She was stripped and ***** before millions,
       but she made herself believe it was not us but few aliens;
why else do you think she stands ***** gathering all her resilience,
       to provide us food, oxygen and shelter throughout the four seasons.

Every night, she wonders about her fate at dawn,
       Would she be able to greet the sun with that lazy yawn;
Her mates are dead in a battle they had forgone,
       Now, she awaits her turn, death is pleasing than being forlorn.

Consumed with fear, the leaves once fresh, now greyed and withered,
       She is too pained to decide whether to fight or stay a coward;
Before the first cut of axe, she asks “what have I erred?”,
       But we have long since lost our sensitive hearts, her cries are left unheard.

What goes around comes around, do we realize that?
       Every tree lost makes the world less amiable to adapt,
having brutally sinned, are we ready to face the impact?
       Our acts let them bleed; now let’s get ready to don their hat.

We can’t give birth to a battalion to fight the nature’s army,
       Coz our Hitlers and Napoleons are no match for their blazing heat or tsunami.
These are conflicts, which cannot be resolved by a bishop or an attorney,
       we are adhered to doom when the nature says “the war is between you and ME”.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time
is now – a Chinese proverb

As a teenage boy I used to fall asleep at night
listening to the graveled voice of Ernie Harwell
fashion for me word-images of the exploits
by a band of superheroes called the Detroit Tigers.
In those semi-lucid moments before slumber,
I could see the shimmering outline of my destiny:
you see all American boys are meant to be Tigers.
So imagine my confusion, when I fractured
the right talus bone my Junior year of high school,
even putting on weight around the middle,
where no athlete worth his pin stripes would gain.
My karma had begun to take on mass.

I began to acquire knowledge, as the only perceived defense
against some parallel universe impinging upon reality.
Oh, I had everyone convinced, even my keenest teachers
believed I was destined to make my mark in scholarly pursuits.
But no one saw the crying ego of one meant to be a Tiger,
nor how that bottled up the emergence of the Man.
Never reconciled, the Man curled up in fetal dormancy.
Lifespan became synonymous with interstellar drift.
And every encountered star of knowlege was dwarfed,
having long ago collapsed of its own gravity.
Still the heavens of knowledge are auspicious,
so I looked outward, when all the answers lay concealed within.

Only as my life left the outskirts of occluded reality
did I then begin to inherit from my instinctual id,
begin to listen to disconsolate internal voices,
who had known me all along, perhaps better than myself.
The thing is ... the stage has long been set on middle-age,
what props lie about are encrusted with patina,
laden with a dust impossible to gauge or preempt,
made worse by the lack of cast, save one.
Neither Beckett, nor Pinter, could have absurded this.
So, when my acts strike you as quixotic,
when I cut with a penknife through propriety,
it's because I finally remember what it meant to be a Tiger.

White,naked,realizations.
A moment of breaking dawn.

Today
Two bright slits
of blinding light
pry open
these tired kohl-lined eyes
smudged black.
Javelin rays
trespass fences of barbed wire,
her mascara-ed lashes,
playing fortress to
teary lakes
of dreams and lullabies.

Though yesterday
She lay
so breakable in his marble arms.
her porcelain breast,
her delicate heart,
so fragile.
His breath on her neck, cold,
colder than December ice.
Alcoholic kisses
slow anesthesia in his eyes.

A cascade
of ebony curls
darker than the midnight sky
holds a constellation
of beauty spots.
But she
holds her universe,
his face
between her tiny palms.

A pair of snow white wrists.
His fingers,
long shards of glass.
A single teardrop on her cheek,
pale moon,
the consequence of a million scars.

One afternoon after
Two thousand years of unending strife
Three stubborn blades
of a forbidding ceiling fan
Orthodox curtains,
and the guarding yellow walls
were joined
by a mirror
too shy
to watch,
her indiscretion,
his blatant lie.

My lover's scent is nothing like the sun;
for the smell I long to taste is no longer
carried through the air
when his shadow flashes.
It is left inside the man whom I adore;
whose laugh is gentle
and smirk is no boredom.
His cheeks are as red as flowers can be;
his lips thin: a sensuousness men around me
bother not to have!
His growing legs are bare, full of whiteness
as a source of light
in the menacing dark of heavenly blackness.
His lines are coloured with warmth,
succession, profoundness, awe, and aspiration;
his breaths charmed with haste; lust;
and mature melodies from the song
I played.
His arms sturdy and robust and adorned
even when he is pained; pained by the faint shades of love
who dies in winter and wakes every summer.
But his eyes are heartbreakingly enticing;
such a lure on a fragile Sunday afternoon;
when the first glimpse of him was taken!
I will be yearning,
in my every following heartbeat,
for meeting him again..
Even in a world where everyone perished,
my lusted passion for him would never cease to exist..

O! How I long endear myself
to thee,
in the urgency of my desire
to yield to the mercy
of this faithful destiny!
As soon I am about to commence
my new course of journey,
embracing the heath on the hills
and the dark of the mills
looking for wholehearted sincerity,
healing my long-lost gaiety,
prudence, and generosity!
O subtle, yet perilous gaiety that
was ignored by such disparagement,
and its fabulous tenacity!
Ardent, merciless tenacity!
That but shan't befriend the course
of thy adultery, yet praise thy ignominy
and infamy in an adorable, inherent manner!
But never forget that the entire breadth
of this journey
I devote to thee:
in order that thee would become my love,
my soul, and all the healthy demeanour beneath;
thou hath my life, kisses, and
the sacred secrets of my fiery health.

Thou art no longer fortunate:
thine is now a sad soul - but just as heretofore!
And weep, weep, my surly fellow -
in the dreary mimicry of a sultry day.
Hot, unforgiving, and uncaring.
I entreat thee, now do!
For I am now in the cradle of a master:
a disguise that lasts forever;
so long as it should go;
so long as it should probably be.
Bloom in thy cries, you fool,
swell in thy sleep, you creep,
yet forget me, release me,
and the torturous being you used to be
repel everything your soul has seen!
I am to mount a journey;
and shan't let this pureness be stained by thee.

This love I canna bear it,
It cheats me night and day;
This love I canna wear it,
It sins my heart and soul away.

This love was once a bud
A lovely seed; a peeping thorn;
This love was once untouched
Light as the night; lithe as the morn.

This love it was a flower
Like a secret unknown to me,
Like a dream in a tame hour
Like a bird's nest within a tree.

This love, was a childhood
Warm as the sun, vain as the moon.
This love, was plain and blind
Now blossoms wild, hear its cheers mild.