curfew relaxed, now-
voodoo in yellow, purple;
"we'll be fine” birds chirp.

The little one is excited, on this prospect,
imagines herself as a fortune hunter,
sifting through the thickets of poem trees.

Her teacher has promised to give one credit each,
when ripened to ten , will gift any kid a chocolate fudge
with peanut butter frosting, if they could bring fine metaphors
unharmed and wanting to fly, on their wordy wings
for the teacher to examine and find it fits
and pronounce it passed 'the healthy metaphor test'.

"What if the other kids too set their eyes on
iridescent metaphors I woo and net?"
she asks with a mix of innocence
and a kind of poetic worry  in her little eyes.

A fine feathered partridge she is,
he listened to her moving tale.
A game bird, pathetic, but
her story has holes, he  easily detects,
yet he  sat through, willing to believe.
In the middle of contradictory attitudes
now he wonders, how strange is this
willing suspension of disbelief!
This is how tragedy creeps in,
right in front of one's  opened eyes,
yet he is with her, ready to buy  trouble.
A fine feathered partridge she is.

To her he was love personified, sweet lover
but if you think there ends his troubles of amour
you need to read this narrative to the end.
He would make her bathe in cranberry juice
and feed her the juiciest of peaches and plums
from morning till night, if strawberries and
luscious mangoes become too much for her.
She made him read poetry aloud till their
hearts break in sweet pain,Sappho's poems made
his eyes moist, but she cries aloud, often inconsolable.

At one point fed up being his lap dog
she attacked him tooth and nail, still her love intact,
showering kisses all over his naked chest down.
He laughed taking credit to be the cause
of her true enlightenment,letting her to be herself.

Night was spreading her venom in their veins
and it started to show it's effects as animal instincts
the tigress in her woke up, stretching to full length,
stared at his flesh, hairy broad chest, athletic legs, and groin
then after the play thoroughly exhausted and drained
she rolled to the other end of the bed, the monster
named angst keeping awake in the darkest corner
taking in all  with fluorescent eyes, sprung up on him
bit, scratched, mauled and wounded, as much as it wanted,
he was dazed, didn't scream, fought bitter tears like always.

1.
    Stupid  white cloud!
    no self preserving
     instinct,
    fallen in to
    dandy wind's callous hands,
    joined him
    in his  jittery dance,
                shredded in to pieces
                within no time,
                spread apart,
                pathetically spun around,
               dissolved in to the blue expanses,
               without a trace;
               not even an echo,
               of  her remembrance,
               is left behind.
                       2.
              Selfless white cloud,
              no ego left, to mar her
              spotless form,
              no urge to exhibit,
              dissolved in to the loving hands
              of winsome, breeze,
              in an ecstatic dance.
              Slowly dissolved,
              in bliss,
              became,
              one with
              the universe.

While asleep, happily in dreams, we carry
a new world of invented reality;
when awake, we weave  around us, another dream
and forget it is invented, unlike the time of dreaming.

No other pair of lips would ever so deftly express
the lingo of love, my lips would covet, each passing moment,
no searing kiss ever sent waves of tumult, more than your's
that to my blood, spoke in an unequivocally bold tone,made it boil in lust,
heaven is not just a figment of imagination, as skeptics would tell us,
when we met, nectar secreted every moment, how would we forget?
Never would I let you leave my heart, you robbed,at the very first sight.

Rain clouds, swirling emotions, crowd the horizon,
mind is taken over by wistfulness, sitting on her throne
of pain alone,the poet cradles her heart, to a trance she slips,
wings to a world, everything is possible----

melting heart's alchemy, builds a metaphoric edifice
she wills to live in it incognito for ever
none will discover this secret unless rarely an intrepid reader
without even knocking on the door comes in
perhaps, if a sweet suspicion arises, when resonating
with it's ambiguous core, and gets  a mute invitation,

the poem now is a lit house, in the pitch darkness of life
two inhabitants with different visions choose to live,
this house of metamorphosis, with increasing rooms
gets more visitors, who come and stay, at times they wish.

times invariably change, visitors swell or become a trickle,
the house well founded in the strength of a metaphor is alive,
around it's fireplace generations would huddle, find solace,
they hear the beats of thunderclaps and songs of pouring rain.

Perfectly
               curvaceous,
every bit
                    luscious,
dripping
                     Juice,
for us,
                     on the precipice
mutually
                        salacious,

She ate first,

Then I
           joined in
            relishing
                        every
          ­                        b.i..t

Mighty wind, for all your mysterious intents,
you seems to be many to me , not always so kind,
lover of fecund earth, you caress and kiss her often
brother of water and fire, you take them everywhere,
space and you are hand in hand, you are one and all!

The flowers you kiss, gently scoop the pollen away
put it in other blooms, that for long dreams fruits.
With the trees, women with unkempt matted tresses,
you play pranks,tangle them all together,in a moment.

Up you blow the fine red dust , on the winding hilly path,
conjure up psychedelic patterns, on the air out of misty dust.
You, like a dog rushing in to a flock of sheep, chase clouds
frightened they run helter- skelter, bleating thunderously aloud.

A playful kite, at your assault, shoot upwards like mad,
many in one you are, each different as you sashay forward,
and then, the passion ebbs, spirit dissipates, you seem kind,
satiated and quiet, tip-toeing like an alley cat, seeking a home.
Mighty wind, with a lasting bond with nature's elements
one with fire, water and earth, oh! how you sweep through spaces!

In the gondola bobbing above the waves she sits
like an apparition drenched in  golden morning light
he wishes to elope with, to an island distant
hoping to live there for eons, till they grow very, very old,
defying death that in many forms
they know for certain,
will chase from behind
like a vengeful hound

He sings a barcarole.
to mislead miseries and death,
that fallows, she weeps,
oh! the sufferings love brings to them both!
yet their hearts were too pure, always rejoiced.

The song he sings is on sacrifice for love
on lovers defying conventions
together they ran away to a far away place
but sweet love sometimes brings them
to sudden turns , cruel some times,
they lied down their lives, felled by swords,
for raising the banner of revolt, in the name of love.

From her eyes tears flow uncontrollably,
she sobs, as of it happens to them,
the song, nears it's end,
he is stunned by her overwhelming emotion,
does it portend
something bad?

His barcarole comes to an abrupt end,
what does he see ahead, a volatile crowd,
what is this commotion all about,
would someone please tell?
Are they waiting for the lovers with drawn swords?
Love has found martyrs, unfailingly once more,
Let the waters in this canal in Venice, be red again.

A funky, spirited patch work kite,
acting heroic like a resolute knight,
on an adventure to prove it's might,
across the tallest sky scrapper flew past.

The edifice, the true epitome of pride
of the city center,was clearly aghast!
thought itself as a marvel without rivals,
never would concede defeat even to clouds,
dismissing them flippent,not permanent,
was crest fallen,and dull, at once,  weighed down
quite a bit, then the panic button was switched on.

A Heartless act
                                         #
   I let you put your signature
                       in my throbbing heart,
how could you heartlessly erase it,
               unheeding my pleadings and part?
                                                #          ­  


                                                              ­                    **Wistful thought about the one who left
                                                          ­                                                  #              ­                                                   
             ­                                                                 ­      Without a word, she left,
                                                           ­                                       her soft whispers still reverberate,
                                                    ­                                   would she remember our days together,
                                                                ­                                 I realize, her silent presence was my succor.
                                                         ­             #

There is grief in every page staring at him,
now it's the eyes of a destitute, a child
starving for a whole week, totally dazed,
as her family runs for their life through
dark alley ways, to escape the guns firing non-stop
fighting somebody's nonsensical war.

There is grief written in dark letters in every single page.
his eyes stumble and bite dust, refuse to move ahead.

In protest he closed the book abruptly,
sat bitterly brooding for a while,
then an urge made him delve deep
in to his muddled red lake, troubled psyche,
after a swim he hears a voice clearly say:
"How could you avoid pain, marking it separate,
and embrace all the rest that are  your favorites,
when you are the wound and the knife in karmic cycle?

Shedding tears, in no way should make you less,
isn't it the moment one becomes more humane
it sows the seeds of empathy, more than any time,

There is no doorway not darkened by the cloak of death
and not trodden by the firm foot of grief,
as the Buddha once said to a woman,
who wanted her beloved resurrected"

As he reads on, it becomes a race away from pain,
which reigns, all realms of human life;
he gets agitated, calls the author a deviant,
hankering after miseries, one would rather not set ones eyes ever.

"This dear reader, is the life we live in this planet,
a dance of black and white from start to finis,
none here has the right to dictate terms
in worlds real, imaginary and that of dreams,
accept grief as a lead player in this stage, on whom
the progression and movement of the story is pegged"
The author is beyond the pale of emotions, in total balance,
just a compassionate gazer he is, in to the crystal ball.

Yes, there is grief in every page, his painful heart couldn't delete,
even with a stubborn will, it remains, a dark pool of ink growing big,
it makes one sad and happy in turns, transforms  wiser at the end.
Grief in every page, it's the truth deeply imprinted about the  book of life
needs to learn to brace oneself every single step, that's how the story moves, as each act progresses, grief, poignant and cleansing, changes  hearts,
with its saltiness, makes the bread of life tasty throughout.

the night
had many eyes,
and spoke
in sounds that
a kid would be
interested.

the boy was
fascinated
by the secrets
of night.
but they told:
"don't keep awake
or look through
the window glass
you would hear
frightening voices,
and  animal sounds
of many kind.
                        ghosts,
                        wan­der
                       at night.
so, sleep
safe under bed sheets
but night
the enticing witch,
with long dark hair
that cover pretty much everything,
came near the window
and asked
"why don't you
open  the window
and see my garden
full of magical flowers"

the stars were happy
to see the child's face
they smiled,
night
looked happy in this turn,
they spoke in a tongue
understood by one another.

the boy was happy that he has nailed the lie.

"they said, you aren't nice,
eat kids,
i don't believe that now.
they don't know a thing
i love night sounds;
so soothing
like mother's heart beat"

the kid loved to
sleep near mother
listening to the beats
of her heart.
but  they said,
it was bad, he has to sleep
alone, even if he wets bed.

Then
he heard the ghosts speak
in gobbledygook
that  made him
uneasy and confused
when listened
it sounded like the
squeak of the moving  bed.
                             to the edge
                              of the room,
                              he tip-toed,
                              and peeped in
                             through the half closed door.


" a secret world was opened
in front of my eyes"
he later remembered
though the significance
then eluded him.

there was a dreamy light in the room.

two figures, clothes shed,
were in bed,
trying to overpower each other,
with a kind of ***** greed,
that was all he could then think,

then the scene became tense,
one got up on the other,
trying to get in to it,
"ghosts! they eat each other"
the boy thought with disgust.

he tip-toed back
to his bed,
and pretended dead,
to avoid the eye of ghosts,
as he was admonished,


and went to sleep,
to the tune of the lullaby,
the bed moving in unison,  created.
                  OOO

The river flowing through limitless space,
milky infinity of the sky-
originates in the cosmos.
Surging luminous consciousness-
that vanishes in to mysterious dark places-
beyond the millenniums of light years,
no one can ever comprehend,
takes other forms or formlessness.

We aren't separate, intricately waved in to one,
we have wings in our beings,
to fly, transcend,
and exist, in formless and abstract state of bliss.

*Pain, darkness and heart breaks, are
just within this plane of dreams,
Beyond this it's only life, and light,
death doesn't exist.

Her red luscious lips,
 repeat his name in whispers,
          such exquisite torture!

In this layered darkness,
deaths are mere numbers
carelessly scribbled on
a blackened wall, unnoticed.

Grief is left out in the open
like orphaned children,
no one bothered to count
as it has no significance.

Isn't it  meaningless
as darkness festers still.

Every war claimed won,
leaves behind heaps of
mutilated corpses, that
in nightmares of living,
get up and walk speaking in tongues
with blood letting bodies falling apart.

So many concealed graves are
camouflaged, hidden from the eyes
of the people,whose time is precious
to waste  for such things as war crimes.


But these blackened graves break
the hearts of countless families,
where laughter dies for ever,darkness stalks.
Faceless loved ones of the killed,
widows and children uncontrollably cry,
cursing their lives  for this walk through the dark.

Every love life is an invisible bound book,
of many stories of pain, recounted in tearful details,
not easily erased, but much more lives are forgotten,
like cattle killed during long season of celebration,
when people eat, drink, and make merry till they faint,
sleep long hours to sedate their consciousness heavy
with guilt for what they do repeatedly, remorseless.

Every **** too wants to tell it's story to us loud,
my eyes trained to span galaxies light years away
weren't good seeing the flowers,on weeds for long,
then an unexplained  lightening connecting all cells,
flashes within, I turn back and see things in a new light,
those blue and yellow flowers kept hidden by an invisible
blind,smile with a joy and it brings anew a  vision of beauty.

A flower is a flower, even if offered by a humble ****,
like the words I heard spoken from a sleepwalker's lips,
with a less emphatic tone smeared with dusts of dreams
still I hear it's heart beat, a cadence so exhilarating.

Every rice plant in the field, drooping in the heaviness
of ripened grains, is muted, the wind that caresses both
are equally cool,benign; every **** wishes to explain,
so I won't miss their music, even by some chance did misshapen.

In a vast canvas, human mind could never fully conceive,
life is unfolded as a moving picture, a chain of events-
intricately webbed, beyond the capacities of calculation
of even the most sophisticated super computer,
when the story proceeds act after act, note without fail,
a fog, descends from nowhere,  one even fails to notice its role,
it cleans  up the canvas, for the movement  forward,
without any order, dissolves part of the canvas in to the background,
don't expect fire works, thunder or lightening always
the fog that makes the marked parts disappear, keeps its mystery in tact,
there appears a wound somewhere, blood spurt,
then without much tending the mouth of the wound closes,
perhaps a faint scar will be left, but no one will notice,
life and death close each other's mouth in a conspiracy of silence.

Rows of trees burst out,
Symphonies of violet.
High notes of fragrance.

I wanted, but then
         she was more insistent,
I showed her the pin,
         with it's globular head
and pointed tip-
         evidently keen in intension.
She was bitten by the bug,
        "***** me hard with your pin"
she said,
         i got it,..the blood..
nobody was around that lakeside,
        at that time.

I saw three drops of blood
        on white satin.
I didn't stop,
        her eyes were butterflies
flitting around  white satin,
       and the blood-letting pin.

White night, frothy light,
Moon wears a mischievous smile;
Take a deep breath, wait!

Three poems, wet, gleaming and not much left for imagination,
in a deserted beach, collided with a prankster wave, mad after poems,
the lithe one, went up, up, like a kite, the shapely one tickled the eyes a bit,
when came face to face, and the hefty one went down like a rock.

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"

Non stop time-space tango.
Five senses twist and turn stories!
Retreat to greater time.

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.

Dear star, neighbor of my broken, but adamant  singing heart,
All I wished here in this life disguised as a journey man
Trekking through the meandering wild, forest paths,
Extended moors and misty, dangerous marshes,
Was rooted in the faith that we would meet and connect
With our inner fire and get to gather together our band
The cosmic adventurers at large,each in a disguise  willed.

I kept on searching for the parchment, the papyrus scroll,that has
The secret missions of our lives encrypted, in an ancient script.

Yesterday at night a thunderbolt told the truth,like in days of yore
In pouring rain standing on the river side,wonder in my eyes,I got
The glimpse of a cauldron, floating down in the surging current,
That has all the answers we seek all though this journey fantastic.

As if by magic, or is it a plan we never know the karmic reason,
The scroll of papyrus came flying and sat on my hand, like happened
To many before us, I am sure, and I guess, knew nothing to do with it .

Come home soon, let's learn from this scroll of man, who we are
And the cryptic code  will tell us our kinship with all lives around.

In this hour,
you are my lover;
purple dawn,
awakened sun,
drifting cloud,
chirping bird,
a silent poet,
listening to it.

In this hour
you are my lover;
moon beam playing,
on waves in water,
the silver  fish swimming
in languid surrender,
deep down under.

Every single moment,
you rule my heart;
song bird minstrel,
beyond compare,
sitting on a perch
in eternity's garden.

He captured their love
in essence, in an intense
moment of joy
within an oyster, in depth
for keeps;
secretly hoped
he would adorn her neck
with it when it ripens
in to a pearl, so brilliant
transmitting the rays of love.
A monument of their
devotion to love.
Days
like flocks of white herons
flew to far poles,
ravens of dark nights went
to far horizons and came back
without fail.
Sea change makes Tsunami
strikes in human lives,
she never found her way back
to their love spot
to bill and coo and dream
as before and drink moonbeams
together for nourishing love
as she promised him before.
The oyster he kept safe
in a secret corner of his sad world;
whenever he touched it
it was a moment of pleasure.
Then it became
an irresistible urge to open it
and caress the pearl,
the reminder of his love nonpareil,
though failed to spread wings.
Eager were his eyes,
for the only consolation left;
but he feels cheated once more
on seeing a drop of tear
the size of a big round pearl
tasting salt of a love gone bitter,
dark and brooding, like her heart,
inside the crumbling oyster of his soul.

Wanton lad, tamed a bit by time, is still game for anything,
the girl, sober and cool decided she too for once will fall in line,
the waterfall, a quaint sight, foamy, milky flow gushing,
ecstatic, they melted in  the pool at the  fall where waves  are churning

Learning to write letter "B"
my little son tries, I curiously see
to get in to its spirit so abstract
through its concrete form,
by finding an analogy-
he could relate well and not forgotten easily.
more like a bee using wax to make a shape it likes
and then seeing it as the hive he wanted to make,
watching him I think, as his cute hands draw
the twin swells forward, with such interest,
eyes for a moment glint, as if to say" yes,I get it"
"Look dad, isn't it just like milk?" he exclaims!

I know 'milk' is  the word he associates
with the source of milk, from the days he was breastfed,
"B'with its shape  fits the bill, to be treated with love
"B" he finds reminds him the milk of mother's love.

Happy aren't you, on what you see here,in  my humble garden?

Life isn't always a garden nice, for some never,one would think.

It would seem a field ravaged by the vagaries of nature,

Even if you try to keep it as the apple of your eye.

Crops get uprooted abruptly,field gets waterlogged,slushy,

Yet you find a far corner nice,clean and dry,a wonder, right?


Sit down there for a while and meditate on such,wonders,

That keep our boat afloat, during the times of uncontrolled floods,

I do that when I am elated, while feeling down and hapless as well.

This world, is created to be good and generates happiness for all.

That's what my dad taught me as we would play hard to get

There and attain goals,without hurting, the  others who compete.

"That" he would insist ,"is the spirit, to be nurtured always"

But then we changed,ideas are now different,we need to speak.

On taming our wild ways,by getting in to the lap of mother nature.

Resolving differences is  a step forward, bad Karmas  left behind,

Every moment of meditation,makes mind a still and clear lake!

"From darkness, lead me to light, I'll gladly share it with others!"

When the light enter in to the sanctum sanctorum of tranquil mind,

What more one would need, isn't living that experience  bliss?

Minotaur man,  
             marries
                      mermaid beauty;
marvelous
            asymmetry,
                      of spectacular
                                    proportions.

She would sit with me,
holding my hand-
at scary moments;
when i stand on the brink.
Walked beside me with firm foot steps,
when i trudged slushy paths,
and  treacherous mine fields.
Her watchful eyes followed
when i climbed steep heights,
told me all that to be said,
the way she only could,
She brought me in one piece,
out of nightmares,
her gibberish endearments
gave me goosebumps,
none did ever see her cathartic dance
with me at times, i needed her most.

Secret lover she was, i thought
of my haunted soul,
how would i know
about the curse
that made her so, for ever!
Burned out and down
her i addressed each morning,
as if she can absolve me from all my sins.

She would remove hemlock, from my blood,
this life has made me drink,
to corrupt, and eliminate;
inch by inch,
sink my beleaguered ship.
She made me forget a love gone sour,
she'd take my hand in hers and kiss it till i snore.

She soothed my mind finely, more than any shrink,
her peppermint lips tasted, witchcraft and spice.
She was the only one who knew my secret,
at the dead of night, in clouds
when moon stealthily hide,
I change and become a werewolf.

A mad dog of a wish, selfishly
made  me take  that false step,
uncontrollable by my wish, i spoke forbidden words.
The spell was broken once and for all,
all i could remember was her heartrending sobs,

I stand here,
at my lonely window, overlooking-
this city of forgetfulness and pain,
in wicked words challenging me
to meet her again.
O