Flickering candle light, braving wanton winds,
adds an unexpected melancholic twist;
a losing battle against formidable odds ends.
Though meant to make us feel romantic
even at the worst imaginable end chapter of it,
a doomed love that made moon beams burn,
itself bogged in morass, caused volcanic burst
in callous minds that walk backwards in time
who did everything to stop us dead in our tracks.

I am not blind not to see the quivering,
drops of tear, in your once much adored eyes,
I won't see any more after crossing this point of no return.

Doesn't this look like the perfect **** they had,
a story, in the middle brought to a deliberate end;
we can't stop it anyway, except acting out our parts
that we didn't see us doing  til this moment.

All we could do is this, give a loving burial
to this doomed love, let romance be the theme ,
in candle light we'll quietly cremate it, may the  remains of it,
ashes wind scatter,be the salt of the earth, for ever.

hill  
                                               ant hill
                                          an ant hill
                                      a perfect ant hill
                                 a perfect ant hill it was
                               a perfect anthill erected
                        a perfect ant hill erected at will
           by ants and ants and army of disciplined ants.
     ants of many kinds, sizes and colors erected an ant hill
the design was grand, nice to look at like a cathedral,functional.
we love the ants for being so versatile,co-operative and creative
Do ants possess minds, ability to think,organize, put decisions in to actions?Or do they just have an instinct,prompted by nature, how do they receive it?Even if we are yet to find out such secrets,many of us are skeptics."All this is like the crawling leaches, inscribing  letters on smooth surfaces, inadvertently" they vehemently argue.And there remains the million dollar question,seeking answer:even tiny ants,could make millions of their ilk do amazing things, why oh! why, the most intelligent of living things, at least replicate the feats the community of ants, at a scale, proportionate ?If these disciplined insects, in spite of their small brains could be a great example, why can't human's be like them, behave more responsibly , take charge of their own destiny, construct, not destroy. Every ant hill in silence, asks us many questions,  we walk past pretending that we heard nothing, that could disturb our peace.

In your name, my country, I write today
For all the voices that cannot speak
For all the voices that are silenced
For all the wailing children unheard
For the mullahs and the pandits and the priests
For the politicians and the newsmakers
For the consumers and sharers of “news”
For all the women who bleed onto to the dry earth
For all the animals who are tortured
For the weak who toil in the burning sun
For the strong who drive their air-conditioned SUVs
For the singers, poets and artists
For the farmers, masons and carpenters
For the babies who will know only this way
For the old who remember how things were
For the ones caught in between
For the children and women *****
For the rapists drunk on power
For the believers and the non-believers
For all of us and all of them
In your name, my country, I weep
In your name, my country, I hope
In your name, my country, I believe

Walk with me, with calloused feet and weary eyes
Walk with me, through crowded marketplaces
Where they bargain over the price of love
And bodies are sold for a song

Walk with me, dusk is far away still
Our anklets are shackles, our souls a shroud
The market is a sea of sharks today
Their gleaming, moist teeth threaten and lure

Walk with me, my love, my heart, the air in my lungs
Let’s breathe freedom one last time
Where the tinkling laughter of a child is still heard
And the nights are still scented with jasmine

Walk with me, as our prices are fixed
For the sway in our hips, or the curve of our lips
Walk with me, dusk is approaching
And the auctioneer’s hammer is about to fall

Quickly he picked up
keenly examined
and seemed to admire
the handy penknife
with sharp blades,
quite functional,
she hurriedly pulled out
from the clutch she carries;
she was searching
frenetically for something
when it inadvertently
showed up, she deliberately
didn't pay attention
to his expressed curiosity,
yet her eyes adequately
answered his loud
unasked question.

In words he didn't ask WHY?
though it echoed in his eyes.

She eloped with my heart,
I am told to wait until dark.

Lazily I sit naked on my favorite  carved antique chair,
by the writing table, fully immersed  in Kamsutra zen,
the randy one barges in, with a smile,euphemistically reprimands:
"Man, have a heart, your ****** is being unfairly wasted again"