What a conflict her life has become!
She
has to pick me
or her God.

Mind is roaming like a pariah dog
in some dusty lanes and lonely paths,
Sleeping on debris, regaling in waste and dirt.
I was its master once
But has lost the control now,
Time ahead looks bleak with
the equation reversing slowly
When I see me trembling before his bark.

I want to give up...
my problems are
way scarier than others,
I am everything, the center,
unfavorable situations
find me like a childhood friend,

Trouble trouble everywhere
No time to live,
If I live for some days
double trouble pursue me
to outlive,

I'm Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear
Shakespeare wrote my predicaments
six centuries earlier,
My birth was a tragedy,
I'm armored in 'hamartia', 'anagnorisis'
'peripeteia', and what not
searching my doom to
entertain few who paid to see me,
I have none neither unity of time,
or place or action,

I don't deserve this,
But
What should I do?
I have no means and measures or methods,
to raise my hand and say,
"Sir, this disgusts me, living like this doing
same task same time all day"
Count me absent since today,
I'm going never to come,

What a sick time this is,
everyone is hating everyone,
I hate everyone too,
why shouldn't I?
I'd one demand,
I want to study, but no one had money
to pay, neither family, nor state, or center,
I saw them investing in bricks and stones
I saw them collecting taxes,
But no one came,
I wanted to work no had work to offer.

So I am writing, venting off my anguish,
Okay so if you are here, I call you my confidant,
keep it a secret,
You know I am alone now
But I wasn't before, a girl I love but never
told her my feeling, why????

Yes, she is employed, she earns I do not,
I fear this, I search for work, not that
I need one, I crash on the footpath,
live on the discarded crumbs out
the big restaurant in my city,
I'm not invoking pity in you--
Argumentum ad Misericordiam--
stating just the fact sir,
I believe in "Less is MOre"
and indeed I have less and I am happy
but what troubles me is her,
Ah! it's not that easy, I've heard
they don't take seriously unemployed guys,
Yes, sir, I may be wrong, but I don't want to
take any chance,
Life is not a life sir without her,

You can judge this in the tone
after I started tak]lking about her.
I love her dearly,
But who doesn't sir?
when they are young,

How are you tonight?
When the world sleeps, and
No one awake to notice
your hiccups and rolling tears,

Life is a butcher, isn't it?
Lover its instrument
to slice us in pieces,
And afterlife we
jostle from one person
to another.

Someone
died,
few
rejoicing
that death,

I sit there
and watch like
God
the sorrow and joy.

I have not loved you like an earthly creature
but worshipped like God with incessant
offerings and prayers,
How can you turn me down?
I have faith and heart and hope
and love in you,
Yet you keep beguiling me showing
different dreams,
Are you also one of the Greek Olympians?

The whole life
you will search for me
in the heart of those you
attach yourself,

Abandoning me, for now,
is easy, the easiest thing to do,
Staying was hard,

You also followed the suit
of fellows
living with lesser passion.

Heartache is waiting,
Again I'm falling in love...

How close we are now,
your face on my screen,
My arm seeking your back,
A kiss, pout, thousand gestures,
Typing texts bestowing wide smiles
and staring screen in hope
to never end this moment,
Miles apart yet so close that
the warm breath reach me
Soon you exhale, or at least sound
of it,
How gorgeous these inventions are
making lovers life easy,
sighs cut to half, tears reduced to zero.

I thank that human God
who invented the phone,
And glory to all those
shadowed by the mythical ones.

The bucket of Sorrow is not mine alone,
take half of it at least,
It is unbearable.

Hold my hand
And let the love play its symphonies
So that one day
If you leave it for some reason
The fragrance of you clings their to
Remind me you held it once;

Embrace me such a way
that our heart make the same rhythm
And the musical beat charm our soul
To unite and become single entity,
You in me; me in you lives;

Kiss me like you have never tasted this
ecstasy,
Let the lips touch lips
And give them ease and liberty to listen
the hidden words behind them;

Let the breath warm breath
And disperse in air
Making the sign and memoir of our
Closeness at this moonlit night;

Smile once looking in my eyes
And invent a new way for forthcoming
Lovers to use it on behalf of oath;

“Love’s mysteries are unknown” poets say,
So collaborate with me
Together we shall follow it till depth
And discover its root and create a new history;

I will not ask a solemn oath
Or dozen promises for life,
I’ve lived life in those moments
We were in each other’s arm;

BUT if love succeeds in parting us
Like it did to other great lovers,
Then this would be the victory
That will authenticate the love we shared
and witnessed;

They say, “everyone has something to yearn
their whole life”
If its true,
If I too have to lose you,
If I too have to yearn for something,
Then why it is not you?
The serenest, soberest and fairest creature on this earth
Why should not I pine for you.

Caress me, melt in me
let me see the love in your eyes,
Brimming, ululating passion
radiating in delight.
These lips craving for the touch of mine
Like the falling star
waiting to touch the ground,
But in vain, our hopes are
Vanishing before our eyes
with the rising sun.

Once again we have to part;
Once again we have to die,
Till night comes
And breathe in us life
again.

Alas! Why this sun, why the morning?
Why this rein fall on innocent lovers?
Who want nothing but to lay in each others arm
Today, tomorrow, after morrow.
Go and love first!
then only then you’ll fathom
how sharp your rays are that slice
one soul in two, every dawn.
Still, your rays are not
Half as strong as our love
Stays fervid with every partition.

You, my love, the smile of my life,
Immure these tears inside eyes
Cheeks are mine not them to kiss.
Come in my arms, clasp me so tight,
Canoodle, smooch, implant equal kisses
a clock runs in a day; my sole sustenance.

If I do not return with the return of twilight
Then let loose tears, with them, me too.
And grant this fascist sun victory
over transient us,
But not our love,
We’ll kindle our love
by making dreams our home.

'Eternal Return'? Why?
If things will keep recurring
why are we exerting so much?
Would I share a gleeful laugh and cry a passionate cry
Knowing  the same happiness and sorrows will recur
again?
It took years to reach a summit, toiling and crawling,
A slight imbalance, and again we are hurled to the beginning.
Is, Sisyphus, only a mythical figure? If yes,
then, why I see him in me?

Take a handful of men of bygone days, and contrast with
Our time, drop the embellishments of each century,
And see the emerging pattern, ask them, what are the ways
That helps In curbing the pain, answer;
"Slowly the pain is eased but increased the suffering."
Are pain and suffering different?

When was the last time you loved someone?
Do you remember the days after they were gone? Yes?
Then, why are you in love again?
And most importantly, whom are you in love with?
The person or the suffering they bring?

If Everything recurs 'ad Infinitum',
Then can we avert the things already occurred
In past, from occurring again?
Or we have lost the aptitude for resemblances?
Invention demands an offering of natural ability,
Have we gained half of we lost?
What is the tipping point for this offering, this trade?

It's good I do not have to worry much,
For me, the world ends the day I die.

O say, love, say,
What can I do to **** it and be free
In my old liberty?
—Keats

I
Snared in time
And wriggling on nightmares
At last I found you,
Zephyr like, you untied that knot,
Slowly wrapped
Me in more intenser charm
Only to push from height;

You acted like stage actor
In soliloquies, captivated
With mellifluous promises,
Like an audience I watched
Stunned with boundless emotions,
And ended up believing you.

II
There was a time when
I saw you as a
Rainy cloud to my drought
stricken heart,
Your promises bloomed hyacinths,
Lilies and wild roses—
Hyacinths painted days,
Lilies lavished new hopes.
And wild roses scent eclipsed past.
I loved you most of my days,
And on other I tried to love you
Yet, I kept it secret in fear
Of loosing you.

III
All for nothing!
Your childlike attention so easily
Faded and abandoned
The toy you played most,
It’s I always there, alone! laying in
the corner of your room,
Waiting forever to be held again
in your *****,
With the same endearment of gone days.
But you, absorbed in others
never gave a glance to me,
left me to perish drawing
an imaginary world
And then hoping to turn it real.

Always, think of me, when the moon looks lone and pale
Nebulously sprinting for empty space —
And you sitting under starry universe
Watching those nocturnal games,
Retrospecting life before which many stooped.
Stop not there for the life is long and trials many,
Tribulations its essence, success sneer without them.

Always, think of me, when the moon is lone and pale
gasping wildly for empty space—

I’m not quitting, I will not…
But I’m tired of visiting that market
Holding pages that show others my worth,
Constantly reminds me of my failures
In not inculcating traits of brighter mind;
Them alphabets and numbers mesmerized,
My all happiness, every dream revolved around a wooden bat
Father, always scolded me, saying;
“Time never returns, returns only regret”
My adolescent arrogance refuted it
But now, I know the price.

My life was straight
I meander it with my mistreating,
Of dreaming a dream that I couldn’t afford
Of not confining them in the periphery of the countryside,
Letting time to stroll away sitting on a pew
Not making enough efforts to catch in the middle,
Father, you were right
How I long to go back in time
And start again from the beginning,
With all the cautions and advice of your’s,
Accepting all that previously refuted;


Those afternoon walk in the heat of June
Shirt soaked in ‘rejections’
Clothing a dead Will that dies daily in Loo,
All absorbed in counting failures
I wait for a bus to come
With an unknown number
That could take me all the way to that ‘wish factory' place
I heard in childhood,
But the dust fly and settles in the eye
To awake me from delving into another dream;


“Those who take long ladders to reach 98,” the mother says
“seldom wins without bitten at 99.”
But my life turned out to be mazier
Than the game of snake & ladders,
How I abhor to go back home and confront her
Whose trust in Gods diminishing by my defeats,
Whose every prayer is going unheard
I am the victim, she a sufferer;


I remember the days of my college
With immense dreams and a never-dying spirit
And an age where everything seems possible
Where every person looks beautiful
An age with profligacy and extravagance
And complete ignorance of the world,
Later when I stepped my foot into reality;
The clock’s hands had taken so many rounds
That a fastest run could not chase them.


I’m tired of answering the same question again and again
I’m tired of waking in the morning anxious
With the fear of rejection,
That travel from bus to interview place seems infinite
With endless emotions heaving up and down
like a tree on a windy day,
I’m tired of living a life that I do not control
I know, after one hour from now
I’ll exist no more,
And this is not quitting
I just want to start it all over again…

My life beneath your lies
Your heart in someone's purse,

Sweet days of mine
creating bitter memories...

Just marking your absence
like a dog marks his path,
on wheels, and poles,
and sometimes on bed also...:)

Walk mildly,
slowly like an ascetic
Like you see the destination,
its shams and pretence,
Its momentary bliss
And the new destination again,

Walk like nothing excites you
Or worry you,
your gnawing past or
hungry present or
starving future,
Pay heed to none,

They will doubt you
Many will cast abusive looks
when you undertake a task
inconcievable by them,
Pay no attention
Move on like you are deaf
Speak not like you are dumb,

Many greats have walked this path
Deaf, Dumb and Blind,
So cut the noise
shut your eye,
This mediocre crowd
is not worthy of your attention.

Move on like an ascetic
Like you know your destination.

The charm has ended,
Now back to reality
But I miss the other world-
that delusional one!
From which I'm exiled.

Cold waves gushing
Making the Night shiver,
Diurnal folks in comfort of cosy beds
dreaming a happy world,
But like nocturnal birds I'm awake
Sitting on a leafless bough;
Benumbed and desolate,
Prying to catch a sight of fire,
In the meantime,
Trying to guard cold with my bare skin.

Whose art are thou?
Who is your creator?
'cause I've traced you in every poem and each sculptor,

Were you in Rumi's mind when he wrote, “we are the mirror as well as face in it"

Or In Mir's when he remarked-
"love is the beloved and lover too"
Who art thou?
Where you dwell?

I've seen you in Shakespearean tales
Are you Rosalind or Juliet
Being the centre of the play who dazed audience,
Or one of the long poetry of Milton and Elliott,

Who art thou?
Where thy home?

Are you Beatrice whom Dante
wrote in Divine comedy,
Or Helen, the unparalleled beauty
Or the Monalisa , a dream that Vinci's brush brought on canvass,
Or Kalidasa's mesmerizing Shakuntala

Who art thou ?
Where thy abode ?

Are you a Spenserian sonnet
Or Donne's wit and conceit?
Is it you who shot former "thousand arrows by eyes"
And became latter's "all states and a world ",
Who art thou?

This world is in you
Or you in this world?

You are art
Or art is from you?

Doubts are in hundred

Answer only one-

Any book I read,
The words I write,
All the poems I recite

In all my night’s dream
There's somewhere I find you embedded in them,

It's like all the great poets, artisans had already known you,
And carved you in pages and stones for me.

So, what? It was the call of time,
The best relations require end on best terms!

This is my home now,
God knows for how many years more!
The stack of books
upright arranged
in the shape of my dreams looks
disorderly and unorganized,
Loneliness in the shape of an injured cat
Invades the room, meowing, every night,
sniffs scattered objects,
And eventually rests in my lap
effusing air of some stale memories,

As the days move on like a tired traveler,
The stains on the wall are clearing
to my eyes,
Sticky notes like land mafias
appropriates space from the wall,
Che Guvera with a clenched fist
returns a red salute,

The 'fist' forwarded memory of past,
and one by one
Dreadful images reemerged in my mind;
Mother in hospital bed, pale and weak,
gasping for breath,
I sat beside her
waiting for magic,
Several breakups
especially the last one
that hurt most
where I choose this not  her,
And last but not least
my COMRADE days
participating in protests,
bearing batons, and living
like revolutionaries
fighting the corruption in
the system,

But now I yearn to be
part of the system,
As this series of pictures end
The motivation I consumed earlier,
watching twenty minutes
long video subsides,
And all of a sudden I rummage the bed sheet
to look for a hidden pack of cigarettes
which I bought yesterday,

Choices change as we proceed on
in life,
I do regret some of my decisions
and regret them badly,
I have cried at night,
Laughed like a hyena,
I'm weak feigning to be strong,
I see many reasons to quit this task
but one that keeps me
going on is the picture of an ailing mother
dying in a government hospital.

If Laburnum is poisonous

Then its herb her kiss,

I could die a thousand times

If death ushers her scarlet lips

"O my beloved, my friend, my compatriot!
Do not betray me being my friend"

Defeat, my defeat,
I accept your jest and joy
like a sports captain accepts it
after losing a match,

I accept it with an applaud
with handshake
calmness, modest smile

But
your mocking smile won't last,
My droughty days will receive rain,

Defeat, my defeat,
The game between me and you
is reaching the last hour.

Walking in the darkness Came the sudden light,
I was astonished
It's she smiling so bright,

Eyes like Sirius star Glimmering below the sky,
I haven't seen ethereal elements
Sitting on earth in shades sundry;

Looking onto me she confirmed
and nod
As if she understood the sufferings I endure,
Her eyes magical bestows grace on whom it falls
Absolves from sins and every pitfall;

Who says, God, rewards grace in heaven?
Mere thinking about her redeems not one but seven, What's heaven, hell or earth
There's no one like her in all universe;

In dazzling beauty
She stood and walked
Forward came and a question shot,
"Why do you live in past?
Why always so secluded
No one in this world is just and placid,
Stop worrying, just live, and bounce
All aloof manners you have to renounce,

Bothering about future
You turn present into past,
This is the trick of time
By which it us devours, "

Saying this she drifted and flew in the air
I asked, who is she disguised in human form
Her abode where?

Only disembodied voice I heard in return
She'd already left from her sojourn,

"I'm an angel of your mother's fairytale
I live where there she prevails,
Heed the advice I gave you
'cause that is what she told me to tell you,

Your lover is tainted; not like God
For the person, you tried to die is a fraud,
Life is to live not to waste for trifles
Men are prone to fall walking on pebbles,
Open your eyes and see
Whatever you want is within your reach;"

I opened my eyes found myself in the patient's gown,
My wrist was dressed
Blood on it I found.

Hope is drying up
Like a Well dries after the monsoon,
Sitting in this room, alone and aloof,
I have counted the stains on the wall,
None of it is more prominent than the
One I have with me, I'm a social pariah,
like an untouchable, polluted with death;
Run, Run away from me,
I hold death in my lungs.

I'm a person in whom you see;
a friend, a lover and a compeer,
The letters you type late night
on keypad comes to me,
And when the power cuts and
your mind starts making phantoms
you dial my number,
Late-night cravings, scholarly discussion,
A video call in the morning,
And on a certain day, a certain moment
I bend on my knee and ask you to be mine
forever. And you, nod in YESSSS!!!!!!

Ah! Love, thou unruly dictator!
I sat to read for exams
instead started dreaming a dream
of some other world.

I'm mad, hopeless, pathetic,
and sometimes sounds creepy too,
But how can I comfort
the sad, deluding, and longing heart?
Is there any medicine or herb?
How can I love and hide the flame of it
from you?
I'm doomed like a moth
flinging myself deliberately into fire.

Feeling down?
Neither thoughts nor pen
taking birth in the womb
of your imagination?

Well, sit and do Maths
And see the magic.
You are more in love with words than numbers.

I'm fighting a war in my head,
Plant few armed forces there too
So that they can separate the infiltrators
crossing the mind border...

The Well of patience evaporates gradually
like water evaporates under heavy sun,
I'm the bird of the Kindergarten books
Conditioned in optimism, 
Busy in throwing pebbles of hope.

Today, tomorrow, or after morrow,
One day or the other,
It'll run dry,
But I will continue
Hopeless and dissatisfied,
Dreaming and fabricating lies to me.

Years Labour
built houses,
apartments,
hospitals,
schools,

It is the same labour that created
Arms,
ammunitions,
tanks,
warships
to destroy the same creation,

Our whole life is paradox;
We live to create
And succeeded in creating
That very thing which
destroys our creation,

In a loop, we're running
Searching and creating meaning,
Taking the help of destruction
we give us the motivation to soak
our hands in blood and gore,

A person lived this life before
He was like us busy in the process
Of creating and destroying,
Our friend! Our Prototype!
Our Sysiphus!

A secret I want to tell you,
that is
You
are among those people
who make
this world a lovely place
by reading only,
Like stars to the universe,
You function the same to poets.

29-03-2020  23:49

Seven hundred kilometre away from my home,
Constant depressing news each morning,
I in this solitary city of Delhi speculate for the future.
I now feel what it meant to be free,
And what freedom meant for those who were enslaved for thousand years,
And why they fought ****** wars to get it.
It was all bestowed on me and now I realize.
Staying home all day by one's own volition
Is not similar to being ordered to stay home.
But why I complain about the necessity.
When Socrates was asked, "What does a man learn in his life?"
He replied, "Complaining, Glaucon."

I don't know when all of this will subside
What and who will be spared to read this, like I used to read
All the ****** wars in history-
WWI and WWII, recessions, depression.
Now I feel the psyche of people after WWII
And why Existential Philosophy evolved from it.

Going out to buy essentials is like walking on a tight rope
only a touch here and there and you will fall in the abyss.
Yesterday, I heard the news, a man locked for two days came
running down the street naked and bit a woman to death.
Will our psyche be affected by it?
What changes these days will breed in us?
The exodus of migrants are walking back to home amid lockdown
and walking not for 20-30km but 200-600km.
The fear not only of dying with the disease but of hunger, malnutrition is looming in the remote villages.

Turn your neck whichever way,
the talks of this disease everywhere.
How did the dark ages fight the plague?
A few weeks ago, reading the plays of Shakespeare,
I read in the introduction
Theatres were closed for two years because of Black death.
How trivial it looked to me reading from the distance of five hundred years.
But now when I see the cinema, parks, roads, rails, airways, closed in my own world-- I feel the magnitude of loss.
Have we really progressed?
Will the future generations will read this the same way I did?
Yes, Distance dampens the magnitude.
It's pretty late now, perhaps I should sleep now.
This quote
of Whitman is ringing in my head--

"How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and re-
ward,
And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same
great purchase."

Good Night!

Whose art are thou?
Who is your creator?
'cause I've traced you in every poem and each sculptor,

Were you in Rumi's mind when he wrote, “we are the mirror as well as face in it"

Or In Mir's when he remarked-
"love is the beloved and lover too"
Who art thou?
Where you dwell?

I've seen you in Shakespearean tales
Are you Rosalind or Juliet
Being the centre of the play who dazed audience,
Or one of the long poetry of Milton and Elliott,

Who art thou?
Where thy home?

Are you Beatrice whom Dante
wrote in Divine comedy,
Or Helen, the unparalleled beauty
Or the Monalisa , a dream that Vinci's brush brought on canvass,
Or Kalidasa's mesmerizing Shakuntala

Who art thou ?
Where thy abode ?

Are you a Spenserian sonnet
Or Donne's wit and conceit?
Is it you who shot former "thousand arrows by eyes"
And became latter's "all states and a world ",
Who art thou?

This world is in you
Or you in this world?

You are art
Or art is from you?

Doubts are in hundred

Answer only one-

Any book I read,
The words I write,
All the poems I recite

In all my night’s dream
There's somewhere I find you embedded in them,

It's like all the great poets, artisans had already known you,
And carved you in pages and stones for me.

Video call?
That too, now?
We should talk first, my love,
on call, to know more about
the human in us.

It's just a moment ago we met
And you insist on leaving this early,
Life has just only begun
Let's refrain from putting an end to it,

I'm lost, my love
Closing my eyes, I wait for sleep...

Ellipses… Ellipses...
Who made you?
You have achieved fame freakishly...
You are easy to put...
And handsome to look…
Supposed to hide
irrelevant details…
Earlier only punctuation mark
you were…
now a substitute of thought…

Motivation is high
A trophy awaits in the end,
I'm like a child in swimming
but I know to flutter my arms and legs,
I'm certain that this won't be easy
But I'm also certain that I won't drown,
I want to live a life on
the other side of the river dearly.