now there are no mothers no tremors;

The waters are salty red with anger

Have devoured all the ploughs with a hissing livid sound;

Now no lands will produce food

For there are no farmers!

Children are hungry starving have nothing to claim

They have the heaven in them,

Feed them weapons of terrors and shame

They have the heaven in them.

I do not need to talk at all

I do not need to talk at all

I do not need to talk at all.
A dust of the past doesn't disappear
Hangs shapeless, waiting to devour
The limitless supply of boiling holes
Crowds inside with words and dialogues.

I do not need to talk at all.
There are plenty of plants
To be watered and nurtured
My house is full and warm with air
I have no space to spare.

I do not need to talk at all.
Thoughts are thrown inside
Outside they run ruin rain
I have a garden to guard my head
Where nothing is born and nothing is dead.

Our dawns

Our dawns

Indian dawn breaks…

Weak yet steady waters flow from the street tap,

Clean vessels, utensils, and yesterday’s feet;

The milkman keeps the milk in a bag kept at the doorstep,

Or in the bags tied to a rope to be pulled later by their owners,

And glides away in his cycle;

The newspaper vendor deftly throws papers in the

Unsuspecting verandahs of seventh, sixth and third floors;

The spoon dances inside the glass as the chaiwala adds sugar to the tea.

From many other rhythms unrecorded, un-identified and unnoticed,

Emerges the day, sings a fresh symphony.

Sleeper

Sleeper

I now lie with my arms stretched, 
So you could come and sleep on them. 
They are looking for a sleeper with unkempt air, 
To wake them up, give them a hand, 
And make up for their gloomy gland. 
  
My legs are looking at the sky unattended they lie; 
Where are yours so elusive and soft they cry, 
Come unto them with your healing touch,  
Let the pairs move and fight and love as much, 
Am not in chains yet static still, 
Grounded, cold unable to feel. 
  
My lips are buried frozen un-used, 
My chest is there not there confused, 
My waist my back my face go waste. 
If yours never could come to me, 
I wait and lie look up the sky, 
Uncap the eye and help me fly, 
In prison am I come set me free. 

Yesterday continues to be today

Yesterday continues to be today

‘Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier. Je ne sais pas.’

I read the line was confused,

wondered on the broken intent

of a child indifferent

in many leaving days past and used.

Now when she is gone before the sun could shine,

From before the on-looker and outsider of a son,

When everyday seems today that are neither his nor mine

I break when I read the words again and again.

Days that are dead are dying to come alive,

Yesterday continues to be today.

I spit on me

I spit on me

the hands that held me fed me once
are itching a body so fragile with germs
it was worthy for just a glance
whom my bro and I would know as mom
medicines are shooting inside her now
of no use at all we know not how
she's lying alone on a hospital bed
we're wishing with love so she's dead
how horrid is this to see those hands
the body that's dying to come to us
I have no words I spit on me
I kick my *ss I let her be


she changed her costume on Sunday 24 November at 5.35 a.m.

my mother didn't want to die...she wanted to go to Darjeeling...

when I wrote this poem, my mother was still struggling to live, her heart was still beating... sad that medicines couldn't help...kilos of them... I saw my mother as an on-looker...unable to do anything... I wonder if ever we could come up with some healing medicines which can cure a failing liver kidney lungs... there's so much to do

at the temple gate

Urchin fakes its limp
Trees full of monkeys hungry
Temples smell of thoughts 

diamond dews

Dews drop meadows wet
Sound mild moments most unheard
Diamonds preserved dry 

what the world needs now

what the world needs now

If only we could sit at the table together,
Chalked out a plan with an open mind,
Pardoned writers for stabbing the scriptures,
Forgave the slayers and those naysayers,
With one single goal which would be to find
And make ways for all peace ventures!

If only we could talk it out once and for all,
Leaving the cruel child in us we'd perhaps see,
How easy, how easy, how easy it would be
To erase the lines and marks of all those knotty scars
That histories have written over the bleeding years;
Our winter could meet the spring and the fall!

O leaders; with your hands and minds so tied,
Take the step your fans are waiting to see,
The debts of the past to be smoothly rectified,
The world and its people though different, unified.
Children so worried are waiting to be free,
The table is waiting for adults to be!

foolproof

Saplings sail away
Desdemona dies in doubt 
Sita storms to prove 

vacant look

towering buildings
empower enable us
in jungle of words  

water

water is flowing
tears, rains, waves all from the source
we see, see and see 

perfume

Raindrops fall on mud 
No one could bottle the smell 
And sell buyers wait. 

unsold

unsold

Ten years have passed, ten years ago. 
An afternoon after school was stolen, 
The Sun would come and fall on the compound, 
Kitty the cat and Dotty the dog, with children, 
Would play with a ball that ran into the ground, 
Time and again, until it was time to go. 
  
Kitty and Dotty died with the elders, 
Those who played in the afternoons have left. 
The school is now full with other kids, 
The house is there, though everything theft 
With time, that wasn’t there, like now, insipid; 
Some step-marks are walking like offenders. 
  
Mr. and Mrs. X’s palace who wouldn’t know! 
Standing with grace with dignity and style, 
Where lives like leaves fell off from the Tree, 
Kingdom of excesses sleeping in exile, 
As one by one, the children went free 
In some years that went, not so long ago. 
  
Adults, Kitty’s and Dotty’s mates, with clients do arrive 
The house is big, nice, they say, but no one wills to buy. 
They have given up all hopes; to everyone they’ve told 
The house will stay like this it will not be sold. 
  
The same afternoons with Sun still come and go. 
In the house full of lives a little long ago. 

My pen weeps in weapons

My pen weeps in weapons

My pen weeps in weapons, 
Smiles in all the flutes, 
Screeches out to morons, 
Who destroy all the roots! 
  
My pen weeps in pages, 
Prays for all who live, 
Brutes in us for ages, 
Image we don’t believe. 
  
My pen weeps in weapons, 
Laughs with all soldiers, 
Heals the troubled demons, 
Hiding so much in us. 
  
My pen weeps in fields, 
Cries and sings a song, 
Killers killing the killed, 
And losing all along. 
  
My pen weeps in weapons, 
Shares its gathered wisdom, 
Hurting only weakens, 
The bond so tall winsome! 

being in it

being in it

My arms are holding yours, 
No stress just fingers stretch, 
Twenty of them are singing and dancing, 
Nothing to prove, nowhere to go, 
Just a day or a night so slow, 
Our hard and soft chests touch, 
They just do without talking much, 
We stand we sit we kneel and we fall, 
The holes are full as a whole for the ball, 
With push and pull, 
No one knows who’s taking whom, 
It’s never so done yet all so full, 
We’re sailing and dancing in a liquid room, 
Continue we do and leave no trace, 
In the space that had a myriad embrace. 

We're coming to you

We're coming to you

When human beings will  
Take on to the red planet and 
Leave the Earth of water and sand? 
The unlivable Earth, molested with wars so ill 
Could then breathe!  
Mars, poor Mars; little do you know  
We're coming to you, with our bow and arrow. 

nature within nature

nature within nature

An abandoned place.
Trees with flowers
Bliss round the corner
Silent with plenty of things
Nothing meant in the mess.

Nature doesn't preach
It's in the nature
Often beyond the reach
Left with grace,
An abandoned place.

From the mundane to the ordinary

From the mundane to the ordinary

Eiffel Tower is so common what’s the big deal, 
From my dining room I see it in every meal. 
  
I cannot see my mother, 
Can’t eat what she makes or smell her around. 
To my brother who’s with her, 
It’s as silly as it sounds. 


Objects, living or otherwise, lose their importance with availability. The poem takes two well-known archetypes so to speak and shows how even such coveted objects lose their importance and become ordinary. The poet understands this merely as a mental model (trained to neglect that which is in front of us) and wonders as to how to change this paradigm.

This poem does not talk about nostalgia alone. I have conditioned just one interpretation for which I apologise. However, there are other interpretations as well.

The narrator

The narrator

When the stage is done, 
Players will come and leave 
One by one. 
  
In a thick and turbulent weather, 
The move, not to be together; 
Voices coarse and terse 
As if to rehearse a hearse, 
Beings aligned like pillars, 
Rigid and firm; the strong weaklings 
An inch of space is more than a hole in the needle, 
Drowned in meek feelings 
Not to be placed, there are no fillers. 
  
The wicked stage is undressed. 
Has transformed the King once bathing 
In the stream of bloods. 
  
Years later. The hollow stage re-appears. 
Germs emerged. 
Thousands and millions of bodies burnt. 
Smell though wasn’t coming from hell 
Players unable to sit in the garden. 
Much later, the place broke the walls 
Memories of pain now washed. 
  
Coarse voices without remorse 
Their tongues re-appeared in some other place. 
Need lives. Some more. 
Suddenly, the narrator says, 
‘Let me be that life, that countless life 
To flow into death to loosen 
And relax the space.. as I did before’, and goes 
Backstage. The voice echoes… 
The stage didn’t show but 
Is now a dais of peace. 
  
The stage undone 
Players come and leave 
One by one. 

angst

angst

I don’t know 
If it was just a spark from the rainbow; 
I saw it upon closing my eyes, 
It disappeared before I could name it 
My eyes opened. 
  
The Sun at night and the Moon in the morning 
Look fatigued before me just as I am told. 
The grasses on my head and the hair on the meadow 
Detached and disconnected. 
I wonder if they were born for any function at all, 
Though their colors change when they’re tired, 
Between brown and white muddled in time… 
I see a seed in the womb a child in the bud 
Waiting to be named and dying to grow. 
  
I can see when I am blind can hear when I am deaf, 
In the painter’s symphony and in the musicians canvas. 
  
Confused in twilight numbed in the rainbow 
When meanings lose track; 
We look back and think, 
The spark where did it come from 
And where did it go. 

Scarcity in plenty in fiction and action

Scarcity in plenty in fiction and action

So many people so many stories, 
Yet content is amiss in proses and movies. 
  
Plenty of water land and air, 
Yet there’s no supply so fair. 
Plenty of food that daily go waste, 
In accounts written off that’s much out of taste. 
  
When beggars bang on glasses of our big and small cars, 
We choose to overlook those semi-visible scars. 
We ignore them with pain day in and day out 
We are planting in plenty our poverty to sprout. 
  
My leaders o dreamers when will you dream, 
For everyone who doesn’t so belong to the cream? 
There’s so much for all lying full and kind, 
Scarcity so tense we manage to find. 
Men and women so well born and bred, 
Show us the treasures that exist in the terrain. 
I am sure you’re as good as those who are led, 
Discuss with us to use our acumen. 
  
So many people so many stories, 
Yet content is amiss in proses and movies. 

Father-daughter at the moment

My child, my daughter, is ready to leave 
Her bag is packed. To study she has to go 
In some other town she’d be a sophomore. 

What is a baby pig called? Piglet 
A baby eagle? Eaglet 
And a baby swan? Cygnet 
She’d answer these questions on my lap 
Her soft puny self her butts firmly on my folded right arm 
Her water bottle and bag hanging from my left shoulder 
Her hands stretched she’d completely throw her without a care 
Her face and little hair hanging a tad above the ground 
In a second would come up and touch my cheek 
With her hand around my neck 
And shout Piglet, Eaglet, and Cygnet baba…ha ha ha! 

Just put your right foot forward 
When you are on the escalator, like this, 
Every day I had to show and tell her so… 

My child, my daughter, is ready to leave 
Her bag is packed. To study she has to go 
In some other town she’d be a sophomore.

ignorance

ignorance

sand is different from mud
east from west water from snow
tree is sleeping in the silly bud
clever we are, eager to know

When I know

When I know

When I know the cost of time,
Silent silly yet made to chime,
Nothing will find the price unheard,
The sound is still with the singing bird. 

operator (haiku)

life is like a horse
it is also like a snail
no yes time remains

ring-lost

ring-lost

I have lost the ring what’s the big deal, 
I lost my love so long ago, 
I fell in love to crack my heel, 
The scar I know will never go. 
  
I have lost the ring what’s the big deal, 
I am lost in my love so deep and down, 
Bring your pain and I will heal, 
With the spark of the ring I have in my crown.