A mutilated corpse in the middle of the city
Frothing at the mouth
A suffocating hostage
A sacrilege
A sacrifice of religious anonymity
You flow and stagnate
Making us all ruminate
What life has created
Is nothing but destruction in its wake

In the hustle of the city
You remind me of pity
Not for you
Not for your desperately dark waters
Not for your absence of tethers
But for me
You remind me how small and insignificant
Is the mind that dares to see
Dares to write
Dares to referee
Against your will to end
No destiny can revoke your decision
No human can make you bend

In your twists and turns
Your tortuitous burns
You are resolute
That the ones who killed you
Will not play the immortal flute
Or their resonating glory
Of conquering what you are

They tried to claim you
They tried to blame you
They tried to reduce and maim you
But from your eternal sleep you may never wake
The city may run
The city may burn
You will support no flora
No fauna
Rest in peace, Yamuna.

Breathe in the rustling leaves
Hide behind the unwanted plants that arise
From the creaks in the concrete.
Perhaps they have discovered a source of life
Far sublime than the one you dwell in.
The wind, the wind,
The wind blows opposite
To where the bird wants to go.
The wind, the wind,
The happy eucalyptus oscillating in unison
Bidding adieu to the birds in flight.
The wind, the wind,
Making fishes out of thoughts,
Myriad corals and hydrae out of trees.

The water tank
Formidable in its all absorbing blackness,
Contains the most lucid, transparent and fragile,
Of man’s ultimate conquests.
Water.
Which drips from above sometimes
When the sky salivates
At the hot porridge
Of a lifeless mess
Beneath itself.
Birds are like kites,
Leaves are like fingers
Dexterously typing whispers
Like signals to the wind.

Limited is the vision
Where we sit now.
Our backs immersed in the restlessness
Of the occasional writer;
Our eyes fixated on the botchy
Grey watercolor work of the sky.
Everywhere we look, wherever we see,
A band of seven colors break the reverie.
The enthusiastic trees type harder
All leaves in the virulence of a martyr.
Close your eyes.
Step beyond the panorama which
Refuses to bare itself before your soul.
Step beyond the boundaries of the visible,
Into the consolation of the miscible
Voices.

Moribund shrubs,
With faces of the half dead,
Half faced creatures of the unformed,
The cruel monotony of their demands resonate
Wildly with the marginalized.
How in their knots and hunches,
Leaves drooping intoxicated
From the light stolen away by
The more representative, the more vociferous,
Lies the silent acceptance of their abandon.
Here and there taller branches,
Crane towards the sunlight,
Hoping for the winds to listen,
Or perhaps,
For the sun to burn them away first.
Old cranes and their ignominious hoarse throats,
Can only coax words that are coarse.

The dull, blotted uniform grey
Densifies at certain places
A somber sleep indulges the sky.
The winds now,
In their frightful fancy
Scour the floor of your feet
Touching you soles,
Your shoulder, your spirit.
But the playful naught of the wind
Derives insatiable pleasure from
Tickling the trees,
Rocking the eucalyptus,
Till the moonlight washes away
All the eccentricities
Of the frivolous day.

After a joyous revelry,
The tree laughs less
The vigor in its chuckle realizes,
That it is time to retire.
The sky rearranges its clouds
To cast a pallor
Loses the yellow
The grey, for a darker, almost impenetrable
Black.
The water tank camouflages
With our beady eyeballs.
The transparent water fills up
You and me.
Our eyes dilate, staring into the sky
Bidding the dusk good-bye.

The forests are deep, dark and menacing.
Distance from the plains are ever-increasing.
A desert of bright sand-dunes
Seeps through waterless moons
And shines a lantern on
The hunter’s myriad faces.

Her delicate self, ambushed behind the glorious paw,
Shivers and amazes,
At the ruthlessness of their trances.
Maudlin over her abandoned demeanor,
The departed herd and their mesmerizing candor,
Shoving away her characteristic mirth and laughter,
She voluntarily slips into
The hectoring trap.
A predator in waiting,
For the hunter’s slow clap.

But,
Man the hunter, must have forgotten,
That a tiger remains a tiger
Despite being overwhelmed, or woe-begotten.
And as he nears the trap he built,
To grind her might and get her killed,
He sees,
The sedentary beast transmuted
Into a monstrous manifestation that lay undefeated.
Tearing their flesh,
Destroying their jejune laughter.
With an attack far cathartic
For them to resurrect after.



Remember, the sun, the woods, the stark sea?
Her spirit embodies theirs,
It is she.
The sweltering sun, the rapturous desert,
Vanquish the chains that had imprisoned
Her abounding heart.
Expunging the landscape of infiltrating dirt,
The tiger reigns supreme,
Glorified in hurt.

When at this seemingly great crossroads I stand
Searching for a martyr to bare his splendid hand,
I devolve and degenerate into
The unspeakable horrors of my mental dynamo.
The unsuspecting spills and splatters
Devour that cone of momentous light,
Butchering all the words that matter,
Fleeting soldiers too broken for a fight.

I saw you yesterday,
Epitome of peace,
Eradicator of dismay,
My inner eye, my soul,
Filled to the brim with condole
You have revealed to me the Universe in Verse.
Darling, don’t call yourself a loathsome *****,
You’re the divine medium that enables
God and I to converse.

It’s been a while since,
My sanity has returned and
Its absence
Irrigates the dusty landscapes of the dark.
The ebb, the tide, the seawall stark
Look fertile enough to dissolve away,
All our nubile tears and allay,
What the telephone or the text message
Couldn’t say.

When sleep crept under my skin,
Like a poison numbing our love with a grin,
Bereaved of my lover I lay defeated.
A solitary portrayal, bared yet conceited.
The evening had caused us to erupt,
Into a familiar wrath, abrupt.


Your poetry was a magnificent, glorious attempt,
To conciliate the dissent,
And ameliorate the contempt.
In me you will find
Mother, daughter, child and mistress,
A juvenile delinquent,
An occasional temptress.
In all these disguises, all these identities,
You will never discover the fragilities,
Of a heart broken by
You.

Forgiveness is what you sell to the demure
For a will to live and the courage to endure.
It wasn’t a cone of light,
You see,
But a shadowy star concealing its might.
In the dark room that had filled my mouth,
You ushered like a beacon from the south,
Resplendent in the innocent purity of existence,
You stripped me of my need for defense,
The morning saw nothing but joy and peace.
Your lovely face, and
My eyes appeased.

I am in love
With the flurry of sunlight that peeks
Through my half closed door.
I am in love
With the scanty breath that escapes
The rise and ebb of my body.
I am in love
With the sullen poetess inside
Longing for a joyride
Beyond the borders of the outside.

You, me, one lonely dog, a shadowy tree and all my love,
Your vulnerable eyes, shy of the distance.
While the sun and the moon
Keeping playing with your surrealist hair,
I swing enraptured
Lost in the glorious mess
That escapes your mind,
Onto the virtual alphabets of the illuminated screen.

You write for me, about me and
In between your blurts and sudden spurts,
You steal my scanty breath away.
And all my passions sing
That it is time for me now,
To be a muse,
For another’s poetry.

I am not reduced, my artistry intact,
Like the giants which breathed and befell.
Millions of years ago,
They married the earth in a swell.
Now, their auburn heat,
Warms you and me.

I think it is time
That you perhaps knew
All my words
Have finally summoned you.

The soft distance between Reality and Chimera has finally disappeared…
The birds have chirped at times,
At others kissed my ears.
I long to drink the nectar from the sky,
The elixir of youth, which the world is too weak to deny,
Beneath the silent walls,
Underneath the burrowed boughs,
Where lovers sing songs and Nature endows
Blessings,
That Man is too ignorant to receive,
In pursuit of all those he must deceive.
Love whispers in broken verses,
Through leaves of gold.
Have you ever been desired so manifold,
That it hasn’t mattered to Him,
Whether your skin withers,
Or you grow so terribly old?
The birds feel relentless.
The ruins are bright and colorless.
If you close your eyes,
You escape again to the world you had left;
Of those just sad and bereft.
You haven’t seen yet seen the domes
That are as hollow as crows,
Under which so many of them pose,
Listlessly like clowns.
I smile at their undying variety.
This cave of refuge has no place for our anxiety.
Parrots, pigeons and squirrels abound
Oh! The timid breeze and its mind numbing sound!
Trees and trees, so gigantic and tall.
When I look from below,
I feel so pathetic, so small.
Yet powerless they are,
Because they have no words.
Therefore all that they can do,
Is agree with the birds.

Love hides like a tiny insect,
Sometimes it flies analogously,
Then it finds a corner, just perfect,
For it to sit down and ponder,
Over all the people heartlessly rushing hither, thither, yonder.
Their hearts are fragile like glass,
So small, so brittle.
Hopes, both large and little
Reside amidst jungles of desires.
Everything is such a beautifully perplexing chaos,
That Life stares blankly, and admires.
The Beauty
The Beast
The unyielding Duty
Of Being, at least.

Look at me rant ceaselessly,
As my heart pounds harder than my chest can take.
You come here and leave immediately,
And the illusion dissolves; is all this just fake?
How wonderful I feel,
No matter what I write.
The world will never give me a seal,
Whether wrong, or contemptuously right.
Music rushes into my ears, flooding my canal.
Words and words, I think and think, but nothing seems final.
Appropriate is what they appreciate.
Everything else is just another reason to depreciate.
You have taught me all the ways in which I am not great.
Yet show me how to stop, and your temples will cringe with fret,
With regret.
Sing unto my untamable spirit, tales of clipping wings,
Or the melody of how a ruffled feather sings,
And I will break it down for you,
All the nuances,
Of our last rendezvous.

Dare to look into my eyes.
Even if you find nothing but empty sighs.
I am not made for your poetry.
I am drained now, reduced to nothing but grocery.
My earth derailed from its dreams,
Crashes against mirrors, stiflingly decorated with cuts molded against seams.
Fabrics, Feelings and Fragrances, all laced up.
Pour me some of that whiskey.
I have no glass, just a small, pointless cup.

The clouds cast a spell,
The subversive winds refuse to repel,
The air tastes of garbage,
Like memories wasted in Carthage.
Before you leave,
Twice you return.
Waiting for your soul,
To respond to the wild fern.

My experiences resonate a cheerless glory,
Centuries and centuries have buried your story.
You raise eyebrows at my unadulterated audacity,
At my feminine body,
Which understands not the limits of femininity.
The sun surfaces on my cheeks
Propelling birds from the corners of my eyes,
The lingering touch of grass,
Holds witness to my crass,
Quenching spirit.

A satiated restlessness follows,
Why am I so ****** sensuous?
Why do the leaves shy away from me
When the sky has crawled under my skin?
Why do the confused clouds and I
Have the chaos akin?

You whisper to me,
“It was a time of beauty,
The pomegranate bright red,
The orange trees made of purity,
Of freshly painted green.”
The children have died,
The grandchildren had defied.
Your love for,
Visitors.
But here we are,
Lying side by side,
Writhing in the mysterious tide,
Of all the flowers that bloom,
In the breathtaking pervasiveness of your Tomb.

Tired yellows on infant flowers
Are like resignation on new lovers.
Rains drop, when the sky blinks;
Fetching tears on abandoned brinks.
The sweaty smell of gestation,
Signifies the mangoes’ manifestation.
I close my eyes and hear
The inevitable drum roll caving near.
Spring reclines under the parapets of roofs,
Crushed like a migrant under our carriage hoofs.
Summer.
The Harbinger of Life.
Possess these seeds and fertilize
Their voluble dormancy
In the flames of insurgency.

Morbid skies
Bid farewell to the clouds;
Catacombs rejoice
As they remove their shrouds.
Slowly silently treads
Night,
Bidding adieu to the fading light.

You close your fearless eyes,
Rest them in your dusk of lies.
I kiss you
On your forehead
The part between your brows
which u said,
Hurts.

And you question the world,
And all that it has ever hurled,
At you,
In spurts.

The waters are dark
Where we are headed.
It's too dark,
To show our spark.

So stop worrying
About the love.
Here we have
Our secret cove.

Where there is no safety
Hold on to me bravely.
Where we are headed towards,
No journey can commence backwards.

I am Home now.
Tear my soul and wear
All your desires out.
My body is but yours,
To flout.

When treacherous storms
Rage against the night,
I am silently reminded,
Of your terrifying might.

There is no protection.
We are all somewhat deaf.
From finding ourselves,
In the oceans of the self.

My eyes feel very vulnerable in the moment just like yours when you glance upon me. Thoughts of you keep floating in this room like ghosts ready to possess me and throw me down on the bed and make love to me. I think I was right when I told you about the wind touching me in all those places which are rightfully yours. The howling, barbaric, digressive wind who takes your place beside me every night and makes me moan as I sleep. Lover, won’t you claim your mistress back from the embrace of the air, from the dead of the night? I breathe. Silent restless sighs. My eyes wander away into the woods of tall words and unguided, lose track of time and disappear away.

These woods are of dark myriad words
With huge canopies and a mossy floor,
And bogs and mires,
And ancient carcasses,
Undeserving of funeral pyres.

A wooden tree house
Lies atop those forgotten branches
Where resides a queer beast
Called “Soul”.
She is as faithful as she is fretful.
She is worrisome and lonesome.
She has few things,
Just some.

Sometimes,
She bleeds poetry.
And the vacuum of her eyes,
Resembles the tinted void of the skies.
The sunlight could flow through her.
Unadulterated.
Untransformed.
And resurrect more trees
From the decaying pyre,
Of memories.

Pink, green, yellow and blue
Are shades of a silent hue,
Who look at her face
And stare enraptured,
At what she becomes.
A terrible travesty,
Yet a beautiful catastrophe.

The wooden walls of her suntorn tree house, on the corner of bamboo wo(o/r)ds are studded with gems of lichen. Damp, ***** and delicate is the green of the Soul. It is unfriendly out there where she treads undaunted and unclothed, sometimes resting her back against the slithering cold of the disquiet walls. All this so she could lick her fingers and touch the raw of her vertebra. She rubs her bones against defenseless bodies, writhing against each other.

Soul
In the woods of words.

Soul
Bellicose,
Domineering,
Salacious.

Soul,
With a potbelly
And a twisted smile,
That could conceive
Insects
As she spoke.

Yet,
Soul,
Who could
Filter
The Sunlight.

Little flowers dot her face. Wild flowers from weeds she would not let live, so she bereaved them of their flowers. The forests throb with the excitement of her whimsy. The sunlight grins remembering all the ways in which her monstrous glory falls apart in front of him and all the places he could illumine by trapping her. He has trapped her into carrying his s(u/o)n everywhere, but never visit. The winds mock her and play with her hair and perversely caress the belly that nurses the sun’s child.

Poor Soul,
Tiny Soul,
So brutally Young.

Angry Soul,
Humiliated Soul,
Disgruntled
And foul.

Her vulnerable eyes wander away into the woods of tall words and, unguided lose track of time and disappear away.

Love,
You have left me miserable.

And,
It breaks my heart,
And inspires
Tears in my eyes,
All the ways in which
I am still
The person
I have secretly decided
To loathe.

The winds
Have travelled in all directions,
Known and unknown,
For the both of us.

Sometimes it has kissed my lips,
Sometimes licked your fingertips.
Such is the brazen insidiousness
That touches our venality.
At all times.

The Stars,
The Earth,
The wind,
Your mouth,
And my fingertips,
Are all essentially,
The same entity.
Decorated in the nothingness.
Of their ******.

The horizon lies asleep in a grey blanket
In a sea of myriad figures,
And an unimaginable silhouette.
The engineering of black feathers,
Sets ablaze hazy azure weathers.
The Art Decorates Towers,
Like giants with arms outstretched,
Look down commanding superiority
Over the volatile beauty of the wretched.

Who branded this Pandora’s Box to be garbage?
Stop turning your faces away
Like this is some butchery,
Or an abhorable carnage.
The dogs have repeatedly protested against the injustice
The heavy wind suppresses their voices and entices
A seduction of inarticulate silence.
Brothers who embrace us,
Have known nothing of such malices’.

Only the birds are left unenchanted;
Because they fly too high to be pervaded.
I hear children’s voices
And mothers’ too,
And taste the flies and insects,
And all the devils they shoo;
Because they understand not the complexities of a civilization,
They have never rendered their thoughts,
Never undergone no filtration.
The unconquerable spirit of this world,
Has made them savage,
Their claws curled.
In the heat, in the light,
In the plight
Which brings the cold night.

The sunlight here is too dense to penetrate,
Therefore it unabashedly spills over,
No opening,
Just a gateless emptiness on which to concentrate,
Lives and lives here,
Forever proliferate.
With none to remember their faces,
And no mortal soul to commemorate.

Dust settles upon the fingertips which talk.
This place is deemed unfit,
Unsuitable for a walk.
Yet birds, animals and humans alike,
Have stated their preference of what they like.
This land is perpetually theirs to ****.
Passion resides here,
In this unintended landfill.