your lipstick...my red taped file...and a wafer of life...

On a twilight golden
You came by red lipstick emboldened
I stood transfixed
Overcome by feelings mixed...
Felt like planting kisses on you unprecedented
Felt like leaving your secrets by red all painted...

When all these thoughts
Left me immobile
You by your talks...
Opened my red taped file!

One by one all the pages you read
How I grew to a wanderer from a kid...
How my first crush fell like a shooting star
From the black sky on a desert far...
How next a train track me took
To a land of calypso dance and a small brook...
How  Segal's Love story brought in
Differentials related to love and sin...
How next I came across
A wall painting covered by greenish moss...
How thus I metamorphised
To a mind where only scribbles reside...
And also some other forms
Seeking smoky pleasure domes...
Seeking lights of the Sun
In your decorated frolic and fun...


Now that watch you so much engrossed
With the book of mine you surely get tossed
For you find yourself there sure
And your unrest finds in me the cure!

I can see you in dire straits
How you roll over with my opened flood gates
How you laugh and also cry
How your lips part with a smile and sigh...

Through your reactions as I guess
How I've left you in a perfect mess...
Felt like an imbecile
With you so much taped in my file...

Can't you leave those useless papers?
And unwrap that lovely wafer
Which we could both bite
From two ends and lessen the divide!
Surely by doing that we would meet
Your lipstick would leave me then a red streak!

forgive me....and my escapes...

Last evening
Riding on my one eighty c.c engine
Suddenly got the flavour of spring
Coming to me like tiny white blooms singing...

Stopped to look around
A tree not far away found
Wondered what kind of tree was it...
Which brought the evening to me lit...

'That's our lemon tree...'
Someone said looking at me
Stopped awkward right on the village road
That disappeared into the city broad...

I smiled and again looked
At the tree and the maiden
Felt both of them how me shook
And poked me to flip open
My notepad...and my pen...

Soon I was engaged
Into a poetic phase
Forgot all my priorities
Didn't want the upsurge to miss...

Now you would be surely crossed
Finding me under a lemon tree lost
But what could I ever do
When the lemon tree brings me cue?

Forgive me if I fail
To fill the water in your pail...
Forgive my absurdity
My escapes from the blazing city...

i could've spread out like murmuring drops of rain....

Why so it happens?
Just when thought you would for me a word breathe....
You didn't do that...and under the rains I seethed....
On your verandah so watery
Carrying tales of yester years....so scary...
But then another day you came
So brave and unvanquished
Taking every bit out of me....squeezed....

You could've gone to another land
Leaving me here,under the banyan old....like a memory stand!
I could have spread out then...
Like the murmuring drops of untimely rain....

(see another rendition of the poem in my mother tongue at http://theboatsong.blogspot.in/p/mother-tongue.html)

a mythical Peepul tree...

See the Peepul tree there!
How with slabs of  marble it glare!
See those young lovers under it
How cozily on the marble they sit!
This tree has a story dear...
I can tell you, if you wish to hear...

You know...some stories lay like layers
Of dust on the downy staircase
Untrodden for several years
Not read by anyone...
 Such a story wish to share
With you, if you care...

It was a night
When the seven years' fight
Ended finally with aplomb
And from the debris like a defused bomb
He rose...and started the long walk home...
The night was still so dark
He lost all his memorized mark
He staggered still to find a way
To the dawn of the newest day...
He had all the hopes...
By dreams of a domestic beginning he was doped
So he walked bearing all the pain...
He walked through bodies maimed and chained...
His eyes were engaged in a search
For someone with brown curls he marched...
Someone who to him promised
To be for him when the rattling would cease...
So he walked searching for her
Under the curtain of blackish tar...
So he walked almost dizzy
Dreams of his love coming to him so easy....

He found her nowhere in her village
Only found her abandoned mirage...
Under a Peepul tree so leafless
He thought he got a glimpse of her lovely face...
So he neared the place stretching his hand
But his palms on the tree trunk did only land
He touched the bark of the tree and stroked
And got by tears fully soaked...
Under the tree there was a stone
Bearing her name, as it for him shone...
He dropped on the makeshift grave
Cursing his own wasteful life by God thus saved...
He clutched the stone by all his might
And for several days and nights
He just lied there and profusely cried...

After two weeks or so, a scavenger party
Found how a worn soldier on his love's grave got liberty
From wars and pains and wasteful life
How wondrously he for another world took the dive...

So...you see
How stories lie under a simple Peepul tree
Buried from view of all of us
A story become a myth thus...
If you just go and touch its bark
You could still get some hints to embark
Upon a journey to the past...a creeping shadow
Of love, which would you surely with a legend bestow...
You could then lose yourself into a myriad mystery
Of love lying deep there-a forgotten history...

touchwood!

I am not lying...babe...
You're my rainbow cave...
Where once Coleridge to conceive Cain stooped
And also by the maid with dulcimer got so much moved!

Come'n! don't you believe it my sleepy dove?
So calm and composed as you sit on my spring roof
Keeping me from the din and bustle so aloof?
Come'n! my rose!
My Vanilla Sky...so close...
You could once be property of Paramount Pictures Production
Considering how you fill me with dance, romance, comedy-a super combo-sensation!
You're a resource
Linking me all the time with love's discourse....

And I recline, I think, I deconstruct
And make scribbles your kitchen air-duct...
I be post mod, be ancient
Trained by you!
(my fiendish friend!)
From nonsense verse to a movie Hollywood
I find you everywhere...
And I'm not lying...touch wood!

sunday girl...

When the nine o'clock rays of the sun
Fall on your sleepy face through the window
I know today is all for fun
And today is a Sunday...

For on weekdays you go out
Well before eight thirty five
Sundays only allow you
To stay on bed as you like...

On Sundays you stay for me
Come to the terrace several times
On Sundays I frequently you see
Running smoothly through the book piles...

Sometimes you would take the basket
To visit the vegetable man
Holding me in your heart's casket
Walking under the Sunday sun...

Sunday is a lazy day
For you to unwind
For me it is a bit different
I get you perfect on my mind...

still miss a format, into which for you all of me would fit...

Last night when your time for me elapsed
I didn't hear a single thing...
Only heard how birch trees collapsed
And felt somewhere within
The telephone did ring...
Wished to get to you through the phone
Be by your side so much alone
Wished to send you across a few
Moments of our past homely view...

Had I that strange machine
To cause some kind of miracle
I wouldn't have turned all lights dim
Wouldn't have turned to a rock-bottom sale!

I would just my mind zip
Up into a folder compressed one
And sent that for you to keep
My lovely morning's black swan...

You would then just unwrap
Getting into a kind of time-warp
With the mouse you have a digital display
In your living room you would have me 'on play'!

That would however make redundant
All I did write and paint
Not so digitally clean
On your mind's non HD screen!

Last night on I am thinking sure
What could possibly be the best procedure?
To send to you my mind digitalised
Or to keep them on pen and paper internalized?

Last night on, believe me, I was on a tech tour
To find ways and means to my mind upon you pour
Finally found no such working option
So sending you my mind through scribble, like a simpleton!

But still I miss a suitable format
Into which all of me for you would fit
My words, cries, sobs and laughter
The systole-diastole of my every heart beat!

Me a linnet could upon sword press my breast...if you so wish...

Me a linnet sing a song
When for someone your eyes long
Someone very close to your heart
Someone from whom you've forever fallen apart...
 Me come every other day
To be near you for a brief stay...
At morn, at noon, at lonely night
When your cheeks glisten bright
By water salty so cleansed and bathed
When you're love sick,down and feeling betrayed...
Me a linnet see  you there
Pining profusely for someone near
Someone for whom your doors are left ajar
Someone gone from you seven light years far...
Someone on whom you once so much relied
Someone taken away from you by the harshest river-tide...

Me a linnet come to take away all
Your poisoned nights filled by gall...
Me a linnet wish you to come out
To see how from cacti flowers also sprout!
Me a linnet wishing you a love filled life
Without pains, thorns, blood and strife!
Me a linnet wishing you to fly
With me to the big,broad,blue,gay sky!
Me a linnet could upon sword also press
My soft feathery clean white breast!

Your bindi...

Certain things leave their mark
For example that round shaped dark
On my bathroom mirror, left by your
Bindi carelessly stuck, by you, before perhaps water you poured
On your naked self, soaped aromatic, glistened touch...
You left bindis such
Here and there...
Almost everywhere...

On me how many times the red powdery thing
Your presence by your embrace soft did bring...
Once...almost you laughed and giggled
Seeing that red mark vermillion
On the left side of my face as it stayed a fiddle...
Another day on my white shirt the mark you laid
Tons of detergent failed to away it fade...
You still smiled naughtily
Your love you expressed so heartily...

Your bindis surely captivate me,
As you do by your clean forehead
Your hair falling upon your eyes unruly
Also sometimes dropped me dead...

They say your bindis carry your most pure soul
I find them helping me to unwind my ancient scroll...
The scroll that still registers
Your every move so meticulous
The scroll that still possess
Your bunch of poems and proses...

Your bindis... color me
When I am so discolored
Your bindis...strengthen me
With all the blood of a martyr's valor...

Time! please...let me make her a poem mine!

Dropping for me hints of a tune
My violet dream walked slowly past
In an idle breezy afternoon
Amidst prosaic settings unjust...
Saw my violet metrical romance
Slowly with a smile on her lips pasted
Made my uncorrupted syllables dance
On asphalt road my poems she tasted...
The dreamy bunch of  hasty metre
Had the promise of an anthology
O how with violet spray they lettered
Stanzaic patterns forever dodgy!
God! please make her stay for me a moment
Time is so fast slipping by
Let me shower her with my poesy pent
Let me make her a poem mine!

searching for you, finding you...but in others...

You are so much in me
That you in other women I see...
At the entrance of the Sudder Street,
Saw someone from behind
Thought you're there to me meet
So standing patient and sidelined...
Thought to call her...
Taking she as you in known salwar
With flowers of pink stitched all over
Hurried to her, my waiting lover...

'Sorry! to keep you waiting here...'
I mumbled clumsily nearing her,
She looked up, with amused face
Making me realise in your dress
Someone else standing for her man
'Sorry! I am utterly mistaken ma'm'
Saying this I looked around...
Feeling how with you I'm always bound...

A few yards from the incident
Just where the underpass laid
I thought again you your wait spent
For me, being the truest maid...
So once again rushed there
Running through pavements thronged
By people, hawkers, beggars shared
For the underpass my heart then longed...

Skipping a few stairs at one go
I panted to reach where counters sell
Tickets of plastic cheap and slow
And thought found you under a blue veil...

This time also I return with empty hand
Can't find you in my city's magic land...
But surely through others I found out
How you keep me under suspense and doubt...

remote control...

Never seen you from close
Only in my dreams you pose
Like goddess of love sometimes...
Sometimes like an ethereal fire
Sending hopes and me inspire...
Sometimes you come like an eagle
Swooping down on me, making me fall
On you, overpowered by your strength
Wonder struck by your drop-down length!

Never seen you even from distance
But felt like always under your lens
So lovingly monitored every day
Felt like a lump of wet clay...
O how you give life to me by your touch
Shape me up to meet the standardized match...
O how your fingers on me play
With your nails you sketch my day!

Never seen you from near, from far...
But on me you play without bar...
You must be the remote control device
Switching  me on every minute at least twice!

i am a leaf just...and you the veins on me...

i think i am a leaf...
And you veins...on me spread
Supplying me my daily bread...
Water, food, sap...through you come
You also hold me back from the tempestuous charm...

When i would be dry and withered and seared
Fallen on the grass fully bared,
You would still remain like a shadow
With your veins spread on my yellowed hollow...

Like dreams of the past you would remain
With your stories of vein-like crisscrossed lanes...
Through which came all the nature's nourish...
And memories of growing green through you i would cherish...

i think i am a leaf just
And you, the bearer of my unforgettable past...

in an elevator,with you...while it started to rain...

Like a floater,you came to be by me just
In the elevator's glassy bubble,
That went down fast,
Putting me into a concrete rubble...

The bubble down straight went
To hit the city's thirsty basement,
Me too went with it down
Clinging to your curious frown...

From thirteenth the elevator plunged
My heart to your eyes lunged
The numbers receded quite abrupt
Floor after floor you and me dropped...

At the tenth the countdown started
Your lips for a whisper parted
'Its going to rain...', your monologue
Kept me with your eyes bogged...

The clouds through the glass looked welcome dark
Saw how God  had sent the watermark
To draw pictures on the bubble of glass
With you, encapsulated, me moments passed...

You and me in a capsule
Had the whole cityscape to fool
You and me just in a spell of shower caught
While the city suffered another drought...

Reaching the floor marked luminous G
You  left raindrops for devastated me...
Unwittingly you, gave me that little space
To be clung to rains and be forever restless...

the painter who sinned...and the Father who pardoned...

"Father...Pardon me
For I've sinned..."
Saying this the painter leaned
On the wooden plank
Just upon it his head sank...

"Father! I was assigned
To paint pictures of the Saints...
On the altar of the God
I was supposed to paint the Lord...
But....how could I that possibly do
When a pair of eyes always me woo?
I tried hard to bring in the pure
But, her beauty so much me lure
I lost my mind, my soul
She took on me a heavy toll...
I still tried to put me onto the outline
Of my Lord's haloed smile...
But she arrived tearing, like a gleam-er
In my eyes she did thus simmer!
O! Father! how she came uncontrolled
Defying all walls of logic bold...
Her cherries so red...her navel so deep
From the altar I just slipped!
O Father! I've sinned! I know!
At the God's house, how could I stoop so low!"

The Priest at the other end
Heard all with attention rapt
And felt how could be a painter by confusion trapped....
"Son! the conflict of yours
Which you so far bravely endured
Is not untrue or unjust
For these raw passions a painter feel must...
Go...Son...go to capture her touch
Paint her all encompassing, on your canvas...
Put into her through your painting all
Your love, your desire, your unclenched soul...
God will come to ye...only when you exhaust
Don't be so unnecessarily by troubles you tossed..."

SOS...

'Darling, I'm killed!
By shots for me by someone billed!
While on duty at your childhood's park
Felt holes by sharp pain so earmarked...
Right on my chest now so red
Riddled by the pellets of smoking lead...
Felt like by collar caught
And nailed hard on a crucifix
As if received several point-blank shots
Straight on my dried and deprived lips!

Now that lying so much outworn
Fully ripped and fatally torn
Please hurry to me to give me a last hug
Pour into my broken glass, your Life Saving Drug!

As SOS, please you this treat
At least on my death-bed, you please me meet...
The black hearse car is ready to take me for the ride
So for the last time, be by my side...'

if love is let loose, unleashed...it grows...

If I ever wish to go away from you
Don't be with sadness gripped for long,
For I going away an inch only makes it due
My coming back several yards at one jump strong!
  If you ever in me unearth
Relics of a vast paleolithic age
Have just the belief that there's no dearth
Of your love in me, for you stay unfazed...
  If you find one night me in a bag packed
Ready for a journey to the unknown
Don't ever think that our love lacked
All the nursing,for the tree had grown...
  Mighty and strong...reaching for the sky...
And now that it stands head held high
  Remember it had also sent down its roots
Deep deep into where our love forever reboots...

If I ever feel like going out
You just send me a kiss
That would be the strongest glue no doubt
For love would only grow if let loose, unleashed!

you suit it best as a cursor...on my mind...blinking...

You like a cursor sometimes blink
On my blank mind's page as the evenings sink
Into the mist laden field of my youth so vivid
You, my mind's cursor towards interjections lead...

Then sometimes you're my paintbrush
O so many colors you me dress!
I be blue of the sky, the white of the clouds and also green lush!
You  thus dip me into buckets of paints fresh!

The other day...when you came like a glow worm
Into my bleakest hour so melancholia drenched
Felt as if towards a rivulet of a new dawn  I swam
Forgetting all graveyard poems that my heart wrenched...

Another day, when the air became sultry
You came like an earthen pot of water...
By being cold, sweeping sensation on me so paltry...
From scorching heat you sent me afar!

You're another name of multiplicity, dear!
Coming to me as someone mature and still in teens...
I, like an avid lover,just all your varied forms bear
But holding all of you is surely beyond my means!

 So...I think,you suit it best as a cursor
Blinking and making words so frenzied...
So useless, however,without any lustre-
Compared to the love with which every moment I died!

getting pushed again to the slippery edge!

Knowing well I am not a palmist
You stretched your lovely palm with so much ease
Before me and asked me once
If those lines could give you any chance
To meet your love ever...

I looked at those lines
Crisscrossing like flowery vines
Noticed how roses bloomed and dried
How your flowery bower storms emptied...

'Another storm is on the offing...'
Mumbled I, with a heart coughing...
You looked at me with amazement
Not knowing though how a cyclone you thus sent-
 To an unequipped palmist all wrong
Who just got a hint of a love song
Emanating from eyes still dazed...
Pushing him again to the slippery edge!

tonight, let me be...

Tonight please don't call me that way
For tonight by passion I burn...
Tonight Eros holds all the sway,
Tonight towards a mistake could I turn!

Had I been a Plato
Would have arguments so much in disfavour
Of going head over heels so
By finding in you my ancient lover!

I would then by debates established
How Love could be fragmented into parts
But don't you dear think that would only please
A rock like hardened deserted depopulated earth?

Alas! I am no Plato
And have no Symposium by my side
I am such a Homo Sapiens ditto
But only with your knowledge of beauty I glide...

That could make me a frog
Into a well forever fallen blind,
But when you insulate me like the dense fog
Can I ever grow into any philosopher kind?

So...tonight just let me be the candle
And let me burn  to ashes slow
Tonight only Time could my fire spindle...
As my love in molten lava with redness glow...

Let me be left in that liquid, afire
Let me be thus left in plasma- wavy and burnt
Who knows my candle might all the light bear?
And could turn into your perfect blazing hot Sun?

missed the flight...but not missed you...

My car sped through the highway
As dots of lights saw me through
I had a flight to catch and fly away
Leaving a wet hanky of you!

My car jumped all traffic lights
I had the clock ticking hickory dock...
My soul with my brain did constantly fight
Only your eyes wrecked within me a havoc...

Reached the airport in time
The plane was being taxied to the tarmac
Heard sounds of your broken rhyme
Somewhere within me by blood soaked...

Felt so claustrophobic
In a glassy cube locked
Felt like falling so sick
The damn pump within got perhaps choked...

Darkness filled my eyes
Saw nothing but sheer emptiness
Time for me to bid life goodbye
Felt had come finally to me embrace...

Just then believe me dear
Out of black black heart stopping state
Your last whisper of love did I hear
Your face suddenly from the black surfaced...

The pain that was penetrating
Few minutes back me thus killing...
Vanished strangely out of me
And I woke up only to see...

You! dear you! so flushed
By me, on the airport lobby floor
Shaking me, and throwing a gust
Of your air by my mouth as you blow...

Missed the flight doubtless
But life I regained
Missed my ladder-n-snake chase
But you so much I gained!

when this morn the sky is so teardrops filled...

This morn, the sky is so teardrops filled
And the streets and lanes are so watery...
Please dear, leave all run-of-the-mill
Stories of 'domestic walls' and grocery...

This morn as the rain pitter-patter
On me,on you,on our eyes so wet,
Please dear, jot your complaints down later...
Come lets go out for a rainy date!

We would walk down the roads shining and moist
You'll jump over little ponds here and there
I would be pleased to face my love's tryst
And the water from Heaven would of us take care...

Then we, so much drenched, would be shivering a bit
You would ask for all of my warmth
I would give you a caffeine-laden treat
And our love would surely have a newer birth!

You would take from the smoking cup a sip
I would just watch how rain water drip
From your hair like small beads of glass
And thus dear, we would let time imperceptibly pass...

you're sick of my love sugary...so here's a sordid tale...

Perhaps you're kind of sick
Of my love-seeped polemic
Of kisses and hugs and sugary words
And accuse me of being an escapist!

Well...if that is with what you now me accuse
Of trees, songs, women being my muse...
I wish to put before you a sordid tale
Of how love marriages also fail!

Once a boy in a girl found
All he desired in his life so far,
And together they spent several days by going around
In gardens, parks, industrial fairs...
They placed palms on each other
They crossed vows like no other...
They did all lovers do usual
Spending money on each others shopping mall...
They kissed hard before saying good night
They long kissed in broad daylight...
Soon they got married under oath
Taken front of parents of both
They started living in true
They still did what all lovers do...

After few years the boy perhaps felt it bad
To be so quickly grown-up from being a lad...
The girl perhaps wanted something else
She wanted money, freedom and space...
So evenings which were earlier so sensuous and bright
Turned into something sordid and full of plight...
They quarelled on simple things
Who should empty the waste-paper bins?
Who should do the laundry right?
Upon things such they started a fight;

A few years more into marriage by choice
They started raising resentful voice
Finding void and emptiness dark
Finding themselves under teeth of a shark!
They remained calm for a few days...
But unrest left a trailing blaze
Within them they burnt every time
Bells of love forgot to chime;

Last one night it went beyond limit
They reached their tussles' summit!
He slapped her
She did retaliate
Thus a bed of thorns they did create
On the same consummation bed
Where once their pearls of love they did shed...

The bed had remained a clumsy dump
Pains of love now have become a lump
Within their throats still so full of thirst
Within their breast love still waiting to open burst!

O my dear! can't you see?
They just need a bit of love's rediscovery?
So please don't you so imprudently accuse me...

For hate is even more painful than love
For love-life could take a lethal curve...

our story waiting for your edit...

Suppose just, you and me 
Rudderless left in an open sea...
You would from me away drift
I would try to be by you swift;
But surely the waves would be huge and strong
You somewhere for me would then long...
Surely tears from your black eyes would mix
Slowly with the salty water of the Pacific!
I would your name call out loud
You would be in a seamless doubt...
Where I had gone? Did I the shore hit?
I would also search for you till you I would meet...

It would perhaps take a whole long year
Perhaps you'd be driven to another land dear!
Perhaps both of us would thus live seperate
Perhaps that would be all written on our fate!

But then our destiny could be a bit kind
I could easily you within the clamour find...
Then we would swim together to a land of dreams
Where love, our body and soul would just over-brim...

I leave the story of us thus on a double edged end
Now you can always find ways to put an amend
To my foolish, impassioned, fantastical tale
And send me the edited one by your next pink enveloped mail!

by pictures of you...

This evening you're tired
Black lines come in the way
Still my shot I fired
To catch your sadness midway...
   Last evening you're so in excitement
Then I also took a shot
Your smile was then my predicament
As histogram terrible graphs brought!
  You are like a series of snapshots
Held in black frames eternally frozen
Calculated by the measure of pixeldots...
You're like my Nat geo dozen...
   Your photos are like you for me
Coming with stories hidden
Your photos actually hold the key
Of how my life with you, is bidden...
  By looking at you printed
On glossy or matte papers fresh
A journey to future I every time betrayed-
By pictures of you my pains I traced...

your memories me all the time devour...

Once again I turn to you
My sweet lovely honey dew
Once again I take a dip
Into your dreamy disastrous deep...
O how my love strangely merge
With your memories on the upsurge...

Remember once at a planetarium dark
When creepy crawly fingers to you lurked
You then clung to me so much afraid
And in a whispery tone to me said-
'Can you please possess me here
For the darkness I always fear!'
I then took you on me
My arms got tightened to protect thee...

Remember another rainy evening
Missing me for a week, without me seeing
How you arrived by my sickly bed
How soft on my heart did you tread!
How you took away all my pains
How by your kisses my running temperature you drained!

On another occasion...at our favourite place 
You had perhaps turned up late...
O how much I got tensed and worried
To and fro I walked the street hurried...
Then a deeper truth within me I faced
Why and how you leave me so restless!
A few minutes' wait seemed like a whole century dried,
A few minutes' wait left me in sobs and sighs!

Memories of you within me how pant
Memories of you are so much abundant
That I could set them into a book or a film
I could leave them forever for you untrimmed...
I could write a few pages more
Your memories me all the time devour!

a red lettered day!

That day had all the ballooned hope
Of love written by someone
On the lane that had all the scopes
Towards a highway taking a formidable turn!

That day had a girl
Towards her eighteenth spring overslept,
That day brought a green signal
To my bicycle-crashing into her garden gate!

That day who could forget
How with a red salwar descended
That day how I finally met
With a greeting's card flowery printed!

That day had all the cries of joys spread huge
That day broke a few records of cities so deluged!
That day had markets with roses going so scarce
That day also had all the secret, silent prayers!

That day I wish to come to us ever
That day I wish to spend with her qualms and fear!
That day should stay whatever be the date
That day I wish to every almanac set!

across the border...

He stood at the place
A few inches perhaps from the barbed fence
On the other side the pasture was green
To his side no trees could be seen...

The other side had small huts made of wood
And clothesline hung by the poles stood...
To his side there was no population
Only base camps of military stationed...

He thought he would go to the other side one day
To mix with people looking so happy and gay...
Then towards him came a boy
Holding in his hand a broken toy...

He looked at his face demure
On his hands and cheek were scars
He smiled at him as a friend
And through the barbed wires his hand he lent
To give the boy's tiny hands a shake
Thinking of across the border a friendship made...

The boy smiled back right
His face had all the morning's light
He showed him his toy broken
And asked easily for a replacement
Of that car without wheels...

Just then both heard shouts
Of gun totting olive green people stout
From both sides they came
To drag and pull out both of them...

'Across the border, no friendship!'
He heard from those soldiers who did their magazine keep
Round around their chest like garlands
Of metal and copper shells full of death...

The next morn, still he went
With a new toy car for the boy
He waited waited till the sun towards west did bend
But couldn't see his anticipated joy...

The little boy never again turned up
Morbidity only filled his heart's cup...
He came every morn still sure
To find one day his across the border friendship pure...

The barbed wires are now strengthened more
More pillars of concrete now embellish...
The border lines have no friendship door
To let him give love, a simple toy and a kiss...

how much he stretched his dream of love...

'I know you're so young
And your heart is so tempestuous
But can't you leave for me a song
And make me for once, joyous?'

She asked him holding tight
 His palms close to her breast,
She looked as if stricken by plight
And as if she was with herself at unrest...

He looked at her sweet surrender
He got so much by fancy stirred
He felt like giving in to her
His all youth for her unbarred...

So he bent before her
And kissed her on her lips parched
His warmth he thus once shared
As his heart with drum beatings marched...

She clutched onto him
As someone sinking hold
On to a straw or a log of wood to swim
The rush of water so bold!

But he never to her did clear
That he was also trying to swim
With her across the flood of tears
How much he stretched his love's dream...

give me respite...from my Joycean city...

Woke up at a Joycean dawn
Finding dry leaves scattered on my lawn...
And the chimney smoke how disperse
Making the blue certainly scarce!

Find how my city of the Raj
By acid rains get all smudged...
Find how in processions snake like
People shout atop vehicles with mike...

Every day the city thus die
Though we rarely heave a sigh
Every night diesel autos choke
Trees and people with blackish smoke!

Wish I would have someone at a balcony
Standing there with reasons phony...
Wish I would be given a singular respite
From taking in the venomous light...

Wish she would be taking me out
From my city under a rout
Wish she would take me beyond
Of plastic filled dried up ponds...

Wish she would be oneday my voice
Hammering in the way my James Joyce
Brought before rusted people's memory
The city of Dublin plotted in a sooty post war story...

the infatuated earth...

The western front was all red
As vermillion smeared from your forehead,
Somehow reached the horizon by trees lined
And there your freed beauty did I once find...

Your bangles made the soft tingle
As you walked on the narrow path
Encapsulated me there all single...
A flint of fire aroused my ashen hearth...

Looked at your brightened face
So blushed up and reddened a view,
You smile slowly on your eyes surfaced
Catching me unawares by the red rosy hue...


You stopped from your next stride
You turned around like a village bride
You beamed at me with your eyes
Right there where once a river died...

Then you took hold of me
As if you're blessed with satiety
Of the twilight giving the shape
To the evening, by infatuation set...

 

on foamy layer, o my valentine, let us ride!

As the moon is shining sacrosanct
On my heart still so vacant...
As the love is so much in the wintry air,
I wish to knock at your closed door, dear...

And wish to enter your empty chamber
Bringing water from the distant Humber-
The far away river by which once a poet
Cried and cried till his cry reached his love's Iron gate...

I wish to be the same for you my valentine!
I wish to sit on your paving stone and pine...
Waiting to let me in, to your heart, for once,
Just seeking with you a foot-tap rapid dance...


I wish to break your silence
With the help of my poetic licence...
I wish to rip apart all your reserve
For I am the only one who you deserve...

Haven't I proved my love so strong?
Haven't I waited for you since my childhood's morn?
Haven't you also on occasions, returned my stare
Wet by your pining the same, with a glare?

Haven't you kissed me in my dream?
Haven't you showed me your hours so grim?
Haven't you opened that part of yours
For me, from where your love forever down pours...

So why now, you keep such a distance?
Why now you put up so much austere a stance?
Don't you know, love is like a tide
It comes with highs and also with time does die?
 
Please my dear, uncork those bubbles
Leaving aside so mundane troubles...
On a foamy layer let us ride
Forgetting all great walls of spatial divide!

the mango grove of Plassey...

The mango grove now so quiet
Carry still, perhaps, blood in black and white
Of yester years battle, involving men on horseback
Covered horribly by bloody and historical muck...

Now, of course so silent
History kept on branches bent
Of mango trees old and huge
By archival annals so much deluged...

The famous mango grove where Siraj fought,
Conspiracy and hatred so strangely overwrought-
These very mango trees all by tiny greenish blooms scented
And also so unhappily by darkened blood so invisibly tainted...

The mango grove where the betrayal took place
The trees standing to treason a silent witness...
The mango grove of Plassey, by Bhagirathi river
With blood, muck, treason still shiver!

You came to me with all of your treasure...but...

Can everyone be so diluted
Like you into fancy rooted?
Can a man like me be so brave
To reach for your hidden treasure-cave?

You took me, however, as the man of might
Who could hold on you forever tight...
You took me as the man with eyes
To explore all of your poetic device...

So you came to me with your treasures
All those hidden under secretive covers...
So I guess, you came to me thus
Showing me your Nathula Pass...

So you unhooked your treasure trove
Wishing me to near you move...
But those cobwebs of hyacinth under water
Made me asphyxiated, kept me barred
Out of your so enriching frame...
So pitiably out of your enticing poem...

You came to me be all delivered
The power of passion so red-liveried
But...those cobwebs of untruth scandalous
Kept me out of your soothing touch...

Into rasa he took a phenomenal dive...

Sitting a little distance away from the temple yard
He looked at the canopy spread even
And so many bhajan singers who dared
The last cold breeze of the season...

He heard them singing of rasa
Svakiya and Parakiya kinds...
He saw them swinging their heads
With ethereal love how they melody bind...

He saw them from the little distance... a few feet
He observed their faces how by passion lit...
He put his mind into their song
He stretched his being infinite long...

The evening, meanwhile, changed into night
The cold wind dropped down all right
But he got so much into the flowing music
That he hardly noticed how did time away tick...

A few more hours thus he
Under the open sky did only lie
In his vapory eyes he did see
How the rasas him with a strange fervor tie...

When the dawn was about to break
All the singers packed their bags of jute
He only stayed unwake
He only stayed so mute...

Thus by the rasa bound
He left the earthly ground...
He left forever the domestic life
He took into love a phenomenal dive!

My Radha is on her way...

Find new tender leaves
On trees how tremble in her breeze...
Find cuckoo practising hard
Her favourite songs at my yard...
Find the scent of Radha mine...
Coming to envelop me...so sublime!

My Radha is on her way
Surely to refurbish my shrunken, crumpled day...
My yellow draped queen so chaste
Smelling so much of sandalwood paste...

you...a goddess of whims...

If you were not before me, dear
I would be so many mistakes ridden...
But as you're there, I fear
Mistakes also do come...

You're like a paradox
So tangled me in your locks
I can't go away...
In your harbor, my tired ship forever docks...

What to do dear? tell me?
Leave you behind
Searching for life of another kind?

Can't do that dear...simply can't
Your name like a devoted soul I do chant!

 Why my mind gets so clouded?
Why you come to me by mystery shrouded?
Why you pull and push me same?
Why break and make me, my dame?

You're surely the God's most whimsical state
You're surely by His all frenzy made...
You are so forceful sometimes like a storm
Next moment only pool of water you on my heart form...

a charmer under the moon...an enchantress...

Returning to my homeland
Through the highway so vacant
My car broke down with a bang
In the middle of nowhere- all of a sudden...

Got out of the car
Raised the bonnet to find inside
Smoke from overheating with my engine charred
Stood like a dumb not knowing to decide...

Pushed the car to one side of the road
And looked around to find a help
Only found how drops of dewy load
On my face and hands and everywhere laid...

The open country so young and vast
Under the moonlight like a mystery spread
Just then thought a shadowy cast
Coming up to me from memory not so fade...

She came walking in a slow gait
Like a charmer under the moon
She came like an enchantress
With a silvery sparkling shoon...

Looked at her shiny face
A moist sweaty tempting one
Saw her lips so supple
Saw her neck how bent like a swan...

She came and placed her fingers on my lips
She came to place me deep within her
She showed me how her bosom heaved
And made me play with her silky hair...

I thus got completely disarrayed
By lustful romance in the mist
I thus went totally astray
As fervently I her insanely kissed...

Under the moon, in the open field
With mist and fog curtaining all shame
The woman with blue eyes a few fathoms deep
The starving tiger within me thus tamed...

when love meet...against a gray gray setting...

Against the setting so much gray
And a mossy wall standing still upright
Seen her so often waiting night and day...
Seen her there in the dying twilight!

Against the backdrop of a decaying street
And dark clouds of sad sad hue
O how she stands there for a strange meet
With her love account still overdue!

Never garnered the courage to face
Your so impassioned dreamy state
Like a coward, slipped through the backyard gate
And turned to dryness, calling it my fate...

But last night never found her at the wall
Not even before that gray tower tall
Thought she had disappeared feeling let down
Thought she with tears left my town...

Coward me then felt real bad
'How could I be so afraid
Of consequences or destiny's test
Which could never douse my  inner unrest?'

Ran and ran all through the streets
Hoping to find her somewhere, on any busy lane...
Ran madly-my heart losing a few beats
Hoping every time to find her certain...

But couldn't find her anywhere
Every lane, street, bye-lane ransacked,
Couldn't find her at any city square
So many boisterous people packed...

Losing my steam, like a roughened soul
Was about to drop fatigued on a lonely bench
Just then felt a hand warm on my frozen hand cold
As looked sideways, kind of surprised and tensed...

There! there! o my god!
My love against the brightest setting
Of the same town distinctly odd
How appeared for the strange meeting!

you're a multitasker fine!

Wonder what are you doing at this moment
Making coffee and thinking of me?
Or doing two things separately?

You loved to keep the divide
Between your daily chores
And the love for me, you easily glide...

If you're brewing your coffee right
Can you still with me by your talks fight?
If you're bathing under the shower
Are you keeping me off, your lover?

Wonder if you're still that much smart-
Keeping me on one shelf of your heart
And on the other, all your daily grime
Juggling your assigned role by the Time...

Wonder what are you, a superwoman?
Or a practiced on-stage showman?
How you keep everything clean?
Your kitchen sink and heart unseen?

Wonder whether you're a multitasker
Shuttling effortlessly between the near and the far?
How you can keep us two together?
One on your routine and on your bosom the other?

for you, mon amour!

Your name written on sands
By Spenser in Sonnet number 75,
Came washed by the seasonal rains
Beckoning me to a newer life!

I took the cue from there
Wished to go beyond the top most hemisphere
I took the paper and the pen
Wrote in curved hand your magic name!

Your name simply sent me shivers
The way rains cause upsurge in rivers...
Another Amoretti for you mon amour
Is being sent thus to your padlocked door!

The poem would surely knock and knock
Till you your bolted door finally unlock...
This scribble mine would make hopefully realize
How my passions through this write I eternalize!

the moon sans orbit!

She wrote me oneday
'Living good you! it seems from far away...'
I wrote her back
'Why don't you take the same track?'
Her reply came soon
'You simply can't change the ways of the moon!'
I reverted then and there
'Let me a secret with you share...
Just follow your wish...
Don't be so orbital miss!
Orbits are only made by you
You can always set another trajectory new!'

She wrote nothing after that
Wish she is working on a detour of her path!
Wish she would soon build
A path vibrant, through the open field
Wish she would construct no orbit this time
Wish the moon would easily peep through windows mine!

a souvenir...from her

'Won't you leave
A souvenir for me?'
She asked looking close
To the brown pupils of her man
Who had all the remorse
Of leaving her behind...

'What could I give you, say?'
He mumbled, unsure
Yet to get rid of the lure
Of the hair that smelt of jasmine
Of those eyes with lashes long
Of those arms over which his head did presently lean
Of the voice that whispered a  forgotten song...

'Just plant  kisses moist
On me all over this evening
Let the setting sun be the only witness
To the goosebumps your touch on my skin can bring...'
Saying this, she flung open her strings that bind
Her lustrous glory, her beauteous self
So long kept for her man confined...

He looked at the vast expanse of the sea
That lied ahead, with an orange hue
As the sun bathed so shamelessly...
Leaving her every bit of garment
Bit by bit, for his eyes to see...

Thus she gave a souvenir instead
To her man, who would leave her to the time
Thus she left everything unpaid
To her man, who couldn't a souvenir for her find...

your transmitter beeps...

O it still somewhere beeps
Your transmitter that you fixed
On my left part of chest
Right under my woolen vest...

O it still somewhere stings
Your smiles that the beeper brings
On the left side of my being
With you never it seeing!

What a funny way you chose
Planted a transmitter so close
To keep a track of me
Leaving me in the middle of a sea!

Chanel no 5...

Even before you arrived
You reached me, my love...
And I without ado dived
Into your Chanel number five...

Felt perhaps Ernest Beaux
Made that perfume after seeing you...
Who preceded whom?
You? the perfume?

Whoever followed whom
I am surely doomed!
 Your precious perfumed teardrops
 My heart for a few moments stops...

O my demimonde!
Give me just another day...
To be thus mesmerised
By your Chanel five prized!

thus life goes...

thus life goes...thus we all go...
traversing the distance fine...
with our silence and our voices we sign...
On pages our dreams and woes
On leaves our promises and vows...

you kept me from Sartre...

I could've been Jean Paul Sartre
And put you simply in existential terms
Declaring 'Everything is figured out
Except how to live...'

I could've been confused
Taking disenchantment as Truth
As words so silently diffused
Out of my loaded heart smooth...

But your red red lips
With high octane fuel me burn
Your sweet soft embrace
How to the dreams make me turn!

Your tangential touch
On my poems full of dust
Your pink velvety patch
On my cheeks for centuries lasts...

Thus you keep me from
Becoming another disillusioned man
Thus in my lonely dorm
Your dreams my fire do fan...

wish to leave with you...

Wish to leave with you
Some stuff that were mine...
  One moist night
With a music of a dirge,
  A cloudy dawn with
A wet and soft mirage!

 Wish to leave on your palm
My wizened letters some...
  A few noons of  longish wait
And drops of blood from my inkpot straight !

Wish to leave a few more
Shades of gray...shades so much lone
Shades of memories by the seagull borne!

acrosome reaction...

'Let me in ...please let me in!'
The fastest of them banged his head on your wall,
How can you be so passive amidst such a din?

Your wall...
What should I it call?
A liquid filter kind
A filter is sure your mind!

You leave nothing unchecked
Even if he is wondrously decked...
Even if he is pleading, crying, wailing...
Even if his head got a swelling
By banging so continuous...
Your wall...so strong...hardly porous!

You and your wall
Keep the big and the small
Out of bounds till you're sure
You got him filtrated pure!

The process is a complex one
Often termed 'Acrosome reaction'
I find magic in it...
The way you select the breed!

at the Dorina Crossing...

At the Dorina crossing
His car was caught
In a traffic snarl
He was woefully wrought...

With nothing to do
Sitting in his car
He looked out of the window
To see it wide and far...

At a bus-stop near
The blue saree did unfurl
He thought what he feared
Came to him with the snarl...

She there stood absent
Her eyes were on the street
Her image brought to his present
Memories so much bestirred...

The blue saree aflutter
In the wind so soft and slow
Make him only stutter
Bathed as he was in pinkish glow...

He was taken to his youngish days
Days of rock n rolls
Days of loving the blue blue gaze
Days of  being desperate souls...

At the Dorina crossing
The blue saree made his day,
Even in the chaotic traffic unrest
His love his memories put to test!

He thought he should jump off
From his cozy comfortable seat
To the blue saree still at the busstop
Right at the other side of  city street!

But suddenly then the chaos cleared
And the cars started moving good
The blue saree got smeared
By the smokes of filthy city soot!

Cupid misfired his arrow thus...

'O mother!
Why you sent me here so?
With these golden arrows and bow?
How can I shoot this maid
Such a  beauty asleep on bed?'

Cupid shook and murmured these
Seeing Psyche's beauty without leash...
On the silvery satin sheet
So ethereally by moon light lit...

But he knew at his heart
He could never his mind divert
For he was sent by Venus, his mom,
To create a strong fiery storm
Which could possibly break and twist
And throw Psyche into the mist-
Out of which she would never be freed
Love would be her death decreed;

Cupid shot the arrow thus
But the arrow made a cut as it passed
And blood dripped from Cupid's hand
Arrow of love missed its targeted land

Cupid's arrow made a bruise
Instead of Psyche, Cupid it chose
The hunter became the hunted fine
For Psyche his heart forever pined!

old Johnny, the guitarist and his sickly daughter...

The night was unholy, chilly one
The old man felt in his wakeful state
His fingers were kind of numbed
And he felt he was running late...

The moment he finally arrived
To the tavern where he always went
He was recharged seeing the crowd
To the music as they swayed...

He took up his guitar
And his plectrum triangular
On the fretboard then ran the fingers
To spread his hot hot spitting fire...

The crowd got into the act
Of breaking into a freakish mood
And Johnny, the old guitarist,like a fact...
Just on the platform sternly stood...

The crowd bust into joy
Of unfathomable eerie kind
Johnny bled his fingers, O boy!
To spread the best of music they could find...

But in one corner of Johnny's mind
There was a distressing thought
He had left his sickly daughter
On her tiny, cold, old cot...

He wished always to go back
To his daughter with pale face
He wished to get sacked
From his guitar-job, such a damn stress!

But how could possibly he
From his odd job suddenly flee?
The bucks were the need for him
To brighten his darling's life so dim...

So old Johnny just jammed
In the air, his white locks rammed
Knowing well how he was sold-
For  few bucks...to ward off the diseased cold!

first encounter...

Never took you as someone
Other than just a friend..
However, in our gang-of-boys
You were kind of an angel sent...
Noticed never how you want
To be my side everywhere
Never thought of you as a girl
To my God, I solemnly swear!

Then one rainy evening
Across an empty corridor...
When I was on a pillar leaning
Your waves fully lapped on my shore...
 You came so close my God!
Your body touched my bod...

Then you put my hands sure
Upon where the volcanoes lie
Just then somewhere near
The lightning made a thunderous strike;
Just then felt a strange awakening
Somewhere deep within me
Just then felt how even a big ship wreck
Caught in a tumultuous stormy sea!

Remember how nicely after
You showed me the heavenly peace
And  made me grasp the flow of water
At the end of such a blitz!