A regal white heron,
a bird of passage
that had followed
it's beloved dream
a long, long distance,
sits quiet unmoving,
atop a flowered lemon tree
on the bank of a tranquil pond
that wasn't known to it before.

Fish, enjoying freedom,all along
play meddling it's reflection
as if daring the heron to act
by trying to catch it's attention.

The crowned heron,
more placid than the pond
on the wings of an elating thought
resumes journey chasing it's dream.

You fond it fit to complain that I am corrupt,
I don't take in to love's current account
your ill formed kisses hurriedly planted
on me,cheating prying eyes all round.

I am meticulous in my account of love, sugar,
look for perfection as much as the talent,
if you want me to sway your side, try this
bribe me with an ****** batting of an eyeleash

You won't recognize them I bet,
your secrets, even in broad day light,
if they walk towards you smiling,
wearing dark glasses to hide their eyes
in a humid day.They now wear clothes
of different styles to take you for a ride,
even cross dress and change the accents,
they play games with your hazy mind
--the secrets you once buried deep under.

They stand peeping behind blinded windows
prowl as shadows soliciting behind half open doors,.

Time flies in a hurry like migratory birds left behind,
you have to strain your ears too much
to hear even the faint foot falls of the past!

Old memories have changed their manners
they try to distract one with invented details
Like the muffled voices in an attic dark,
on a fateful day so long, your old secrets
speak an archaic tongue, that needs to be interpreted.

One has to be artful as the turbaned village elders
who would for your astonishment interpret
the vocabulary of lizard calls, key to nature's intents.

Or the trained eye of an elder who in flashes
of meteor falls, reads the secret messages of universe.
To get a true sense of your own secret
you have to tread the places they hide.

Make them shed their crusted hides
by which they conceal their true color,
which one has been waiting to see,
with a palpitating heart, walking back
to where one walked once, long forgotten.
That is why elders on days of yore
would exhort, embarrassingly repeat too,
not to have any hidden secrets that hurt
even if breathtakingly beautiful like a courtesan.

In some moment one won't  expect
dreadful they could turn and become witches,
with fiery eyes, dreadlocks, and long nails.

Tender,purple,leaves abound,
avenue mango tree adorned,
like a comely bride,
unfolds poetry in life!

Pale moon kept
hiding behind
the thicket of clouds,
being constantly
twisted and turned
by renegade winds

Silence fell
intermittently,
may be after
every defeat
or victory perhaps
depending
on the side,
one could only guess

There were booming
of guns, explosions
sounds of vehicles
rushing to all sides
creating panic.
Pain was the language
cried out aloud,
well understood
At all times
smell of death would spread
like a trail of smoke
from an extinguished wick.
It thickened the darkness
by desperately crying out for light.

"Are we winning or losing?"
a voice in the darkness
in agony whined,
not knowing which way
wind blows
or  when all would
mercifully  end;
that question has
already rendered meaningless
by the reign of dark forces.

Was there a whistle
signifying naught?
a whisper spread
all around like a mantra
"Nada..nada.."

Then came a long silence
nobody seemed to answer
or know what to tell.

Sparrows in brisk flight,
divide, avoid the tower
their reunion seamless!

Last drop of water
quivers 'sorry' at the faucet;
it's my turn to fret.

Meditative fly
sits in a lizard's bull's eye,
deceptive calm reigns.

The haunted place was a taunt to mind,
was wrapped in a different kind of silence
that felt more like an accumulated absence.

Absence spoke in the words
of disturbing silence
or punctuating meaningless sounds,
all of it choked and evoked a
formless presence bound in itself,
without any point of reference
name or connections,
all erased by some quirk
time played on the turn of events.

What remains is an eerie
absence pointing to aggregated loss
which binds the collective will to express
The ghost's relevance diminished
to mere nuisance, nothing more.
This ghost has no clue where
it belongs or where to attach
still it's a faint movement  between
the shadow of absence and a vague desire
to appear as  an apparition.

None other than him
matters here at the noon.
The sun is an out and out autocrat
the sky, he singularly rules,without
any apology to anyone.
He has banished all the clouds;
not even the faint trace of
fluffy, milky  white strands
seemingly unstoppable
till the far horizon.

This is when his hidden
intention to scorch all at sight
is at it's atrocious peak,
which would lead to his decline.

Under the low hanging sky
the earth parched dry,
is a cry for mercy.Sun now is
a roaring water fall of heat
waves lash one after the other.

The village of thatched mud huts
stand dazed, like it's women
in this ascending symphony of pain
not feeling any difference of tune,
this is what it always been.
It's a living miracle, it  still exists
fighting the vagaries of winds and the sun
not willing to collapse as dunes of dust,
which would have been a better solution.

The little girls from a school
the only secret this village keeps,
in midday break pour out
like ants from  hidden anthills,
scurrying to all directions, trying
to cheat the wind spitting fire.

A frail old woman, her skin
sun scorched,dark,
deeply furrowed and folded
a true face  of resistance
life capable of in the face of
the attack of armies of obliteration,
sweating all over, sits under a tamarind tree
all twigs and only few patches of weak green,
cobbling for a living, as if it is her day last here.

Roads keep on teaching us new lessons in violence,
rage is the law ruling the perfectly chaotic traffic
you are left to fend yourself in this murky waters
where killer whales celebrate the success of  blood thirst.

Men who don't properly breath are atrocious on roads
behind the wheels,they jump signals, break rules
as if their poor mamas made them promise to do all this!
a law  to send such cases to yoga class would do good.
But women with bad driving skills as their assets for life
are no less, in making our lives on each journey miserable

In a road where with impunity, suicide squads operate
your poetic musings, will have to stop, to remain alive.

Just then a police car with a roar stop in my front
authority makes me weary but the cop  behind the wheels
a woman, tells me the story of beauty than a cop's authority
on how beauty softens heat that makes muscles go stiff
She springs out of the cabin of the vehicle she is in
making ripples feminine and also ease in the air.

violence of the machines and the minds in controlling,
speed, broken rules and the thrill of chasing criminals
beauty which brings a change where it is out of place almost.

As I drift in to sleep, after a long drive safe,and few stiff drinks
in my dream's window she sits winking,'drive safe all through life'
"Good by my good cop"I whisper "be soft and right,authority is mess"

What is displayed as  reality, imagination or illusion
are stitched together cutting out from the same fabric;
how to make her aware all this is a  seamless shadow play !
She wants him to remember in vivid details, always
'a time that never ever was', but she brought alive breathing life
from bits and pieces she gathers from all three realms at will!

She isn't aware we are trapped for ever in an illusory moment
not there,vanished and gone already leaving behind a ghost
a past without a trace, trapped in the chamber of altered memories,
that hunts the  present, already  changed residence to the past!

A fleeting face to face,
serendipitous,
on a humid tropical evening,
was the first time;
it felt like a shower.

But our probing  eyes
must have known better,
they curtly demanded
one more quick look
as we passed
each other;
we were obedience personified!

Then eyes met eyes
many times by chance.
Two birds of passage
found themselves
preening feathers
on the branches of the same tree
chosen in an impulse,
proved so right!

You sit with your crowd
on the side of a long step
one on the flight to the cinema
a favourite spot I learn, later.
The arrow from your eyes
hit it's gleaming point where it should
with such sweet force
as I come down the steps
and I become  a falling feather.

At the shadow of the book shelf
I find you , a pigeon soft  
sitting at the table across me,
making our lonely hearts
speak in the eloquence
of loud thumps
in enforced silence.

But the true meeting
did happen in between--
in that expanding space
of sweet, sweet silence
within us blowing trumpets!

Your eyes were the keys
to open the door to that chamber,
through the keyhole of my heart,
love bled copiously from that impact,
like nectar, which I was
tasting for the first time ever.

I was a dense forest of untold desire,
Love embraced me as the roaring wild fire
The gleaming embers in your kohl lined eyes lit,
I wouldn't ever think of putting it out my dear
Burning in the sanctifying fire of your love
Chanting aloud the mantras of fire sacrifice:1
Wasn't it bliss itself; a new avatar our love takes hereafter.
The embers are still aglow in this forest's treasure chest.

Staring at his once green patch he stands,
abundantly verdant, made his heart dance
where he should have tilled happily, as he wished
and raised his crops, isn't the life he dreamed?

An abandoned page now, it could have filled
with poetic oozing from the inner spring
when caught between the cross fire unawares
one has to go down and hide under the thickets

His facund red earth  now has hardened like a rock
the rains have abandoned this land for long
still not down,he is  gathering what is left,
wish to infuse his passion in the beauty of words.

Deep down in his psyche a stirr, still he could feel
while waiting for the return of the muse who went
to fetch water to fill her magic pitcher to sustain his crops,
he waits for her to trek back before the winter sun slants

Two tumbling Ivans, at least  in him, exist, he could tell
One is soft, easily provoked to pink  goosebumps, all over
When his lady love comes dancing, in a body hugging dress
There is the well known other,visceral,yes, "Ivan the terrible"
At the eruption of ******* frenzy,he who roars like a beast.

Perhaps few more too are on the prowl, all beyond the pale
If he challenges with a firm resolve,they may show up!

None like her, the twentieth time darling of the Oscar
Still Meryl's esteem, a few thought should be scarred,
"An overrated actor" teased irate Trump,
"expects moolah to wear a dress, show oomph"
In spite of the "Streep tease" Meryle is the undisputed "act-star"

White fizzy
moonlight
overflows.

A loud thunderclap,
inside the womb of the rock,
a diamond sparkles!

Darkness cradles secrets
millenniums keep rocking,
magic of epiphany!

In an old teapot,
simmers the tea of many thoughts,
zen tea for us all.

He dreamt he was Sappho's trusted companion,
To whom she shared her love's poetic lessons.
And then came this moment of revelation;
He longed to be a woman and make love to her.
Things are not as they seem  at the outset,
That part of him madly in love with Sappho"s secrets
Didn't really know is it her body, soul or poetry
That made him go mad with an intoxicating pleasure.

The other part of him in love with himself  more,
Protested"I desire her like a man does a woman"
Love is insane often, it is hidden within the masks worn.
In every passionate love affair, is a river of fire to cross.
Love puts him in a dilemma,without any resolve at sight.
In a life ensconced in fantasy, he is steeped in a  love stupor
If ever he again wakes up, he'll try to make lasting peace,
Slosh in the poetic wine of Sappho and desire her all the more.

A banded garden spider,
an ace sky diver,
                    
                     lands
                           on a
                     lighted spot,
                    shaped like
                           an egg.

From the moment my eyes riveted on you, my painted stork,
I haven't ever seen you separated from your mixed age flock.

I tried every trick in my book as best I could, to lure you,
To have a word in private, but you never seemed to get the cue.
All I could tell you at your earshot was this "Beware, impending
Drought would be severe, fly down alone, in the pond I keep full"

But you still loves to hang out on the trees near the drying  stream,
Though you fly around my fecund pond to survey once in a while.

War of the words from the very word "GO"
was the warming up exercise for more malice,
makes the galleries erupt in rage, cry for more
But the folks that adore  peace is outraged
every jab finds it's mark, squarely on the jaw
making profuse bleeding another spectacle
we reinvent this business  as a blood sport!

Even a  dog eat dog madness grips the arena quick
each vicious animal bares it's fangs, for long in disuse,
get ready to be paid in return,in what you gave first
Raise the war cry aloud,  boys the game is on,
no going back any more, it's fight to ****

Every bit of the act is blown out of proportion,
by the heartless lot of blue eyed boys with lenses.
It pays to narrate  stroke by stroke,pouring oil
into the roaring fire, let it rage the longest period,

Merely the tip of an ice berg, all this you've now  seen
hidden with in the barbed diatribes is lethal  power,
things they hope would get heated too soon,
and would become a full blown "COLD WAR"

It's the post truth world of puzzles and games,
every such story ends in  a tragic twist at the end.
for us it'snot,we need a twist to make us smile.

To comfort me the rain hums a tune
as if she could sense I was feeling down
I get buoyant by the soothing tone,
pick up the strands that once were broken

Drenched woods after the rain has gone,
with the wind,repeat it, but sounds like a moan,
it takes  much subtlety, to empathize, I learn
to evoke sublime feelings that touch and lift the soul.

She was intrigued
by a nameless feeling
time and again.
She had a vague guess
of becoming a pawn
in a mysterious game.
Who could say why she,
or what it all boils down to-

she would wonder
in silence often.

All aglow we were
from the smoldering
ember of love within.
Each felt the warmth
loving hearts exude
when we all were
in an extended embrace.
Then we heard love
singing to us sans words
"None of you would
feel complete
without the others
in this web of love
hereafter"

Alone it sits there,

intensely brooding
on how this evening
would turn out to be;
an elegant, gleaming
thirsting, ****** wine glass
without a drop of wine.

One tiny fiery ant
with a tiny wand,
deftly conducted
a grand orchestra of
ants with varied talents,
resulting in a musical storm,
unheard of in the
craggy ant world before.

The ants with diaphanous wings
smug, complacent dandies
that counted themselves
nothing less than regal
buzzing above unaware
of  this magic electrifying
the land of ordinary ants below,
but had a hunch somehow
wondered:
"Are we missing out
on some fine thing
ants like us should aspire for
or is it just a feeling
without any basis?"

This effulgent, white  cactus flower,
a bright thought, a creative impetus
from an eternal source, ever present
in spite of the  callousness all round,
emerging in the whistling desert of mind
like it happens after a single day of rain
tells me how beautiful things would turn
when within a bright thought blooms
defeating all thorny fruitlessness of life.

At certain intensely
solitary hours,
when the journey
to the center of the self
brings awareness to a level,
where  duality is intolerable,
my bold **** self
with nothing to hide,
haunts the other:
the one merely dressed to ****,
challenging time and again,
for a wrestling match
--a fight to the finish.

The hesitant shadow
of a melancholy poet,
while walking on it's
wobbly undefined legs,
result of light losing to darkness,
speaks to the alert poetic self,
listening with perked up ears,
in a strange dialect of darkness
about 'being in nothingness'

Enchanting twilight hour-this is!
A Tiger spider of lethal
allurement,she is basking on
this hour's sweet ambivalence,
while,drinking me with her eyes --intense.
To be her mere companion
for the  night,or be the purveyor
of delight to her continuing forever?
A choice  depends upon her
kaleidoscopic  predilections,
than me a hunter in a disguise,
a time traveler from far galaxies.

Each night is
precisely set
like a  gem
within  a dream.
Immersing in
the fluid grandeur
of darkness,
the night
swings  around it,
when one
looks back---
the day has
already become
a past dream
in an irretrievable realm.
The excesses
darkness commit
in a frenzy
in the night's geography.
excites me.without an end.
And what the moon
does to annul the
handiwork of darkness too
fascinate me.
Night is the story
of contrary crafts
calibrated to perfectly fit.

You see a lust incarnate in front,
this body I wear is just a flimsy dress
a casual wear for the worldly jaunt,
a passionate lover of life is my role.

With her I daily dance, Samba the best,
but this isn't really me, if you ask.
A passing bird this, a swirl of smoke,
when the call comes to go back incognito,
I'd turn a blue bird, sitting on eternity's branch,
even if you see me here, wallowing in
all kinds of  pleasures temporal,"I am that"

A total renunciate remains awake ever in spirit,
"There isn't anything I wish to posses or embrace
Just an inn for union,I should leave this place soon"

I repeatedly tell myself, as my ancestors said
Lest I forget,"I am that; the absolute which ever, is"
equally fit, am I to sit cross legged
in the rough forest floor and chant
"Shivoham.......Shivoham"1

By and by I'd hear the hum from within
the song eternity gently rings in my ears
my desire runs deep to cut the Gordian knot
of duality at one stroke and be one with the absolute

Sad eyed men, inebriated by pain, unshaven
eyes swollen, red faced, sleepless at night
loneliness perpetual  haunting them like
the ghosts of days dead, in single minded pursuit
perturbed by pains of every imaginable kind
in a devine trance one with dark frightening silence
pouring out their heart in blood dripping details,
tears mingle with words' firepower,molten lava gushes

A fiery woman, though,weak,meek and looks frail,
writes in a fierce frenzy,as if it's her life or death game
there are nail marks all over her emaciated body
as if a famished tiger has badly mauled her.
No trainer of beasts she ever was....
All the living witnesses, her suffering,festering wounds,
a derailed mind,her companion,once in insane anger gifted!

See weeping woman,men in anguish
in the fear of losing long cherished love,  
poring out the lava of fear,anguish and pain,
Wounded men and women with an orchestral precision
write seeking happiness,but in words couched in pain.
And then there is this one;eyes fixed at the  moon,
getting his fix for the day and the fuel for poetic pen!

All of them poets were in a world each of their own.
"Not sane or insane,wildly ecstatic, still in inescapable pain"
the caresses of poetry's fingers result in that,
And look those children running after butterflies!
poems, they would be thinking are colorful wings and feathers.
song,dance,mirth and celebration, alas! it isn't!

A sprightly snail crawls,
etching a message as it moves;
cryptic conundrum.

Your love
sets up mirrors
on four sides
on which I appear
as myriad,
all  prompted
by your countless
eager imaginations.

Like Krishna
at once I dance
with countless
manifestations of you
in my mind,
Oh! my Radha.


Your brimming passion,
in thousand tongues
sings about my love to you;
how can I be mute
not paying my tribute
with my mellifluous flute?

Well,well,well, I wonder
How quickly one gets
attracted to these shells
lie strewn around, colorfully
without any scheme or theme
but in no way  less attractive
yet making naked soft soles
of itinerant feet bleed
if gets closer than needed.

On a desolate beach
like this one here, we stand
there isn't much else
other than laden sand
one can expect to set eyes on
for a long, long time
unless one is counting
the waves,incessantly rolling out,
waves that won't let you do that job,
the way perfect,you want to accomplish.
What would a wave bring you other than
what you have expected always!

Then comes the time to let
eyes wander on to the naked shells,
spread as if each conceals a cryptic message!
You'd never want to know  what
strange happenings they predict.

Oh! Yes! so many waiting in disorder
with that onetime impatience,
inevitable death's thirst display,
now quenched forever and aye!
Now licked clean by sun and waves,
and time's invisible scaly tongue.
that adamantly kept mum,
when one was all ears to listen.

Shell white in an angry profusion
dominates the sea shore
making sand whiteness mean less,
Staring eyeless *****,just as shells
comes in to dreams as pirates
Shrimps, kills and prawns transform
in to ghostly shells cackling in salty winds.
Shells whispering the stories of pain from the past,
Did i hear someone in a frenzy yell
from a mid sea night darkness.
"**** that shell,with the evil memories
of a death,that drained all semblance
of life,that drained all spirit of life.
"Shells go back to your sleep!
From the dream of return,
Prepare for a life allover again".

The evidences all
were strewn all over
the place of crime;
visible to the naked eyes
as if posing a challenge
to the pretentious detectives.


But the adamant
forensic expert on the spot,
sporting thick rimless glasses
wouldn't notice
any of those nonsense!
Those eyes fell
precisely on an evidence
that could have been there,
within the first five minutes,
and constructed what he could
out of those evidences.
(Whatever that means)

Sylvie, I am alone here
doing nothing, except
thinking about you,
in a meditative trance.

It's a beautiful feeling Sylvie
strange, I don't miss you,even!
I imagine you as an awakening  flower
of changing colors and petals
You are in a whirl of realization.

Then a lone tree you are,
near a vast,waveless  lake
what an intriguing  koan,
to churn my inner sea.

You're nowa drifting white cloud
all through the kaleidoscopic shifts
I forget to think,what would I be
in relation with your whims,spectacular


Beyond apparitions, I search for  meaning
that  eludes, as it is fathomless

I hear the song of the lonely star, so near
and realize,"I am the light of the burning star"

Sylvie, I can't remember
neither you nor me exactly
or the distant star that sings
a song in the tunes of light years


You were from the forest, Sylvie
I used to be the mountain wind
that once caressed the forest trees.
Sylvie, we are one; the imagination
of the waves of light, beyond time.

It was too late
to realize this:
all along her boat
was circling
the island of
expectations.
She cuts the knot
at one stroke
and feels free
from the albatross
around her neck
at long last;
her boat like a
unbound horse
gallops into unknown
currents, in love with
deeper sea secrets...

In the paddy field,
I hear a lonely crane cry;
could be ecstasy?

"After mysteries am I, mysterious men too"
together when we slipped away from others
she told me with a grin, evidently hysterical,
it gripped me, for some unknown reason.

"More in to mysteries than anything else"
I gently notified to her  my intentions
"I've never been able to **** a male ****** ever"
She indicated the area of her present  curiosity
but isn't it strange,that she sounded wistful?

If I heard her right,she mentioned repeatedly
about,"The Third Brest,"as if she has a mystery
for me in store.When buried deep around my *******
her teeth transmitted a hunger, and I felt it:
what exactly a mother feels suckling her baby
her heart beat went out of control,I could see
the pangs of child that has never been fed
from her mother's breast, or fondled by her


And the mysterious part of the game
she saved for me was finally unveiled,
                                              my expectant eyes
saw a chest devoid of any kind of swell, except
the memories of the two full ones taken away
mercilessly by decease.I saw blood in her tears.

I save this enchanting  poem
my lonely resurgent lover,
for a life, after this one of
struggle and strife,
I am not sure, when
would it be.
Thrown in to the darkness
I will embrace it's cadence,
with all my being, dwindling, sad
to kindle a drop of light,one after the other,
till the moment of liberation.
A poem to fuel my funeral pyre
to beacon you ,searching for
a music lost, longtime before
forever,forever,forever.

I save this scent,exquisite
wafting in the mountain air,
the vine so innocent
anointed me with
only for this evening
for you to recognize me
as your true beloved,

But I am lost in the thicket
of scented flowers,so sweet
and lost in the sad thought:
"How she would find
my scent distinct from others"

We are cheated by beauty
to which we pledge our
beating heart,without
remorse  of any kind.

Love takes us for a ride
cashing in on our innocence,
making us fools of love's
sweet nothings that
dissolve in thin air..

Still love reigns
craving for beauty would never stop!
we are in a journey from darkness to light.

Two serpents
in a frenzied
mating ritual,
we coil,
one around
the other
within and
outside
winding and
unwinding
heeding to a
command,
mysteriously
received,
ears open to a
music,that play
in a plane
beyond the
realm of mortals.
We are there
on the verge
of liberation.

She lifted me, a feather glided down
from somewhere,lying on the sand,orphaned,
for eons that coiled like a serpent,to escape cold.
She made me feel as the warm part of her wing,
beating in unison,jubilantly on an onward  journey,
to luminous eternity...your abode,in timeless bliss,
that appears in my every single dream...so near!

Eyes capture the darkly sparkling darkness
blobs of blood spreading to the far far  ends
as if pouring from the wounds of a corpse.
Bit of bad blood fast capturing the imagination
of all directions, known and unknown.
**** darkness is pulsating as if alive.
drops of  darkness drip in to the dollop of  butter
melting, dripping down,   the still moon,
A moon one feels never ever has known;
sitting quiet, with an unknown resolve,
she electrifies  the middle of the sky, the wave moves.
Moon light floats and dance  lay siege to darkness,
darkness becomes dumb folded,looses it's steam.
The galloping horses of time pull the chariot
unmindful of moon and darkness ,
silence with spears, standing sentinel.

Looking at your face
is wondering for long,
out of control, too.
and I love you for
enjoying my
moments out of
touch with reality.
You take me
to a space where
you exist unquestioned
by rules of nature.

On the dew drop
a glimpse of the universe


I read you like a book
as the plot thickens
you are a narrative
with many voices entwined,
out of the story's embrace I come
to look at your glittering eyes
and be real, out side the make believe.
I have still many pages left to read,
and in no hurry am I,to turn the pages
every page has revelations of truth I search.

Adorable your fragrance, is,
it infiltrates in to the subconscious
gives me a ticket to time travel
transforming  your fragrant notes
to a  musical composition
a mantra key to eternity's door.

Denying words their right and might
this was cryptically conveyed to us:
a death plan is being  perfected,
the need of the dark hour, for sure!
This extending nightmare we are in
a darkly crafted metaphor, threatening!
Never forget, one is nothing more than
an unflinching  core member of the clan,
standing daggers drawn, waiting the turn
taken  a blood oath of utmost submission.
A 'death plan' sounds sinister,you think?
it's intended, remember as you advance.
The piranhas are the hungriest,
                                                 at this time of the year
 the climate changes sharpen their fangs,
for a killer smile, the vengeance of nature!
Beware the nature is aware of all shenanigans,
the swim against the flow  can go on no more.
Looking for an omen, the dark sun rising
with an accusing finger pointing at you?
At this pirrana hour, let go such thoughts
there won't be such niceties,no embellishments.
Fight your bitter water wars, with neighbors,
in this twilight fast engulfed by a dark night.
Repent for slipping from the ladder of thought,
leading to the pinnacle of the tallest pyramid,
while the rot spreads, when y'all lie, relentlessly
steal or **** to stamp one's victory over the other.