My sweet Helen,
this is heaven-
where stars dance
and angels sing:
"Its coming,coming"
your face
in happy contortion,
is a study in contrast of,
Nirvana and transience-
moment after moment.
I ride the white dragon,
diving down through clouds
so sudden!
Helen's heaven
one is the other
for the time being.
Thundering sweet silence
then-
same affirmation again,
a ladder however long
would never reach heaven,
my sweet Helen.

Mostly after seven, she trudges back from work,
like a ship badly wrecked, towed in to the dock,
"Perhaps dismantling is the only option left"
she bitterly muses, waiting for him with a glass of wine.

"Getting out of the office" he laments over the phone,
"is crossing a wire fence with electrical charge"
work never ceases, nor day and night, clearly demarcated,
avarice of the corporate is  sticky dark tar of night,
spreading beyond the borders; like workdays it extends.
Become difficult to keep head above the waters,
swelling every moment.
One works like mad, as if there is no tomorrow worth the wait,
and it goes on till the moment one arrives at the dead end.
The more one works like a dog, the faster ends up
as a dog in the manger, but who cares?

Yen to make profit touches the sky,it's demands insane,
the urge to  **** comes, when pressure mounts
and deadline comes close; during a presentation late night,
he watches with insatiable urge, two ***** eyes
go down and ****  his tender erogenous spots
that's when mind in slumber shakes the body to its roots,
"She'll be at the end of her tether" a thought goes home and recoils.

Life is a flashy party, jaunts to strange lands are the ***** high,
children, not even in thoughts, the time to count ***** are far,
when the latest model car arrives, the neighbors are in awe,
but soon, the vacations become a pain in the ***,
conversation with her becomes labored, mostly nods and grunts
"What's wrong with you?"both shout at each other at once,
that makes them laugh out loud, child like they are in fact,
what a predicament is this, laughter and sob are no different!

A dangerously close shave life is; full of nicks and cuts,
quick fix ***** and walks on the brink are routine.

When he gets in the room she sleeps alone,
she tells someone over the phone aloud:
"I am badly ******, again and again, literally I mean"
life of a nerd and a techie, celebrated pair, envied by others
has this as the foot note, after rows and rows of success.
"Why me?" they both in their lonely beds in adjacent rooms
Yell to the Gods at the top seats, staring at the white ceiling.

1
   **My dad suddenly walks in,
  as if nothing has happened,
   and he hasn't gone anywhere, leaving
six of us behind, notwithstanding-
all these years of absence and
pain unimaginable that changed us all
to see life in a new light that gets dim
without the lamp he held in front of us.
       A shadow transparent gets in to the room,
he stands near mom sitting inside her cocoon,
lost in an ancient evening, pensive, forlorn
as if she feels an absence, tangible right there.
Dad's absence stands silent, perhaps
curiously looking at her with loving eyes
that's how he was, after a period of absence.
The pantomime, tears my sense of reality
                   in to shreds, I sit upright,
with my hands pressed against my palpitating heart.
Do I see it really or hallucinate him looking,
wistfully at the coconut groves dancing
beyond the extending rice paddy billowing,
in front of our farm yard, sleepy these days,
for a moment I think time has
taken liberty to flow back
and everything is right there
where we'd love it to be.
             2
The absence was a hollow,
in the middle of everything,
breaking the mirror of reality
in to smithereens, the dark space,
in between sprang-
opening its mouth to swallow,
wherever one turned,
it stood in front defiantly,
posing a challenge at times,
it came behind hollering noiselessly,
bringing unbearable memories,
from moments hard to forget
spent in his company,
in my palmy days of yore.
                    3
Absence was fire within,
that needs no fuel to burn,
flood waters without a source,
that can wash away,
till one becomes nothing;
then little by little,
one comes in to terms with the absence
and at last it too is laid to rest,
and that eats a part of the soul,
causing bleeding in slushy green,
transparent white and blobs of sad black.

They both wandered in to the night,
unaware that the other one too,
was in the dark labyrinths prowling,
itching to bury so many lies festering,
painful it felt, not even letting the stars
know that what it meant for their love,
that was a wild red flame creating hopes of permanence.
the stars twinkled above with fervor
night was the marsh, convenient for them to hide
every dead dream deep in to its slush, the past
but they knew this night, they would never walk past,
the stench of dreams forcefully buried would haunt
even if they pretend everything is pushed
too deep in to the mud and they are clean hereafter.
when they came out one by one, unaware of the other
drained and ridden by anxiety-
a pale moon was waiting for them to reappear from the quagmire
on her face was a quizzical look,
the moon has her rays driven deep in to their darkened psyches
yet he thought his secrets weren't exposed,
he sat looking at the melancholy moon,
and sang that song that pleased his love, without fail
it sounded like a ritual for the dead ones, dreams in fetus.
then, she approached on tiptoes as if she is a form of death
out to steal unfortunate lives
they stood face to face, everything was revealed,
the cadaverous moon looked on them both
they were felled as if eaten by past, a sleep that will never let them go.

“Haha! Dangling by his shoelace
- ******* shoelace - from his ivory tower!” Oh, **** me,
Priceless.
Watch - his hair is plastered spiderleg across his brow
His fringe as bland and tasteful as his alopecia will allow.
“The ******. Never took a little pride.
“Come on, don’t give me that. He never tried.”
And now he stands, and laughs, and someone’s died.

He stands
A silhouette against a lifeless flat expanse
His flaccid tallow-yellow hands clasped awkwardly across the rails
The skin is white beneath his nails
The fear beginning to ferment
His shallow-knuckled grip indicative of lunatic intent

Intent to finally insuate his end into the books
To compensate for all the awkward silence and dead looks
Insinuate himself amongst indifferent carbon molecules
His skin and sinew separate from all the inconsistencies
Immortalised in asphalt now
A martyr on the asphalt now
Away from death and listing eyes.

She was a weird slipshadow of a girl
All churlish silences and artless gloom
She’d come to realise herself before her waking time;
Lost happiness in periodic tantrums and cold looks,
Ate little, and immersed herself in books
Found solace in the solitude of sparsely-furnished rooms.

She knew herself too well - she took her flaws
And scrawled them on the wall in solvent ink
Her logic being that her social standing
Was diminutive
And nobody would truly give
A righteous ****, should she be found
Floating face-down, amongst the bullrushes.
Perhaps there would be solitude in death,
Solace in God.
Because it’s ****** to be free,
And that’s too sad.