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.