When I shooed the cat
It spoke out kinda human voice
So all your knowledge has come to that
Acting only on selfish choice!

Answered him without losing my grit
Pretentious cat a sly mean thief
Wise words in your mouth don’t befit
Most misplaced would be in you a belief!

Ha I laugh when you say I steal
A crumb of fish few drops of milk
Tribe of men when have belly’s fill
Gorge some more your hungry ilk!

Had been you a little kind and fair
And not just mindful of own wellness
Learned to live with caring share
The world would have been a lovely place!

In such a world never a cat would steal
Needn’t have to when kept well fed
Would discard all its furtive skill
Live cutely cuddled on human bed!

star eyed yellow bloom
washed in sunlight's shower
the radiant healer of all your gloom
field full of sunflower!

You search askance the face
Gaze my brows awhile
Think why isn't a trace
Where’s gone from lip my smile!

There are times galore
Can’t help the way you need
Can’t bring to you that more
The warmth of me you greed!

You seek my eyes’ that shine
The glint of love deemed true
Need read on face the line
The way you are used to!

Not always can show my face
The way I should to you
Not always can bring happiness
And trust built strong and true!

Don’t like when that happens
A stranger in me you find
Your eyes show signs of rains
Pains flood your breaking mind!

The golden tinge of sun pierced the cloud
But the mangrove held onto its dark cloak
She hid somewhere between the light and shadow
When from one irresistible daze I awoke.

Unbeknownst flamed up the rocks salt white
Dry since the waves receded beyond the *******
A cold loneliness crept up in the spell broken light
As if eons had passed without the sight of her.

Then one seagull’s spriteful fish dream shriek
Motioned me up from the vacuous stupor
Buzzed each sand grain all years’ unborn speak
Was to be seized this moment and tell her.

The wind having carried the voice of her name
Spread it across the mangrove and far
From the receding waves rose a rising flame
When in her hug beneath an acacia I found her.

suppose you're on a sea beach
where the waves are frozen dead
you don't hear the seagull's screech
not one is flying above head!

in the wind not rise the rolling roar
the sea is a darkish gel
no silver spray bounces on the shore
clouds not on her blue face sail!

the sea is flat dumb and still
staled painting on papyrus
that weary of man's mindless deal
is lying in dying hush!

think of it as our good fortune
the sea isn't so looking as yet
but she can't be from us immune
if we dump on her our waste!

The poets are clever borrowers
without owning ever the owners!

Indigestible and bitterly tasty
most lovable is the brutal honesty.

Mad Sital we used to call him
Sital in my language means cool
Though never found in him anger’s steam
He never followed any rule.

If someone asked tell Sital
What is your name
My mother knows it all
Pat his reply came.

What class do you read in Sital
What school you are at
His only reply was mother knows all
He would not prolong the chat.

He would be found any time of day
Never minding the sun and rain
Bare bodied standing on sideway
Counting one to ten.

If someone asked him to count ten to one
He fell into silence for a while
Not taught at school still left undone
He would answer with a smile.

We knew he would lead a bachelor’s life
Counting his days up to ten
For no sane girl would ever be his wife
With him on the bed be lain.

But Providence you know defies hows and whys
Discriminates not between sane and insane
If it hadn’t been so and happened otherwise
Would remain unmarried all mad men.

So there came the woman the beautiful bride
Her face glowing like full moon
In rapturous joy that he never tried to hide
He forgot his numeric count soon.

Mad Sital would talk to her all day long
Her beauty had him so bewitched
They lived happily ever there wasn’t a thing wrong
Never mattered she was deprived of speech.

The urge to knock one door
find access to one heart
get one eye to seek more
heal one soul from hurt

that gives all toil's reward
serves all labor's cause
when by touch of one word
is born one ponderous pause

one halt gives a priceless gain
one like a pure pleasure
one word blunts all edge of pain
makes rich of royal treasure

the poet craves for one audience
is not above the greed
lusts one mind's caring presence
one eye's fleeting read

why bother failure success
that can't steal nor give happiness!

It must be very ******* her

the bird she cared deeply loved
has found a new pasture.

*but be my dear once a bird
grow on you a wing
know the ache hurts so hard
when stuck within iron ring!

tended well fed the best
the wings still must try
still must deem it a complete waste
times spent flightlessly dry!

It's five minutes
and you are already at home
soar bird in high spirits
the sky is for you to roam!

In me though a sadness rage
rain tears in silent sound
I'm happy bird you're out of cage
your wings are free blue bound!

Catch sweet bird in your wings' span
the freedom you dreamed evermore
forget me soon one lonely man
who locked you in love indoor!

The cage will be there to remind me
my heart's pal Neeloo
who left me sad but yet happy
when he broke the bond for the blue!

Why dark poems I don’t write
Though I too pass through darkness
Have my share of thunderous night
Fighting depression’s embrace!

I think of ways to swallow them down
Shove them out of my sight
Blow it away my grimmest frown
Light the dark in candlelight!

It’s not smooth job wishing them away
The shadows too powerful to yield
That always love to have their way
Thrive in dreams unfulfilled!

They tempt me to give them a chance
Succumb to their alluring might
I know if I submit to them for once
They would be all over my write!

The only poet I saw from any close
never married his muse

wrote poems for her
offered her rose
but when she asked to tie the knot
found an excuse!

love's road ends in marriage
when he told her this
with on her forehead a gentle kiss
she got a shock

the poet cleverly averted wedlock!

they had a prolonged affair
each day he gave her a new name
each day she inspired a new poem
each time she proposed marriage
umpteenth time he would repeat the adage

love's road ends in marriage.

thus nailed with wisdom and parried
on the tenth year she married

and soon the poet forgot his coined adage.

He wedded a woman half his age!

They’re almost gone now a vanishing tribe
Peddlers of fresh sweets honeys from hive
Sellers of fish heads such sundries on head
Toys and bangles and blankets for bed.

Don’t see them around those struggling men
Making the choice of voice trudging the lane
Hoping to sell one piece in dream of gain
Faceless wind ringer in sun’s bite and rain.

Gone are those plaintive cries on summer noon
Raising road’s dust on trail singing the tune
Traders of trinkets girls’ ribbon hairpin
Yoyo and plastic top with endless spin.

Why the times ruined them made them a flop
Sellers travelers with head-full of shop
Sending their song of hope past locked in door
None could now fill that space nothing anymore.

Each clay model was fast asleep
Frozen in slumber deep

But I had a promise to keep.

My doll I promised would have her say
And on this summer day
Her I mustn’t fail.

She had to have a clay model.

There wasn’t a thing wasn’t there
Men, women, birds and even a curd seller

Bald Brahmin, English pair
Village belle in flowing hair

Men flirtatious, women loose
At small price pick and choose.

Lost in the potter’s terrain
She was back a child again
The afternoon was almost spent
When ended her playful moments.

I picked the fortune teller
She chose the curd seller.

On the way what I had to say
Hope she remembers till last day

*At the potter’s having seen them all
Found none crafted like my lovely doll.

Love is not undefinable,

It has too many definitions.

Blessed are the poets
who read more and write less!

burn up nights in passion's flame
breathe in breathe out every poem
hours rewarded in busy ingest
no repenting on forsaken rest
a drift a wind a stormy rush
din of mirth a grievous hush
won't forgo once embark
heart's vent in light or dark
like a mission promise to keep
wake they up in a world asleep
read and read till the seeds are sown
in heart sprouts up own poem full grown!

Blessed be their tribe
for them the poemdom thrives!

She must now be fifty four.
Her first love letter fifteen years younger!

The lover had long moved away
She too went her way
And the cramped years gave them little chance
Except rare remembrances of their first romance!

The letter with the broken edges and clumsy write
Must long be languishing far from daylight.

The girl it cannot be said if is content with her man
The man has settled after surfing many a woman.

They remained just first lovers so willed the fate
They would be a rosy memory each other’s first date.

They gained not nor lost except their age and look
The real loser is the love letter lying in unknown nook.

Still lives in the blind hope it would see her once more
In the belief she is still fifteen and not fifty four!

there are still some left
not all beautiful things are lost
a grass flower in windy waft
windowpane's wintry frost.

not all good things are gone with time
like wet leaves in the summer rain
tides and ebbs the seasons' rhymes
the house on the corner lane!

not all sweet things are gone dead sour
like her touch in the cold of night
birds' trills in the morn's first hour
thrill of love at first sight!

there are still left the honey dew
some redress for all our sorrow
not all is lost for you and I
to give up dreaming tomorrow!

Suddenly his shadow creeps on me
The tiptoeing man a new recruit
Walks with the tray of glasses of tea
There couldn’t be a man more mute!

The most conspicuously inconspicuous
He walks the office hall as in a trance
On a mission of filling and refilling glass
Seeing therein his salvation’s chance!

He moves around in a rigid detachment
Never hurrying and looking never eager
Except when he asks if you need sugar
All the day he repeats this one statement!

About him my envy I would now confide
Ill paid though he has taken life into stride
Lies unlocked in his breast the one mystery
One wealth to which he has found the key!

All night it throbbed in his head
Dug into his sleep with a ruthless *****
Nailed him delirious dreams’ recurring theme
His words had all along failed him!

A fool he was to think he spoke only the right
Used the most appropriate in all of his write
That his words showed them brutally bared
His thoughts with other minds all the while shared!

He sank his fevered head inside the wash basin
How he wasted himself being an egoistic machine
Absorbed too long in his mindless impart
Of word’s deemed bounty born dead at birth!

A shameful gratitude brought his eyes tears
They cared not to tell him all these years
Vain was their wait for the face of his dream
Was never revealed *his words failed him!

If ever you think religious tolerance is at its nadir
Inter-religion integration or world religion a utopia
Stand before the sunned domes of the Christo Mandir
Where the Christ’s name mingles with Hare Krishna!

Call it anything a temple a church
No different is our walked road
The church’s spire or the temple’s arch
Cannot be God’s encaged abode!

Christo Mandir the Temple of Jesus
In many veins stand out one leaf
Hollows my perceived faith and class
At its door I cast aside my belief!

Its melody piercing the fluid dawn
when the drongo breaks the dark spell
from night's ***** a day spawns
that the sun nurtures into a fairytale!

Till late evening the bird sings
preys on life burning in halogen
from catching the first light on its wings
stays back till starry shadows lengthen!

God has taught it to defy weariness
made it the usherer of day and night
hold in its fish tail a dancer's cute grace
in dark feathers the gladiator's might!

When all else at dayend anchor in nest
fathom counts of losses and gains
broken dreams well up in the drongo's breast
rend the night in melancholy's strain!

This forlorn noon when the southerly breeze
scatters on earth the forest's flame
the Spring fires engulf the trees
my heart chants your name!

O wind carry my abeer to her
show not on them my tear's stain
whisper to her though she's far
mine she would forever remain!

Petal o wind her dark cloud hair
kiss deep her crescent forehead
hold me captive upon her stare
tell my love would never fade!

O Spring wind be my messenger
carry to her my passion's flame
tell her though she's now gone far
my heart only chants her name!

There's nothing that we really need.

when my computer crashed
I thought it took my everything

places, faces and moments photographed
heart's words crystallized
the years of making and preserving them

when they vanished without a trace
consumed me an emptiness
that remained no relic to remind me of the past
to relive the times frozen on the frame
and it seemed life was only half lived!

When lifted the clouds of sigh
I gave my mind a peaceful heed
I heard spoken within

there's nothing that we really need
except a little space

*to love and be loved!

the good continually crushed
the evil prosperous!

the evil tends to stick
being good is being weak!

the good is a dropout
the world the evil surmounts!

the good's voice goes unheard
rule the evil's words!

the good's fate is sealed
gets the devil what it willed!

rules the evil's writ
the good takes backseat!

with the devil infernal
god is partial!

god is good but so happens
the world the evil reigns!

Like a magician’s deft trick
She placed her two in a nook of attic
Winked two eyes from the dusty pile
Cheered not the mind brought not a smile.

One scrap of food one occasional call
You are their friend you are their all
Without your knowing builds up a rapport
They make your home theirs beg your support.

Hidden in her fur you see them asleep
You never made a promise you had to keep
See in her happiness your looming plight
Her calls at the window at odd hours of night!

Two more added and more than you need
Aspiring heartbeats hungry mouth to feed
You didn’t foresee that your unguarded call
Would make your home a nursery and troubles not small!

Quickly they grow up steal your time’s large slice
When eyes open in three weeks demands grow thrice
Then as they crawl around you fluffs of silken ball
You see in the fruiting gains of pleasures no small.

Not a word I say
As long as the salt is okay.

It really makes little sense
Depend on salt my goodness and patience.

The sooner it goes wrong
Sparks fly from my evil tongue.

As if a little less salt is good cause
To bare myself in fangs and claws.

In fuming anger and blind of sight
Forget the times when it was alright
Once in ten when salt goes less
Monster takes the human’s place.

I console myself it’s an ingrained fault
In man to flare up for less grain of salt.

The beast in us can no longer hide
When deficient of sodium chloride.

In these what I read makes me darkly brood

*For the love of salt I couldn’t ever be good!

The man when he fell in a manhole
To rescue him came not a kind soul
He cried himself hoarse for attention
If someone came gave him ascension
Help me help me he cried mad and wild
None came to stop no adult no child
Hours were gone the day turned a blur
Falling light told him night was not far
Despair ate him killing his hope
Wouldn’t come a hand holding a rope
When he was giving up on aid or redress
Shadowing his sky there appeared a face
The silhouette told him had come an angel
To fly him on wings raise him from the well
His hopes rekindled here was a kind soul
To end his plight lift him from the hole

From up the manhole spoke a deep voice
*Being in this mess was purely your choice
Your own carelessness has brought you ill luck
What was the need to take a hurried walk?

Since then been carrying water in that 600ml bottle.

The one she lured me with in the scorching heat
When my throat was dying for a drink

You need it more than anything now sir
Said she her thatched shop in the land of nowhere

I yielded for the price was not too high
For a thirsty soul passing by

On the highway happened the fair deal
She had one less to sell
I had my fill

Like the car sir our body too needs oil
Said between smiles the woman of the soil

For once I loved her piece of wisdom
The unpretentious savior, proud owner of her queendom

Dunno why since then
I’ve been holding onto that bottle
As my fairest bargain!

Relationship is pretty weird
follows no logic no rule
link of blood is not required
nor matching of genetic pool!

The ones you have never set eyes on
living on distant lands
come to be kin of your own
you feel their touching hands!

A magic how in spatial apartness
the bond grows up intense
hearts find place in heart's recess
share each other's joys and pains!

There's no need in these relations
no deal no give and take
only the urge to vent emotions
with no collateral of heartbreak!

Four years and his room is untouched.

I would love it that way

For years!

Stays ***** and span
The memory of my old man.

The southern window side of the bed
Where he laid his head

The eastern window that broke his sleep
With the sun’s first peep

His snapped photos on the wall of west
That ache my chest

On the northern wall the clock
That still of his time talks

His divan forlorn
Resting cold from his last morn

In each bric-a-brac
His touch his track

In ticks and creaks
His memory speaks.

On your poems I linger.

Long after they’re gone

Leave their mark
On my work

Residues of their thread
Buzz in my head

Deep they sink
To color my ink

Your thought
In me wrought

The way you bleed
The way you seed
The way you need

They get into me
Beget more poetry

Your pursuit of joy
Of pain
Of sorrow

I borrow

Fated to be forever indebted

I steal your tune
Like a roadside singer.

On your poems I linger.

I shouldn’t be looking
Eyes pull me to her
She’s a distant thing
Mind craves to reach the star!

I shouldn’t be eying her
She is too distant
But right now she seems not far
She rules me this instant!

My eyes give a furtive lick
Rolls on her pretty skin
My mind gives a joyous squeak
If her I could win!

She knows I’m eyeing her
A star that too knows
She knows in her beauty’s spur
My love’s dying throes!

I shouldn’t be looking
My eyes know it too well
But mind on forbidden wings
To the distant star sails!

My longing glance slips on her
Eyes dream to glue on her face
Soon she would be a distant star
Swallowed in emptiness!

They had a love for the boundary wall
Where occupied round the seasons
Their frames slender or substantial
Meditative eyes in philosophic brooding
Till in the sunset years or sooner
They disappeared beyond that wall.

Many of them have warmed those bricks
When the night’s chill forbade to be outdoor
But the restless ears strained to hear
Brushing of body against body
Till their blood warmed in the moon’s heat
Covered the delirious trek to the dawn!

Now have come up the fence of iron spears
Burying the joys and yesteryear’s tears
And the restless ears can now only hear
The cold bricks groaning in the night’s lull!

Quietly bids the time for the transit
Beyond the boundary wall!

Lust moves easy mind roams crazy
What you like you want to own
Past turns of years when limbs lazy
Only then find love full grown.

Unripened age when turns new page
Lovelorn young minds be must
It’s only when the seasons age
You find in love true trust.

It’s made that way we have no say
Though love is summer born
It strongly holds till winter stays
Breaks not when trouble torn.

Can’t define how made like this
It takes years to own
The richest wine and the perfect bliss
Of love with time full grown!

Many a times I have been to Harwood Point.

When the travel bug bites my feet
My eyes pine for the marine froth
In the May’s summer heat
I pack in my kitbag the barest cloth.

At Harwood Point

The river runs in turbulent progress
Maddened in the pursuit of the sea’s embrace!

From Harwood Point

The river would carry me to the sea.

When the sun spills blood on the river
The vessel would leave Harwood’s wooden jetty!

As that small port diminishes from my sea bound way
It sets me to brood.

Who was this Harwood?

Why this Point bears his name?

As the vessel picks up steam
I fall into a deep dream.

J.T. Harwood 1831.

Some British Surveyor
Lost in the pages of archived Register
Laid to rest in the dust of fame

But lives his name
To this day
On my sea bound way

A name without a face
Where the river runs for the sea’s embrace!

Seated between the two boys
her ring of laughter rends the air.

She has heard all they had to say
and now left with no way to choose either!

The boys too engrossed in their trance
see them victors in this game
missing out the signs of lost chance
and her heart having shut for them.

In the gathering tears of her laughter
she wished they had soon
left her alone.

Give the greed a heed
and manifold grows the need!

If you have to make your way
make your way.

the lesson learned one summer noon
on a deserted village road
will not be forgotten soon.

The tyres came to a screeching halt
were lying boulders of asphalt
blocking the way.

Long hours of drive still waiting
needed to do the only sensible thing

Accept the choice
lent by sanity's voice

THE SITUATION DEMANDS
MAKE BEST USE OF THOSE HANDS

When left the stumbling blocks behind

hands were aching wiser was mind.

Dear Nat,
Yesterday I was out of town
that gave me a chance
not to weary you down
but master poet as you so well know
business when pressing won't let poetry go
even when I go out of station
they won’t free me my ****** creations
small sights I see small sounds I hear
brings out a poem to tire my reader
by all the adornments showered on me
you put me in a place I don’t deserve to be
but I do need to pause lest I forget
from my prolific taxation eyes need rest
for words when they pour endlessly run
might make them seem no more such fun
so there should be breaks some needed cessation
to save along with me reading eyes’ exhaustion
but know poet I can still survive by one occupation
reading your poems from that won’t take vacation.

Nicely she said was spent her day
run in her own plan having her way
I traveled from the morn had a long day out
she wasn't with me was with me no doubt.

On the drizzle washed path lined with green's grace
right up beside me beamed her smiling face
the verdant yield stretching far as horizon
sang she's here won't leave you alone.

As they passed by rows of thatched hut
enamored in the shade of green coconut
gave glimpses of her filled me in her scent
said she's here with you this moment.

When the sun travel weary dropped down for a rest
left crimson trails on his track down the west
my mind colored in melancholy's hue
urged time to go back she's waiting for you.

Each couple is stopped on the way
this March spring hour
with the city attired at its best
with gulmohar and flame of the forest
in mad bloom of yellow and red
and the hand touches each head
adorned with the season's flower

blessed be your love
blessed be your luck

and most of them yielded
to the blessings of the ******!

Under the big clock at the station
From all the comings and goings
Her eyes keenly watch
For the face that would end her wait.

At the arrival terminal of the airport
From the many faces streaming out
His wait desperately needs the name
He’s carrying on a board.

At the gate the lone security
Dozes in the summer heat,
Awakened hours waiting for a threat
He encounters it in his dream.

The excruciating pain tearing her within
Blurring faces and fading sounds
In joy’s agony she waits
For her baby to cry!

Of his freedom taking stock
My parrot atop the clock!

There’s this girl who left a boy a scar
Times have flown years gone far
One small cut how it didn’t heal
In a corner of mind the story lives still.

Mid sixties noon a war was on
School was closed days forlorn
Mind gone dead as summer wind blew
Longed for what it really had no clue.

There was this girl a breezy butterfly
Pretty and petite was quietly passing by
The sight of her skin just below the skirt
It drove the boy to throw a stone to hurt.

As his idle mind came under devil’s grip
Took a quick aim threw her a basalt chip
But as was destined written was his fate
It flew past her widely missing the target.

She paused on her track her eyes burning ire
Glanced once at him lips curled spitting fire
Sparks flew in his eyes his match he had met
Below eyebrow the scar he carries to this date.

The ripples broke the moon into pieces
But her wishes elsewhere sniffed the air.

The night was fair enough though
To bathe in her beauty she wasn’t there.

Where broke the ripples the moon’s face
Reflected the water the firmament
She searched in dreaminess
Commotion of the slightest movement.

*One small fish would satiate her night!

From the knoll rolled the meadow blue brown and green
The silence of the Spring sky shielded the distant din
Winds blew in a dusty peace bought mind a soft solace
First star on the meridian chimed in the evening’s grace.

Atop the knoll came the call for once to break the race
Hear the hushed whispers of dreams long suppressed
Stand there hugged by those moments’ forgetfulness
No need survives for going back there exist no address.

The chance in that trance wove a blithesome spell
It’s here that you belong for you is made this dale
Drink in this heavenly whim hidden nectar of the mind
Unshackle from the chains of an illusion left behind.

The sky was soon illumined by the monstrous city light
Faded the meridian’s first star stillborn was mournful night
Atop the knoll dawned darkness the meadow was a distant blur
It was time to retrace downhill to forever nurse a scar.

Soon after birth
It asks

What worth?

All the thoughts
The words to shape me
Are they necessary?

What reward?

Can’t hold onto this moment
The delusion you paint
Goaded by a mad chase
To lift the haze
Fill up the dearth
Give all wildness a berth
And then
Just when
Relieve the pain
Start all over again

What gain?

Brick upon brick
Rhyming rhythmic
Verbose prose
Random rambling
Under the sky anything

What sense?

Knows one who writes

**For one audience.