Yoke smiles
And twinkles from the eyes
Blend them together
Whisk, whisk, whisk
Till it all bubbles to
A perfect frothy fluffiness -

Heat some love
And tender words
Add fruit of human kindness
Mix, mix, mix
Some rinds of laughter
Blend it all well, in folds

Cup this
Into lightly buttered hands
Of giving

Then warm the heart
And put it in to bake

See happiness rise to a perfect gold

A simple recipe - the soufflé of life

Crisp outside
Molten and soft happiness within

Heavy chested I breathe
as the moon whitewashes the night.

The season is changing
and in the wind is the vapor of hyacinth
in the thick of which
the glowworms drink the nectar of night.

They have no philosophy and I have many
like while they dance just for the sake of life
my mind enveloped in obscurity
has shackled my feet and clipped my wings.

I wonder if the glowworms have a mind
that knows when they dance
they have an audience.

Maybe the stars know the same way
when they twinkle.

‘What a piece of work is a man!’
………           ………
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust’

From Shakespeare, through Hamlet
It rings down to generations
And falls heavily on my ears too
In vain, I attempt to probe into the mystery
Nay, the enigma called man
Both in the silence of my solitude
And in the learned circle of pundits

(Fool…..
Unable to find who you are
Can you venture to say who the other man is?)

Man is a jumble of contradictions,
I know….A hard nut to crack!
So unfathomable, so mysterious
At once a Satan and an angel

To the outer world I am someone
But in the well guarded cellars of my privacy
Aren’t I different?
Hiding my innards to light
As every other man

At times, I feel so proud
Excessively in love with my own image
Like Narcissus, the poor hunter boy
Fated by gods to languish
On the bank of a pond,
Over his own floating image!

However with all my strength within
Do I not feel as helpless as Prometheus bound?
Waiting for a Hercules to come
And save me from my plight
If Prometheus’ ******* was God willed
Mine is self willed…! Is the difference so very crucial?

Sometimes I feel I am Janus
Looking backward and forward
Into my past and my future
Never living in the present
Or am I more a Sisyphus
Eternally rolling a rock over to the hill
From where it keeps falling down

Sometimes I wonder
Amid the splendor, do I not starve?
Like Tantalus of Greece in the pool
Beneath the tree, with the low lying branches of fruits
Constantly eluding his grasp
And the water, ever receding before
He could take a drink!

As a poet how I wish I could
Equate myself with Calliope
Carving my mind on the wax tablet
With stylus, my pen and coloring it with my fancy
Or Orpheus, so skilled in music
That with my sad musings
I can make even Hades weep
And the rocks fall in line

I shudder to be a Medusa
Turning everyone to a stone
With my sinister glance!
Instead, I want to be one of the Graces
And never one among the Gorgons

Pitched in this gallery
Of queer mythological entities
I wonder how I appear to others
And whom I resemble more!