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Jul 2016 · 370
Love Business
Bharathi Devi Jul 2016
I don’t like this love business,
It is not a fair game.

It takes one to fall in love,
But involves two in the equation;
And, requires only one to call it quits!

It happens in an instant,
With your head not anywhere in the picture.
And, when one walks out,
It takes a life time to mend your broken heart;
Of course with the full help of your head!

© Bharathi Devi
Jul 2016 · 806
Without You What Do I Have?
Bharathi Devi Jul 2016
Without you, what do I have?
In you, my mind has settled,
In my eyes, my dreams are imprisoned.

Day and night, in unbearable anguish have I waited,
But, just the bitter pain of separation, you have brought.
Never did you see what my heart yearned.
When all I wanted was light from you,
It is only darkness that you have filled me with.

Open my inner colors with your ray of love,  
And bring hopes of life into my barren heart.
Release me from this anxiety by unchaining me,
I will have a new life with you,
I will see a new world through you.  

~ Translation to English by Bharathi
From Kannada: "ನೀನಿಲ್ಲದೆ ನನಗೇನಿದೆ?" by M. N. Vyasa Rao.
Bharathi Devi May 2016
Love did not come knocking on my door
Asking my permission to enter my heart
And live there rent free  
By pushing other occupants out.
If it had, I probably would not have allowed it.

Love did not come asking my permission,
To allow you in my life and in my thoughts.  
It just entered my mind like a wild fire,
started  destroying my other thoughts
And monopolized my life.

No, I did not have any say in this
Whole business, else
I would have researched, as usual,
And done a thorough thinking
Using my logic and reasoning;
And, I’d still be free of all this pain.

©Bharathi Devi
Apr 2016 · 670
Don't you recognize me?
Bharathi Devi Apr 2016
Hey you, don’t you recognize me?
I am the same old person you used to
know a couple of months ago.
I would not come grabbing you,
Or take things for granted,
If you just smiled and said hello!

Just because you suddenly changed your path,
Without turning on any indicator,
Don’t expect me to so quickly break,
Change my gears, switch on my turn signals
Take a U-turn and drive away;
And forget that I ever saw you!

© Bharathi Devi
Oct 2015 · 478
A Ghost of My Imagination!
Bharathi Devi Oct 2015
Once upon a time, not long ago,
A seed of an idea flying from the land afar,
Took deep root in my fertile imagination!

There was no reason and it was no season,
But the seed sprouted and thrived!
There was some sunshine and some rain,
Enough for it to grow wild and wide –
But, the climate was not meant to be.

It engulfed my existence,
disconnected my reasoning,
It was self-sustaining!
I was basking in its beauty;
With its branches spread all over me,
I couldn’t see the world outside.

Then it started withering and dying,
For reasons I cannot explain.
The sunshine vanished,
Raindrops evaporated.
It took a while for me to realize that
All I have left is, just
A ghost of my imagination!

©Bharathi Devi
Aug 2015 · 470
Mirage
Bharathi Devi Aug 2015
Mirage it was, I ran behind it.
Locked the logic and reasoning,
yielded to my stupid heart!
However much I tried to reach, it alluded.
But, I could see it beckoning.
As I ran towards it,
it was running away from me.
Finally, it just vanished,
No more visible!

I agree it was a mirage,
But, why did I fail to see it before?
Next time, I will lock my heart!

~©Bharathi Devi
Aug 2015 · 995
I will carry it forward
Bharathi Devi Aug 2015
I can say I will climb the highest mountain for you,
But the highest I have climbed may be my neighborhood tree!
I can sing I will swim the deepest ocean with you,
But I always swam at the shallow end of the pool!
I can say I will run a marathon with you,
But, since I always walked, I may continue doing that.
I can say every day I will write a poem for you,
But, the last poem I wrote backfired magnificently.
So, all I can say is if I started it, and if you want it,
I will carry it forward as far as a human like me could…

©Bharathi Devi
Bharathi Devi Jul 2015
If only you had given me a chance…

My dear friend, if I can call you so,
If only you had told me what was on your mind,
On that day when we talked and walked,
If only you had told me what bothered you…

From my side, I have always
respected and admired you, for who
you are and what you have achieved.
I know I can be a pain in the neck!  

But, may be my memory is fading,
I do not recall doing anything to hurt you,
Neither do I recall you asking me to get lost!

I would have appreciated the honesty,
Which I am sure you have in plenty.
It hurts me more not to know than
being treated like such a sorry *******!

But if it was something that I could have clarified,
In my own clumsy way; I am just wondering...
How would it have evolved?
If only you had given me a chance…

©Bharathi Devi
Jul 2015 · 708
2015 Love Story
Bharathi Devi Jul 2015
This is the year of Pluto-Charon love story!
Separated by an unfortunate event,
they have been gravitating around each other,
by the barycenter for billions of years!
What a love story that is!

After insulting Pluto, we humans
were curious as to how he was taking it!
Travelling billions of miles for more than nine years,
we could not believe what we saw!

Happy in his own region, Kuiper Belt,
Pluto is more handsome than we imagined!
And, more romantic than we could fathom!
He, with his Charon,  and their four children,
are all together, will be that way,
for billion more years to come!

©Bharathi Devi
Jul 2015 · 832
Modern Love
Bharathi Devi Jul 2015
Hey, when you sent that LinkedIn invite
I was impressed by your profile and
couldn’t resist but respond.

Then we became Facebook friends and
Took our friendship to the next level.
Texting and Tweeting brought our hearts closer,
Romance became inevitable.

Now that you are so close,
I cannot but envy your smartphone.
I wish I am that screen that
You still stare at, even when
we are with each other.

I wish we could go back to the olden days,
When the lovers lost themselves
In each other’s eyes, in each other’s arms,
Sitting on the beach facing the sky
Merging with the colors of the
Setting sun, with no mode of modern
Communication, but our five senses.

© Bharathi Devi
Jul 2015 · 661
Ode to my love
Bharathi Devi Jul 2015
Once I fell in love, deeply, madly, and crazily!
My head told my heart, I had lost my senses!
And, I agreed, for once, with my head!
I thought the other party also had the same feelings!


But, then every time I approached,
I was bounced out of the court, like volleyball!
My head kept on sending alarms,
But my heart would not listen!

May be I was wrong! Perhaps I was a fool
to believe that others also feel as intensely as I do;
For I noticed that I was being ignored and
Avoided, mostly during all this!

Slowly, my heart realized that after all
there was some truth in what my head was saying!
It recognized that it was not a ball,
Rather, a temple of love that needs cherishing!

Perhaps I was wrong! Perhaps it was just my imagination!
For if there was love, we would have come very closer!
Whatever it was, while it may still be crazy,
My heart refuses to be a ball anymore!

©Bharathi Devi
Jun 2015 · 367
Stealing the heart
Bharathi Devi Jun 2015
Dissecting the phrase 'stealing the heart'...
Not sure who coined it first,
but it sounds like accusing the other
for our own weakness!
Don't you see?

Sometimes, we fall for someone,
deeply and madly,
when the other party is not an accomplice!
They may not have a clue or
they may want to avoid us like plague!

But, then every action of theirs
gets filtered by our own interpretation,
and we let the **** of our affection grow
and eradicate anything that is ours;
even when the other party did nothing wrong.

Finally, at some point in time,
when the fog lifts and we realize
we are buried deep under our own doing,
we blame the other as
stealing our heart! Really?

©Bharathi Devi
Jun 2015 · 517
Morning Visitor
Bharathi Devi Jun 2015
Half awake, half asleep,
I was into my second cup of tea,
immersed in my newspaper in front.

Suddenly I sense something on my side
Panicking, I pulled myself out of sleep,
only to witness a small spider bungee jumping.

My brain was still booting from the sleep,
The operating system hadn't loaded yet.
So, grabbed a paper and sent it flying elsewhere!

** ** **...it laughed as it vanished,
No clue when I will see it again, Hopefully,
Next time I meet, I will be fully awake!

©Bharathi Devi
May 2015 · 300
Unspoken Love
Bharathi Devi May 2015
That moment just froze and suddenly my heart was stolen.
I only remember your eyes again and again,
And, that confident voice apologizing for the crash.
Just a second before, I was sensible and logical,
And since then I am pursuing the impossible.

I don’t know why it happened,
But I had fallen steep down the precipice of love.
I don’t know how to realize this unreachable dream,
Nor do I know how to get out of this sticky depth.

I miss you terribly if I don’t see you a day,
Parting in the evenings is really hard,
Just like the setting sun when the day bids farewell;
I wait eagerly for the morning to arrive.

We never have spoken since then; not even a smile.
You look up, or sideways, or anywhere except me when we meet;
I freeze in your presence and words just melt away.
But, I know you must have heard the music of my heart.

© Bharathi Devi
Bharathi Devi May 2015
The cool breeze tickles my face,
The sun plays hide and seek.
There is peace in the air,
A quietness that precedes the sunset.

Most of the young baseball teams
Have already left or, are winding up.
The young basket ball players are still busy
Running around the hoop and throwing the ball.

Walkers and runners, people with strollers
Are all there going around that mile long track,
Surrounded by the tall Eucalyptus trees and
Curious squirrels and the dogs that chase them.

The usual Latino picnickers are less in number.
Some are still barbecuing and eating on the benches.
But there is one group under some tents,
Singing with an all female mariachi band.

The same dog walkers that I see every weekend,
With dogs on strollers, in their backpacks, and walking on their sides,
Are having an impromptu meeting with a bunch of their tribe,
With their dogs eagerly expressing their opinions.

There is a Dance 1 show from Redondo,
With the young kids showing off their just acquired talent,
Dancing asynchronously, but trying their best though,
Sometimes, stopping and watching others.

Batting cage is still active, the clunk clunk sound
Adding background music to the park.
People are still sitting around the pond,
Ducks walking eagerly around them asking for food.

There is a group of people busy eating,
Perhaps members of the "Bigger than the Big” club.
I watched curiously about their transition
From standing to the sitting position.

Shadows get longer, sun is bidding farewell,
Dance team dismantles its stage,
Young dancers with wild hopes,
All start walking towards their cars.

©Bharathi Devi
May 2015 · 243
Falling asleep. Or, is it?
Bharathi Devi May 2015
I lie down, drowsy and dreamy.
At last, I can sleep today, I think.
My I/O system is about to shut down,
I am about to drift into the dreamland.

Suddenly, a thought surfaces and takes control.
"Remember, you have a leg pain,
that kept you awake until after 12AM?
That was yesterday and days before that"

My brain wakes up and tries to feel my leg.
"No, it is not there! Good! Let me go back!
Or, is it really true? Let me check again.
No, it is not there! Yet! Still! Or, is it?
Oh, now I have! Let me be sure!"

I start turning left and turning right and
lying flat! Now, all the thoughts are up!
The things that I did and should not have done!
Things that I did not do and should have done!

Lost dreams, thrown hopes, hurt feelings,
changed paths, twisted fate, my life until now!
All of them surface at once,
and dance before my eyes!

©Bharathi Devi
Bharathi Devi Apr 2015
I surrender. See there, my white flag,
Flying high? Yes, enough! You win!
I cannot interpret the mute language anymore.
When you shift your glance every time I see you,
Are you telling me you have moved on, or
Is it that I have done something wrong?

So, tell me, what is that you want to say,
Or what is that I need to know?
I am realizing more and more that
The signal processor in my brain is faulty.
It is introducing a lot of noise, so much so that
Fourier Transform gives jumbled frequencies!

Communication either in English or
my mother tongue Kannada, or even
the math symbols or Venn diagrams,
-bits and bytes also would do if not hexadecimal-
may perhaps tune my dud brain
to the right frequency to receive the right signal!

For, I may be causing more damage to us both,
And I certainly do not wish to hurt anybody,
Least of all, you, who I like very much;
I will do anything to set the things right!
So, tell me, what is that you want to say,
Or what is that I need to know?

©Bharathi Devi
Bharathi Devi Apr 2015
The day my heart hijacked my brain,
I fell very deeply under your spell.
Since then, till the day you parted,
My heart was busy freezing the moments.

Paths crossing and the paths parting,
Strangers to each other before and after,
The only moments recorded with time stamps.
In between, they are just snapshots, or short videos.

They keep erupting incessantly,
Reminding me of the days when
My brain was yelling at my insanity, and
The heart kept on ignoring that loud noise.

Now, it is the heart that has been defeated;
It is still not ready to be ruled by the brain,
As every moment it is reminded by these snapshots.
Nonetheless, the brain is trying to help it heal.

©Bharathi Devi

— The End —