The young mind and
The young heart in the making
Of a life - a green plant planned  
With kindred tree by Him
Into the earthiness of bond and growth
Into a mother out to a friend
Who is farther and a father
But not far from her
The phone brings
When rings, melodies of closeness
And runs a girl
Leaving her bath, books or play;
The water, pencil, or the wheel of the cycle
Rolls down dashing
Almost against a mishap
She has a perfect guess at the caller
And the call and gestures by her hand
To give the phone- the restless, impatient
Need to share forces her to dare
For a dire need of a talk
"Now you come six months have passed
Finish your work soon
You come, the first day you take rest
And the next day we will go to the park"
And so on but before everything the food and
Health and what  he takes and should not take,
Are the words  of a loving soul;
Enquiry and instruction
Remind him of a mother ----
His doting and dead mother
A three- year old, wide-eyed dear deer
While nibbling at the yielding leaves of life  
Told all before he landed from abroad
On his native land, a few years ago
"My son will come today
Women of the neighborhood
Wondrously asked,
"Who is you son, my dear?"
"My dad is my son,
He will come today"—

And his  departed mother
Got reincarnated
Through the daughter's
Prophetic words—

Within and without
Silences shout
At the movement,

The whirling  moment
And the stillness
Of the calm center

Defy the dead hush
And define life’s rush!

Winter brings dry skins and cold winds
Days with dim sun and overcast sky winds
Up the tiny fingertips of memories in a mist
The caressing biting wind close them in a fist
In a remote place nights are wet with moistness
Around the fire are sitting  people with warmness
A young boy amidst is roasting sweet potatoes
In the lustrous heat of the soft ash that echoes
The silence of the moon, a woman calls for the dinner
Was ready  with herbs and spices, they  are the winner
To spread the news of their aromatic win to invite
And sit together and share the innocence and fight
The most innocent and mischievous fight in the world
That was without the lonesomeness of the techno-world
I do not know whether it is a matter of yesterday
Or taking place now, I can feel it but cannot say
It is timeless and priceless does not require technology
To switch it on, glitters always without any strategy
Winter, a dewy bride, brings rough winds with dove
Unsophisticated she may sound, but is deeply in love!

Days go with you and bid goodbye
Hours slide down and die
And drape down
The innocence of the Noun!

With the experience of Adverbs
Of place, time and frequency, the Verbs
Replace the endearing use of Nouns
(Slowly moving from lisping sounds )
To the stable use of personal Pronouns!

Individuality stands alone keeping the Subject alone
Sometimes with a defiant adolescent tone
Distractions, doubts in the use of Determiners
A shaky ground for the beginners!

Disagreement with the Subject-Verb agreement begins
Early during this period and lurks within, and at times springs
With the Nouns like mathematics, rhetorics and news
Without any tension to meddle in don’ts and dos!

What I wish to say in a few sentences
Is not enough about life’s infinite time and tenses!
To deconstruct the grammar of growing up is not enough
As adolescence is a diamond in the rough;

It is a living discourse; both simple and tough
Ironical, unpredictable, surprising, puzzling stuff
Needs patience, pardon, perseverance and fun
To handle its substance for every daughter and son!

Yesterday I was given the document
To get the air ticket issued
From the airline office
For my return home,
Still a couple of months are
Left before I could see the
Native soil where
I left a small plant to grow
To be raised by an affectionate heart
And disciplined hands
The plant is trying to touch the sky,
Selfless, now he prepares for
His homeward journey
Packing the scattered feelings
In a suitcase, putting the packets
Of cheese and cappuccino instant coffee
Three-in-one, the daughter, the mother and the father;
The sweet sugar, the milk of kindness
And the tough brown granules, refreshingly stimulating
By the mere presence -
All mixed in one; powdery, emitting aroma around
The small beautiful flower in a *** in
The small apartment in Mumbai,
Where the sea beckons the sun
To meet above as clouds
To rain on the plant whose leaves
For a photosynthetic feel
Of the green color to grow and glow
The plant standing  near the window talks to birds
When the birds ask her, "What you want from the sun,
Beautiful dresses, shoes, toys, cookies and candies?"
The plant replies, "I want my dad."
"I want my dad to be with me
And share as the sun shares
The rays for the vigor of the earth."
"I do not want anything else
But his presence like the sun."

Dolphins are like a violin
In decoding messages
Without fail and ready in
With love, joy, help and salvages
Human-like they are
Superior in melody they are
Dolphin-like we should be
To spread bonhomie
On land and sea !

Birds sing and fly
Flowers smile
Rivers flow
Mountains invite
Rainbows bend in
Seven colours
Sunset and sunrise
Do not amaze us
With their beauty
Their beauty
We do not care
With them we cannot pair
We do not have time
To stand and stare
At them to feel
And heal our broken selves
We catch them
In our cameras mechanically
Showing off our taste
In a haste lest the time
Should pass between
Our fingers stealthily!

We are busy fighting
Over a dead carcass
We use all our might
To prove our commonness!

While Nature laughs at
The grotesqueness of humanity
Its song, fragrance, breathtaking heights,
Soothing colours that might bring sanity
Are squandered and drowned in the rites
Of violence engraving epitaphs at
The doors of suffering humanity!

February dreams
Of its own buds blooming in
May smiles from the far

Silence speaks loudly
Heart is a river in spate
Boatman oars the song

Streams of consciousness
Reverse of passions and ideas
Past is a peacock

We should celebrate life, not in segments
Not in periods and slots, not in fragments
We should celebrate life in sum, in totality
Leaving behind hatred and jealousy,
Going ahead with grace to face death
To fight poverty, deprivation and dearth
Of resources for the less advantaged
And the physically and mentally challenged
Or it is the same year with euphoria
With false rhetoric and phantasmagoria
Let us be good, simple and wise
Let us face tomorrow’s sunrise
With a wish for peace and harmony
Don’t sell your soul for tonight’s cacophony!
Love and joy, peace and harmony
The world needs more than acrimony!

The old man without wrinkles
Was playing
Patience
Spreading his cards on the bed
Talking to himself
About his moves
Engrossed in his own world
Of cards and advancing years

People are going and coming
Through his room
Not the least bothered
He is busy with
His outer world
He is not waiting for
The dead end.

When his cataract-operated eyes
Will be tired
He will express his desire
To sit in the veranda

His books and a dictionary
Will be put on the table
And he is seen engrossed
Again cut off from
The outer world
Immersed
In the world of books
Sometimes he would lift up
His head smile and look around
And again go into his self-created world,
Today I read a status on FB
About the legendary cellist,
Pablo Casals who used to practice
At the age of ninety; and beyond

I find similarity between them
Both of them are making progress
In life, defeating despair, it seems
Shutting the dark thoughts
From their inner worlds

Last night
I saw him in my dream playing
Patience and l heard
The distinct strokes of bow on a Cello

And now I woke up
With awe at the way
They were not
Actually waiting
But celebrating!

We are three waiting
For the event to begin
Two are peering over
Their android phones
And I started
Writing a poem
With pen on paper
The talk ensues
Covering the Wi Fi
And now I could hear
Clearly the fingers
Tapping the messages
I too am busy
In a way lousy
Engrossed in poesy!

Love loves to be
Plain, simple and free
No hide and seek
No doublespeak
And word play
And no delay
In breaking
Deadly silence
That is humiliating
To sit on the fence
And sing a song
And play along
The margin
Just imagine
Love as a bee
That stings
And Sings
The pain
Simple and plain
Loves love to be
A sweet gain
Of sweet loss
Of me in we
Where love
Loves to be!

MA
(M)eaning of life you
(A)ssured  and imbibed

MOTHER
(M)eaning of love you
(O)pened to us all
(T)here you were
(H)indering the worst and
(E)mpowering us with care
(R)epeatedly, tirelessly, tenderly

MOTHER (your )
(M)easured life-span
(O)pened only to fifty summers
(T)hen you departed,
(H)ealed,  and a  soul,
(E)mancipated by the pain of
(R)uptured mortality

MA!
(M)aking us all distraught
(A)nd dumb!

Life, a dream unfulfilled,
Years advnacing
In their stride, reaching  the end  
With a tottering  gait--

Or a dream realised
On an empty canvas
When the years themselves
Are beating the hasty retreat

Leaving the body paralyzed
Unlatching  the gate, releasing the soul,
A blessed prisoner
Of hope!

Life, a  journey within or
Without, a destination
Or an inevitable cul-de-sac
Reaching, yet not reached

Whatever it is
It goes on
Images emerge and merge
Of those met on the way

In the ocean of memories--
Searching for meaning
And substance,  you
Seem to be glum and dumb!

You stand and wait and ,
Pause to think about
In the middle of the road,
"On The Move 'Man, You Gotta Go"

The best time
For the fight
With oneself
Is when one is left
Alone waiting
For a weighty
Task to do
But you pursue
A little segment
Of the time free
And you never know
What to do
Then you woo
Yourself  in an accent
To reinvent
And  to  be(e)
The addresser
And the addressee
By taking
A selfie!
(And by talking
Through a selfie!)

The tiny leaves
Have made a yellow carpet
From their fall (they do not know);
We are walking on it
The crunchy carpet,
Every step is answered
With a crisp reply
Straight from the crunch
Experienced through life,
Lived  through all weathers,
Has made the fall so light and brisk!

The Dawn opens
Her wings and beckons
To fly with the rays
Of the benevolent Sage
Leaving behind the gloom
And to meditate on a fresh bloom!

Conscious of time flowing
Every second, breathlessly
Swimming in the river
You live a life!

You cannot retrieve even
A fraction of a second of life
From the falcon's claws;
It was his favourite fish caught
From the river flowing,

You flow with the river
Look ahead, beyond the horizon
Not at the time dead and gone:
The fish hung in the claws of the falcon!

But you can mesmerize the falcon
Charm him to perch on the paths
Where you can sit under the shade
Of trees and feed them both
With the morsels of your imagination!

In the dreams nurtured
During the Day
And in the night  
Birds of hope soar up
Take wings from the dried branches
With their hearts sore
For far below near the roots
There are leopards
Controlling their flights
Playing their roles
With their fingers in the holes
On the flutes of freedom.

The sun rises from beyond the hill
Acts of human ignorance and ego ****
The false confidence that is built
By the cliché-ridden parties and the lilt
When the days trot and the nights sob
For their children’s youth and future
When the chants of Happy New Year
Reverberate the false echo that goes
From the emptiness of hearts that knows
The hollow promises will soon die
Under the weight of cries and sigh
Caused by the fire of roaring guns and
The washed out footprints from the sand
Of the time passed will remind
Of the time present (and of a future not so unkind)
For an atonement for what we call
The New Year though we always fail
To see that we make it as it was before
By our indiscriminate acts we adore!

And we fail to see in our dream fleeting
The sun rises while we are still sleeping!

Home...world...and 'that vase'
Mr. Larkin I am not feeling sleepy
Even books fail to bring that balm
Excitement and  a sense of wonder
Perch on my eyebrows
Pecking at my pupils
Picking the pulling past,
A catapult-a ball of freedom,
Between the index finger
And the thumb
Is caught...in the grip of Hope!

I was caught
“In a new look!”
The first day at work!
He said, the courteous friend!
Even before he captured it
I was there, stand (ing) still!

The waves
Are not seen,
Under the veneer
Of a toughened smile
The centre is learning to be calm
As I keep dates in my palm
And move on…

I am
A spider
Like you
Weaving
Filaments
And filaments
And I am
Out of chaos!
What about you?

Poems come of sailing boats
On the rivers of ink,
- of pens skiing on
Papers in the icy nights,
- of guns firing bullets
On ambiguous foes,
- of brains brimming with
Gales in dark forests,
- of hearts filled with
Heaviness and loss-
I don’t know –
I know this much that
They ooze out from the pores
Of the whole being!

Innocence
Growing up
A foil to,
Frustrated
Experience
Both stride
Side by side!

I am
A bird
Without wings
Soaring up!
Perched on
A bed
In a room
With a closed window
Flying at my will!

Am I
Whiling away
The time
Postponing things
One after
The other
Making lame
Excuses
To my
Lethargic self?

You stealthily tip toe

Into my consciousness

And throw your smile at me

Gently, gently, gently

Smear my face with its fragrance

And all the lies

Of the world

Get demolished

Like a sand-castle

And we in a catamaran

Of you and I

Sail towards eternity

In dreams we meet
On the lotus leaf
We sit and float
Round a castle remote
Rooted in a moat!