O traveler, why lookest thou straight
on the road
grave and speculative,
Depriving your eyes such a beatific sight,
See the angelic form standeth behind
the window curtain,
Come, wait, sit beside me, it’s worth waiting,
We both will sing in praise of her
And linger until she uncurtains the curtain.
You say it’s purposeless
Why argue?
Isn’t it the reason our maker gives us eyes?
Isn’t it the purpose of our mind’s evolution
to sing and hail the beauty; at least of her.

You won’t believe my word? Impertinence!
You will be blinded by her shadow
spare her presence; “stare not for long”,
What? You say it exaggeration…
Bon Dieu!
If beauty is not exaggerated
where lies its charm.

Look! her shadow moving, she is
growing impatient as if  getting
late to meet her lover.
Yes, she wins heart in a look
and crushes it in a blink and wins again
by smile.
Monarch sleeps in her bed
Life in right, Death in left hand; she possesses,
Judiciary in closet
And warriors in purse.
Countries bow, world kneel, universe supplicate
before her.
Stop! Where thou going?
Pardon these adynatons,
I’m drunk in her beauty.

Let us sing then, I’ll lead, you follow

Flowers wilting in chilled air,
Waiting clouds to part
To have a look fair,
Of moon…

Do see the restlessness in that room?
I can sense her ***** heaving, repressed
sighs and her fingers twisting, twirling
in exasperation,
It must be a lover
who invented the song, isn’t it?

A gloomy firefly in this starless sky
Searching his lover
Who has lost the light,
Wait not moon, rise, help him
In his plight…

Look! look! The curtain is drawn
There she, my sovereign,
don’t mistake her eyes for stars.
Have a profound look, but not too long;
this witnesses only fortunate.
What? you lost your vision-
But I warned you earlier.
Now, who’ll testify I saw her?

Wrapped around the trunk
snake-like,
I taste the venom of my own tongue,
I lick the skin
in search of an antidote,
My last breath simulating the first
doubles the thirst to live,
But alas!
My love forsakes me to death

Studying the 'Base', 'Hypotenuse', and 'Height'
of a triangle,
My mind recalls what I witnessed in
that sensual night,
You were like an unconceived mathematical notion,
I a novice in geometry trying to draw a straight line
Of kisses on your shivering body,
How fragile those attempts were,
How lovely to see them fail,
Lying idle on the bed like a base of a building
I lured you to stood high above me,
And your hands pressing my chest as a ladder,

We're affixed like a right-angled triangle
Dizzy, and drunk exploring our area of love.

Making the night
lethargy
by our
sensualness.

The Great Debate started,
Parliament was the open forest,
electors were divided into two groups—
Sir Fox's, and
The Lion's,

The first group wanted to overthrow the Lion
from the sovereign head of the forest,
It was a tough job to confront Lion directly,
So, Sir Fox, appointed a Monkey as the Chief campaigner,
and that monkey appointed other monkeys in the business,
Scaring them with a story of vanishing trees, and living on
the land increases the mortality rate if Lion Party continues.

Monkey, the chief campaigner exclaimed,

“We are not living in the rule of law but in the rule of Lion,
All are equal, but the continuous target of a particular community,
Like a beautiful deer, by another community in majority
should be banned, Deers bring historic and aesthetic
significance to the forest
And need to be treated as the same,”
Deers bellowed gleefully hearing this.

Cows felt hurt,
their exclusion from Monkey’s speech
proved to be a setback to the Fox’s Party,
Cows were the most targeted community
by the Carnivores, everyone in the forest knew,
Potential voters were lost to Lion’s Party.

Polarising speeches of Chief continued,
It brought Rhinoceros to its side,
Seeing rhino in political rallies,
Hippopotamus chipped in,
To counter the increasing weight
Political advisor of Lion, i.e, Tiger,
persuaded Elephant to become an official
member of their party.

Hate speeches increased in numbers
Giraffe, the bearer and upholder of law,
Overlooked everything,
the long neck looked tilted towards
an ideology.

Rumours became truth,
truth became rumour
Monkey was good in it,
And an army of monkeys were excellent.

Parrots, Pigeons, Peacock,
****, Cuckoo, Cat,
Loved the importance they got,
Disseminated the Fox loving songs.
The listeners felt threatened,
They had an enemy living between them
and they were considering them friends,
They thanked the Parrot, Pigeon, Peacock
for pointing them out.

Now, biped hated quadruped,
Quadruped hated reptiles,
Reptiles did the same to amphibians,
And in this way the whole animal kingdom
danced in chaos,

The fiery speeches of Sir Fox helped
in creating illusion,
The slogan of the Man as a common enemy
was changed to, Feline as a common enemy,
Felines joined Sir Fox’s Party,
And Canines ran to Lion’s Party,
Obvious was difficult to observe
Obscure was easy to see.

**to be continued

Be
my
Valentine,
O! You,
Who hasn't found one.

She seals the bag
full of melancholic songs-
The precious weapon in my
poetic arsenal,
And revives in me the desire
To sing a love song;

Should I write it
on her beauty,
Or on the virtues
she doesn’t count,
That her soul is truth a pious seeks,
Or something she is unacquainted
in her till now,

Or on the blushing cheeks,
Or parting lips,
Mystic eyes, or Sufi voice,
Or the nose-pin shining ablaze,
Or simply arrange the words
to summarize her sleeping face,

Should I write—
Stars fall to make her wish complete,
That sunflowers follow the direction
she moves,
That leaves loose bough
to have a close look, of her.
What should I write?

Let me touch you, hold you,
Kiss you in this wintery night
You are the fire
I a piece of ice,
Union of us would be like rivers meeting the
Immortal sea
Where one consumes and other get consumed;

Under the blanket
When the darkness hides us
We feel the warmth of that warm breath
So close to our face that tells the stories of our days, months
And years together inseparable;

You, Me and this cold darkness
And the presence of two heartbeats in rhythm
Has frozen the fear of life and death
With you, I want to live
Without you I choose death;

The
stars went
where you are
now, in that darkness
where Sun does not shine.

Take a gun
And shoot the one holding
the contrary view, with sword
Slice head and torso in two,
If that is not enough, dig graves and
bury them alive, dig it again give them
momentary light and life, then bury again,

Your view and perception are perfect,
you should not allow others to contradict you?

The 'gyre' hints arrival-
Twenty centuries making room
For a new epoch,
I’m a modern bird now,
I may sound haphazard, troublesome, and brooding
unimportant topic for hours,
It's up to you to lend ear or not;

I was a winged rooster confined to land only,
Now I’ve become a 'hawk', with knowledge of flight
perhaps power too,
Seeing the world from far above
Envisioned me a seer sight;
I see the world functioning; the lowliest on top,
the best in daze, and mediocre relishing mediocrity,
One or two good men wasting
life in poetry which none cares.
Oblivious armed men guard the periphery;
White termites gnaw the door at the Centre.

At this height, all seem different,
I can’t relate with my earlier self;
My knowledge seems nothing but
a frail sound in a vacuum.
When I became 'conscious'-
My dreams stopped being dreams—
My thoughts were invaded daily—
Life evolved in million years—
'God is dead', the universe all naked.
We’re the supreme, the Satan both;
Busy in triumphing Desires.
Converging all— blazed my beliefs.

We’ve progressed too much, portends
trembling of the earth
And smoke eclipsing the sun.
'Death I breathe',
War looms again,
Life is traded in forfeited currency.

I see the world functioning,
I know one or two tricks too to cheat,
To assault, to ****, to loot.
I can foresee the end—
Its good to die starving then
Fly in the proximity of land.

I do care about your loose hairband
that allow your tresses and mantle
to flow in the soft breeze,
Small ***** of sweat
trickle-down from forehead,
taking the route of the cheek,
And your both hands occupied in books
Effort vainly to subdue them-

I sit and watch this battle from our college corridor,
Dreaming and fantasizing to be your lover,
And leading the army of affection
Win this contest of tresses and mantle
for you.

The mystic Sadhu
chants cryptic
mantras,
I hear
the Hammssss of his voice,
He is lost in his world
Like I'm with mine,
Above me, the bridge
clanked gleefully
announcing the arrival of her lover;
Shimmering in white, honking
it moves slowly like a big serpent,
Ending the tryst
with a flickering red light.

Several mounds, smoldering woods,
and one body stuck to
the trunk of the bridge
swirled in me the fear of
leaving this world early,
leaving all that I strived to
achieve, and leaving all of
it in the middle.

Buses pass on the next bridge
A hand came out
and aimed the stream with
something, probably a coin,
to compensate for wrongdoings,
Coin-collectors waiting like a
starving lion in a zoo
pounced on these throwings,
aiming the spot  
with a magnet like
a trained ninja in nocturnal warfares,
After a few unsuccessful attempts
A boy yelled in joy
"Har Har Gange".


The Ganges was like this
from the beginning,
She was moderate in demands
offering so much
at the cost of a penny,
Throw a coin and
you are absolved from all your sins.

Sweat drenched bodies tangled snake
like, lips entwined like pair of swans.
One palm grasping the waist
Other holding the mound on chest
Like some ruthless dictator holding humanity.
Traverse on my body’s conduits, beloved!
Regale, relish, feast in its twists and turns,
And with your lips map the boundary
of your kingdom lying conquered in your bed.

With your mighty sword ravage
The territory of yours so long sealed,
Enter in it and let the din and moans to
not melt your heart. Be relentless
and unmerciful—press, pinch, bite,
Spike, goad, tease— make me beg then
Hurl like hurricane swirling in longing
and hunger, subdue only after taking me.

A night in your arms I want, beloved!
Gratify the five senses, bless me the bliss
of life this night. And with your
Measuring tape measure me inch by inch
Touch me those little places I haven’t
touched before, kiss me recklessly
And when you think its time enough
Then rain the seed of your love like farmer
Over my fecund body of field,
So that in time a flower of this
Night spring and wave and smile
in gentle breeze.

Only, a night in your arms I want, beloved!
A night in your arms is all I want!

I'm sleeping in the shade of her comfort
In longing,
I call her name,
She is in a mourning state as if she's lost
her dear possession,
tying hope in the left remnants,
she smiles at my call caressing my forehead,
"Sleep, my love!"

Come to me surreptitiously like fog comes in December night
I will hide you by the news of discontent and discomfort-
Engulf and surround you with fear of loom,
The country is going to dust now,
Master has become maniac puffing the ***** of 'Power'
deeming good into bad and bad into good,
The books affirming violence his students seek,
The guardians and protectors stand and watch
the clashes like sadists forbidden to inflict pain;

I lament the plight and plunder of my sacred home,
Hoping a dawn of summer amid chilly winter.

Dictating my mood
with a single thumb press,
I'm happy
Or Sad
It's only a matter of your single Text.

The separation stretches for more than twenty hours,
I wait and wait and wait...
At the lonely station
For a train that gets cancelled
After getting delayed for so long,

I yearn for the journey
The destination beguiles me,
So, if not by train
I'll cover the distance imagining
the time which tied us together like spokes of a wheel.

So you are gone, I realized this tonight
At the thousandth night of our separation,
Stars glittering, Moon playing hide & seek
Same like the night you and I talked last,
How I hated change and
How I found it at every step I took, is inexplicable.
The promises were not plenty to stay.
Oaths were mere other words said in frenzy
Washed in the first rain of the season.

All those texts I wrote, stanzas I composed
Were not enough to win you.
I ask you; was I that bad?

I remember me; so different than now
Awake all night waiting for your call
to start talks having no purport,
To listen your gasps, kisses and breathe and yawn
Every moment felt like you were breathing unto me
Traversing miles, splashing on face,
Warm in winters, cool in summer nights,
your breath reached;
Inhaling all, I stored it inside
Like a souvenir; to remind me how close we were once.

You said,
you “are weak in catching the hidden meanings
In my poems”. How ignorant I was to not listen
But if you were around now,
I'd explain those connotative lines
full with request and pleas,
I had typed in midnight emotions
tears gashing;
Only had simple meaning;
I long and yearn to live with you,
around you, beside you
every second.
If I’d known substitutes of hundred diverse
emotions spinning,
I'd have used it
to avoid your confusion.
But I didn’t find. My rotten luck!

Sometimes, I ponder
If you're there to see me awake all night for words
that can match you; your radiant beauty, then all
would have been different.
But you're not there to witness the devotion.

To my ill-fate, words carry only pictures
Reading depends on the reader,
And you read it all different than I intended,
Maybe, it’s the fault of my poetry
broken and stained in failure
Never achieved the power to conquer you forever.

Every word I wrote haunt me onwards
See, the sorrow I'm indulged in,
When you have forgotten my existence,
and the love we shared.
Still, after all these years
I fighting with change
Waken all night
weary, tired, sleepy; Write you in poems!

I'm tired of dancing
on your whims,
You are showing colours
like an authoritarian government

So, without knowing me

If I ask you

"Can you be my friend?"

What would you say?

Will you weigh me in the lens
of an adult

Or

Like kids, extend your hand
towards me
And say

"Friends Forever!"

Like a passenger sitting on a bus
Surrender your life to me,
I'll guard it like a driver steering
In the darkness, and
After dropping you to the destination
Will move on, happy with the FARE of Memories.

Deny the fact
Live in a dream...

The reality was not meant
for some of us.

Whom do I love?
You
or the suffering you bring?

So, my love! come
and give me a hug,
or tug me in your mantle
like you do to the wind,

Take me with you
where you go
Inhaling me little by little,
And once I'm all spent,
breath in me life
with a KISS!

In this city where
millions dream
wake up dead,
I've come
with a dream
to see you again.

Let me invoke the Devine Muses
Who sits on Mount Helicon
Cherishing the arts of poets and artisans
Whom they immortalized
By guiding their pen;

I implore your aid
In completing this poem
And several yet to conceive,
Fill in me the empty;
The lack of words, metaphors, smilies
And tropes to cover emotions.

O holy! Devine
Inspire my mind who craves fame
Aspire this pen to write truths name,
Fill it with the ink of courage;
No compassion nor fear can divert
It from unraveling the hidden.

O! Symbol of purity and keeper of sacred thoughts
You shape a bud into a plant
And by your one breath comes the spring;
Leaves, flowers, and fruits all,
Same way breathe unto me
Give me life and aim
To make this time count
And unconsciously— like great poets,
Metaphysicians and alchemists,
Mark my name and work in this world.

Tonight is the night of renunciation,
O weary heart, shed that person
In tears and sobs—
For moon is weary carrying the grief of world
Wane her a little forgetting your woe tonight,

Tonight is the night of renunciation.
O perturbed heart, untie the hinged boat from
anchor and sail away from hopeless dreams—
For stars are burdened with undue hopes of men,
falling and fading from sky, reduce their weight
Bidding farewell to those memories tonight,

Tonight is the night of renunciation.
O innocent heart, love is despot, so end these grieving
for a person’s absence—
For the air is sick and sad sailing house to house
Lower her sadness abating your loss tonight,

Tonight is the night of renunciation.
O withered heart, saunter in the lawn this approaching dawn
Born anew, listen the chatter and flutter of birds,
For the sighs of lovers have turned their song melancholic,
Sing loud, O heart, return their gayness
For they’re not meant to suffer for our melancholy tonight.

Living my fears and dreams night and day,
I sleep in one, wake in the other.
Many things I try to hold at once
After a step they slip in the way
to be never recollected.

Recapitulate in your mind a love story
I'm about to tell,
The two mortals madly in love, went
Up above after a curse,

Joined the other stars, one appears
in the evening and the other vanishes,

Curse was that they'd meet only for
A second after
Long wait of 24 hours,
Love was still intact between them,

Moments loaded with
Emotions still come, tears trickle and fall,

           It is that falling tear we see
           when we see a shooting star ⭐

Some haunting memories
recurring every alternate day,
Stopping only to breath
to start afresh,
To play longer
this game of torture,

I dream of a dream in a dream
running helplessly to extinguish
the fire on my back,
Scratching the burnt shirt,
wallowing in sand & dust like a dog,
And when nothing helps
jumps into a muddy pond,

Like a theatre actor I'm
playing my part,
my role in my body,
I've transformed into no one now,
I live nowhere
But in mind,

I'm doomed, O forgetful!
Only because of remembering you.

Melancholy lingers in this city
like some deadly virus
lying sluggishly,
waiting to touch the passersby.

This place is where I find liberty Exists
No one knows me
I know no one
A perfect place to
say what we feel,
what we desire,
When life is unbearable and tries to break me from every nook and corner,
I come here and blabber my heart out,
What would have been my life
Without this place.

My love is
pleading
before me
to make you God!

In the midst of this fleeting crowd, I

Lived like a hermit in seclusion, in search
of truth and purpose, saving the
vestiges of the bygone era, but one day you
entered in that hermitage like a deer, onwards

You became to me what stars are to the sailors,
Or gravity to earth, or library to an aspirant,
Under the shade of your love, I want to grow.

Browsing through the gallary of my phone
I found none solo photo of him,
Never said I, "Father I want to click your photo, look here"
Now, he is gone
And I have started forgetting how he looked.

The hopeless battle
we stretch day by day,
Be quick!
Live
or
Put an end to it.

Asphyxiated
High on sleeping pills,
A human form lies in bed,
Who knows what grief snatched
the bag of life from him,
Now he sleeps like a body
conquered by death,

I knew him once, he was a jolly creature,
the life of party, the dream of every girl,
drank wine like Romeo kissing Juliet,
danced a happy dance which his moving-shaking
limbs professed the inner detention,
But one day, he vanished, making parties lifeless,
girls restless, and Wine heartbroken,
He was amid us but so far,

I wonder about my inaction,
why I never invited him in
when he daily came asking for his room key.