Just when you think
the road leads to nowhere
crops up the moss veiled house

its crumbling bricks make greyer
the sky with the hush of twilight
and you rue with melancholy
the night under its roof assigned for you

but the old man like a seasoned spider
lets you forget you're trapped for the night
to his web spun from timeworn earth
as you stare engrossed upon his face
outlined by glowworm sparks

he recounts it was all marshland
he grew into bowl of harvest
and how he was blessed with
the most beautiful woman on earth
then reaching the crescendo
his words thin into whispers
when he tells you his two poor eyes
were not enough to hold her beauty
so she putting a stone on her heart
spread wings on a night like this

the cornfield wilted
he wizened into an endless wait
with gracious death saving his bones
to lighten his heart to a stranger
who comes alone.

Right from my fingertips
into your smiling face

Dead heads stare from the wall

one can't tell if their glassy eyes
hold the relics of past life
or the sadness of having lost it
to the fires of royal pastime

tiger eyes look pathetically pleading
for re-stitching the stripes on the bones
leopard head growls only in anguish
of his spots being soft spot for target
the open jaws of the croc
can't still swallow the stuck bullet
awed eyes of deer is yet to sense
the muzzle that ruptured its innocence
the jackals, birds, langurs, civets
all frozen in the suddenness of the ***** out.

The hunter's head peeps from a dusty frame
having got his place of pride
among his game.

I hold my ears keen
Keep eyes opened wide
But can't solve the riddle
Of who's on whose side.

Today Tom heaps praise
Showers laurels too many
Tomorrow hell is raised
Tim is Tom's enemy.

How fast makes Tom amend
Finds Tim full of flaws
Pete is now his friend
Tim Tom unfollows.

He digs out wrongs of Tim
Finds him crooked and sly
So inducts in his team
Pete the nicest guy.

I can't hold back smile
Though at end of wit
How friendship is volatile
Sour turns a relation sweet.

I wonder why it's so
With life such a brief ride
We never really grow
Feel the need to be on same side.

A book
Turns its pages
With a soft gentle stir
The flip of the edges
And the sounds that murmur

The stories
Unfolds its mysteries
Reciting the weight of its words
The stops and the lapses
Add intrigue to their worlds.

The end
Like's to be chased down
By overzealous beginnings
The length of the passage
Is the story of the innings