Skins will wither times will gallop
But dear sweet seller never close your shop
So long throbs within my last heartbeat
Keep the shutter up feed me your sweet.

Words will frail looks will rust
But dear sweet seller run the shop you must
So long flows there love’s last stream
Keep the shutter up feed me your dream.

Breathes will frost the sun will pale
But dear sweet seller don’t stop the sale
So long my eyes aren’t dead blind
Keep the shutter up feed me your mind.

The moon will be gone stars will retreat
But dear sweet seller don’t stop the treat
So long the last lights in my eyes gleam
Keep the shutter up fill me to the brim.

In her eyes the starkness of might
in her outstretched arms a call
to the ones challenging her
to surrender to her power
and the ones worshipping her
to find in her might what’s hidden,
an invitation to the worshipper and the challenger
to submit, to see, beyond her wrathful might
not a goddess
but a woman, a mortal lover,
infinitely lovable!

I watch close
The face of a sleeping dog,
Its eyes crescent moons
In those times blissful
When sleep runs it down
In respiteful shelter
From fleas
Hot concrete
And from men!

I wonder
What comes in its dreams,
A rusted bone
Loving eyes
Caressing hands
Or the pain
Suffered in the hands of men!

When is Halloween what’s so special about that night
All nights post twelve I lie frozen in utter fright
Prearranged so by design I’m isolated in one room
On my bed alone in all nooks shadows loom!

My hands mustn’t stick out there’re hands to pull
Drag me to a dark well the hands clammy and cool
My feet too mustn’t be stretched beyond bed’s edge
Umpteen things can happen by lurking evils’ rage!

My eyes I keep them shut so as to make me unfound
But my ears are too keen to let go the slightest sound
Of dragging footsteps and whispering voices closing in on me
I lie alone not a soul in the room so ghosts they’ve to be!

But the scariest thing happens and it frightens me the most
When silence is deafening not a trace of any ghost
I ready for a peaceful sleep of which I don’t get much
*Just then the bed moves welcomes me a faint touch!

The painted sun on the guava leaves
Augurs another winter,
Mellowed only till next summer
The sun quietly rests in the shade of each leaf
Contemplating in melancholy
Next winter they won’t be there
And the eyes catching his breathless softness
May be gone too,
But he through seemingly endless time
Has to return each winter
To rest in the shade of guava leaves
And be planted on the coming eyes
Mellowing in the on-setting winter!

When dark clouds descend on her eyes
Her pale skin exudes a cindery sadness
Pints of bloods flow out her vein
The stubborn poet breaks down.

All his creative resolves deliriums
Adorned garlands of his mind
His visions beyond the present
Mock him draws him in her pain.

What remains of him is not a poet
Not one looking down from a pedestal
But a mere mortal brutally battered
Brought down to earth crushed.

For the swells in her heart
Her futilely seeking oasis
Wind drift to no anchor
His poetry is a lavish indulgence.

In the drizzle I rushed as usual I was late
The 9oclock bus I had to catch at any rate
If I missed this one I had to think of a ruse
Explain late attendance make a good excuse.

It’s those moments that bring woes to men
Perils linger on the way waiting to happen
Throwing caution to wind as I blindly strode
My feet hit a cobble lying middle on the road.

The sudden pain halted me made me emit a groan
I cursed under my breath the god-forsaken stone
Abused the unseen fate that had thrown it my way
Caused me such suffering conspired to spoil the day.

But there wasn’t much time to vent more my wrath
I kicked it out of way so none else could cross its path
Hurriedly limped along for I couldn’t afford to miss
The 9oclock bus that would reach me to office.

In the bustles of life it was a small incident
Other things occupied me I forgot the event
Till one evening I saw it on a corner of the street
The stone smeared with vermillion away from unwary feet.

The cobble placed under a banyan tree had men gathered around
It lay there in austere dignity they had found it a secured ground
I asked one in the crowd ‘how came here this stone? ’
‘You can call it a miracle it’s there naturally grown’.

‘Now it’s going to stay here none can force it a shift,
It’s God among us in disguise to give our spirit a lift’
In the face of that belief I dared not on his face say
‘So this is your God who I kicked on the other day! ’

One Sunday as I was busy with the off-day’s pressing chore
I heard a din outside urgent knockings on the door
*‘It can’t be like this to leave the deity without a roof on his head
Please donate as much as you can a temple is needed to be made’.

Promised her,
I would never lose smile,
but she left.

I itch for the tea time
I burn to have with her
a steaming cup of tea
and soak with her on the table
the heavenly moments!

I itch for the tea time
my morning’s essence
the time she talks
I talk
nonsense
laugh
bluff
cough
as the tea
refuses to go down the throat
for it too loves these moments
with two voices
in one voice
rejoice
being together
with the morning tea
dreaming
it would last
eternity!

Raindrops pelted the earth in fiery spill
Clouds drove away the submissive daylight
Warmth tamely surrendered to chill
It was then those eyes came into my sight!

A bare bodied riffraff hardly into his teen
He looked an absurd picture in a silent film
Standing there exposed in streaming skin
One shivering model playing rain’s victim!

But this wasn’t the way I thought like then
Myself a kid returning from school
Rain-coated and knowing no pain
Living secured under parental rule!

I just felt then something was not right
He shouldn’t have been left in such a state
A cold or a rain fever catch he might
The kid who could have been my mate!

Your mom and dad, I asked, where’re they
Leaving you in the rain to roam
Should have been indoors on such a day
And not stray off from home!

The boy it seemed couldn’t surmise
For long deprived of kindness
Filled up his eyes in sheer surprise
But soon grew saddened his face!


*No dad no mom I’ve never known them
Known only to play in the rain
Live in the street without a name
Orphaned too long for any pain!

I beg just four letters of you
Of no use to me the twenty two
Give me those four letters of you
They’re all without them I can’t do.

Only four letters in your eyes I search
Can do without the twenty two
Is it looking for too much,
Seeking that precious gift from you?

Four letters I won’t ask for more
I can walk miles to get from you
When you find me standing on your door
Know I’m craving those four from you.

Four letters isn’t a tall order
You can easily spread them my way
Over all the wall all the border
Can give me those four any day.

I want little will do with your four
For them I do beggarly crave
When you see me on your door
Give them and make me your slave.

He can’t get any shorter than an alphabet
Breathes mountain air pens mountain-speak
World he might roam but his love’s nest
Rests in his heartland the Stoney Creek!

He finds bliss in that blessed harbor
With his matey crazy Daisy
Walking a moonlight of bone color
In half-sleep star-eyed crazy!

On his journey along river tide
He tells of his joy and loneliness
Takes you on the deck on his side
Sails you with a sailor’s finesse!

He’s a graceful alphabet
A layer of love brick by brick
In him lives a  confiding mate
Whose love lives in Stoney Creek!

The poet lies peaceful in death
Tranquil like a river sublime
This frame in rhyme he cannot etch
It arrived as fate of lifetime.

Oblivious of eyes that weep
He looks peaceful in sleep
Not a twitch from the finally locked eyes
To break open from serenity and rise!

He lies in bliss on flower bed
Soaked in the silence in his head
Of thin hair on skin no more warm
In emptied brain at end of term.

He till last (w)rite couldn’t tell
If his heart and head did coincide
The source of the ever ringing bell
Came from which mysterious side!

One more thing haunted his mind
Tormented till his delirious end
No answer to the dilemma he did find
Nothing for his soul to defend!

His creations did they hurt more than they healed
How many faces he lit up with a line
His verses flowing free willed
Did they bring clouds than sunshine?

The cat mews at the moon
It got the hint that soon
The moon would slide down west
Hide beneath horizon to rest.

The moon it can afford a rest
After romancing earth in jest
For the cat no rest is in sight
It has to hunt through the night.

But the cat has lunar allergy
Moonshine gives it lethargy
With eyes drooping and dreamy
It mews Beethoven symphony.

The mice they aren’t easy cheese
Don’t fall prey with any ease
They run and find the hole quick
Alerted by the mewing music!

The moon thus plays on cat a trick
Diverts the predator to music
To give its preys some respite
As the cat mews Beethoven in moonlight.

It may take an aspirin to rid a headache
But there’s no healing when you’ve heartbreak
A balm may do wonder cool soothing menthol
Mending a broken heart, does it happen at all?

Once you set your heart to win another one
Thence start your stresses till the job is done
It’s oft than not you ended up in a mess
Tapped the wrong door knocked wrong address.

It may sound unpleasant but a truth to endure
It’s thus designed love is destined a failure
Yet we love to repeat it not mind the cost it take
Failing time again suffering heartbreak.

This write isn’t intended to talk of the ache
Caused by heartbreak or a tearing headache
But to share with you a feel bitter sweet
Always worthwhile love is divine pursuit.

Suppose you are confined to four walls
Don’t get to see the sky
Live in a space just too small
But aren’t to question why.

The room doesn’t have a window
Only a door to shut you out
Can’t know when it’s tomorrow
What’s today is in doubt.

Imagine for it isn’t that hard
There can be such a place
Where from all else debarred
You’re alive in death’s embrace.

You alone with a fire within
Without a thing to defend
Caged for what’s passed as sin
It’s too late to amend.

*Let’s stop here this imagined doom
For you haven’t preferred to choose
The pitiless hell of a windowless room
With only a hanging noose!

At the tiffin break they surrounded him all wanted to have a look
He held it tight in the dim class light in his hand the hidden book
The boy was proud for the gathered crowd each wanted to win his trust
Went on to plead made frantic bid reading the book was a must.

With no option he started auction the boy saw in the deal a chance
For the mystery book seemed worth more than a mere cursory glance
I stole a look at the tempting book leapt my heart of a curious child
On the cover glowed bright in dripping blood the title ‘Mysteries of the Wild’.

In childish imbalance I lost all sense was gripped with one mad desire
Come what may at whatever cost from the boy the book I must hire
The boy having got a whiff of my plan and gauged the urge on my face
Said ‘ten full rupees is what you must part I would settle for nothing less’.

Ten full rupees was real big money no way could be arranged by a child
Knowing it was absurd still I pondered at stake was ‘Mysteries of the Wild’
That day I ran home with just one thought haunting the mind of a child
Ten full rupees is no big deal for an access to the mysteries of the wild.

On that evening of ceaseless haunting I gave all my lessons a miss
For there was with me a note of ten rupee given by dad as school fees
It needed a tough will to strike devil’s deal put the money to misuse
But possessed as I was to know the mystery I needed no reason’s excuse.

Next day in the class without a fuss I paid him the sum of school fees,
‘Give me the book as you promised for I’ve brought your ten rupees’.
‘I’m so sorry’ said the cunning lad ‘the book is taken by someone,
so stand by for the time be in the queue like the other boys in the run’.

Hell on me broke loose tightened the noose I could hardly stand on my feet
Heard my dad shout when the truth was found out the result couldn’t be sweet
The thrashings I got scolding and what not the bitter memories of a child
Sank all passions drowned the obsession to unravel the ‘Mysteries of the Wild’.

Years rolling by buried the child’s sigh lay hidden in the lost mind’s nook
The momentary thrill that remained unfulfilled forgotten was that prized book
Then one afternoon as I was passing by an almost antique bookstore
It peeped through a timeworn glass that book of mystery from the yore.

I felt an inexplicable yearning to own for once that book
To retrieve from its breast my childhood dream it took
‘What price’ I asked the man ‘I want to have it please’
‘Never mind it’s unsold long not worth ten rupees’.

I got the book with a heavy heart came sat in a corner of the park
Caressed soft held its bound cover that at last got my finger mark
In that twilight hour under evening star I wept like an inconsolable child
Knowing no more I had need of it I would never open the ‘Mysteries of the wild’.

Around him surrounds noise of motion
He suffers silence of the depth of ocean
Drowned in himself far removed from din
He lives closeted in his world within.

Words reach him in wind’s disguise
Mean nothing he must read the eyes
For ripples emitting when lips do part
Can’t travel the distance to touch his heart.

The storms that rage he cannot convey
Absorbs all not a thing can say
Mocks him his vision in the blasted light
He wished he could cry out with all his might.

His thoughts unsaid debar tales of rejoice
Fate was too blind to leave him a choice
Other than to imprint his mind on his face
If you care to read there his woes and happiness.

Shaving the heads the barber he belongs to the same faith
For him it’s some money he celebrates each death
Celebrates each death the barber he earns from obvious fate
Shaving the dead’s loved ones will earn him at any rate!

The barber isn’t afraid of death for he has watched bereaved guys
Heard too many wails in life death doesn’t surprise
He goes through emotionless motions knifes clean their head
The more he bares the heads the more he earns his bread!

They bow their heads before him he blows their hairs away
In the aftermath of death it’s always him that holds sway
His eyes glisten in death’s joy before death he’s not craven
His work is justly finished when each head is cleanly shaven!

They mourn the departed ones shed grief’s copious tears
The barber remains unfazed perhaps chuckles in furtive cheers
A death in someone’s family a great loss for years to harbor
But for him a cause to celebrate fears not death the barber!

You give me your all
Make me look into your mind
Bountifully you bare yourself
Want the real you I find.

You lay it open before me
There’s nothing you conceal
On white paper you write
Read me, feel me, if you will.

It’s plain as birds your heart
Love’s river flows there clean
No jargon, no designs covert
Words carry the thoughts they mean.

Your eyes are clear streams
On their ripples sparkles sunshine
Reveal they all your dreams
If I share them will be mine.

The day a lightning struck my home in September 2010
I read in it signs of bad time grave misfortune’s ill omen
Early morn it fell the night though didn’t hint of a bad weather
Jolting us further a bereaved family my father had died that year.

Spitting fire it chipped a chunk of attic struck dead an arecanut tree
Blew the TV dead lights and fans fled it vented such awesome energy
What had we done to deserve such a deal why befell us the curse
Redoing the roof replacing dead wares it was taxing on our purse.

They say it’s too bad when god goes as mad as to strike your home with lightning
You must have sinned to incur his wrath more misfortune it probably would bring
So we brought a priest for peace and worship we had to appease the deity
In our quest to strike a deal with god’s will was forgotten the arecanut tree.

The house was mended things returned to shape we brokered a peace with god
It all looked fine the mishap forgotten no calamity struck our abode
As a relic of that time stands the arecanut tree without a leaf on its head
Mutely it bears the brunt of god’s fury so is the way it is made.

One autumn morn there was a tapping sound on that tree’s hollowed dead bark
As I peeped through the window I saw a woodpecker its beak was busy at work
So many times I had thought to cut off the tree for it could never grow its root
The bird has got a nest for little ones’ rest god’s will has borne a sweet fruit.

Be there at the clock tower sharp at 6 in the evening
Pleaded her note adding she needed to tell something
6oclock in the evening how long seemed that hour
With a quarter still to go I was under the clock tower.

In me what she had seen to me what she would say
What would propose the girl that lived a block away
I had seen her a few times she didn’t look that impressive
They had been there a few months and were about to leave.

Was she in love with me the girl with a drab freckled face
Our paths crossed a few times though me she didn’t address
Maybe I didn’t know it she fell for me on the first sight
The thought gave me a shiver in that uncanny evening twilight.

Seconds moved in year’s speed I stood in the yellow streetlight
An emotion started to stir in me inside a light glowed bright
A cloud had gathered above me the air smelled of a shower
10 minutes had passed by then with me under the clock tower.

Why I felt upsurge of something as I reread that girlish scrawl
Beckoning to share a secret with me bearing an urgent call
Was it something to do with me or she had something else in mind
My heart beat rapid in feverish strokes I had only 5 minutes to find.

3 minutes to 6 opened up the clouds came down a heavy downpour
She must come now to tell me what she mustn’t hold it anymore
The clock chimed 6 men ran for shades only me was under clock tower
She didn’t turn up it was her call my heart lay bleeding in the shower.

Next day they moved out to someplace else where I didn’t ever know
I caught a bad cold and but for that note I got nothing more to show
Even now in some evening when it so happens I get stuck in a shower
I wonder what secret she had for me for sharing under the clock tower.

Marines land in Somalia
To feed starved stomachs
Serve humanity.

They never knew each other
Will never meet in life again
For two hours were brought together
Four men stuck in a rain.

Same shelter they chanced to come to
Strangers all they were
Each with other had nothing to do
No relations of love and care.

They started to talk about weather
How they were halted by the rain
Soon chatted like friends forever
Who had met after a long time again.

The strangers caught in the downpour got so many things to say
Unfamiliar men trapped in common distress
Who would soon disperse on their own way
Never carrying the memory of their face.

But here as the rain fell in ceaseless torrents
The four souls worked up a tenuous bond
Not minding fragility of those absurd moments
A rewarding camaraderie they found.

When the rain stopped for them to depart
They went their way with cheerful smile
There was no sadness nor any aching heart
They were happy to be together awhile.

My shadow casts a shadow of war
So I can’t go so far as to say
It’s a warring world
For war from me I don’t debar!

I never pay heed
When breeds war my greed
But go on to feed
Competition, jealousy…

They too are wars indeed!

The warring world
Starts from me…
My war dance
Don’t give peace a chance.

My righteousness, reasons, religion
Stoke an all encompassing me
That leaves the world with no recourse…

*From me begets the war of course!

On that windless day
Sultriness sat heavily on him,
A convecting hollowness
Grooved in his chest
Spread to the throat
He was gasping.

Words echoed inside
But couldn’t make their way
As he sank into darkness.

Around him
Crowd of oblivious men
was without a clue.

Remained unheard a garble
Speed…dial…2.

I’m so happy,
This morn god used me
Save a life
At least for the time being.

A water-hen chick
My cats’ fav pick
Its groan woke me.

Chased with a stick
The predator so to speak
It dropped the bird free.

The early sun hour
Blessed me savior’s power
The chick escaped with a broken wing.

Our budgies
Make love
Without issues!

When the morn I embrace
Don’t I hear
Some more birds less?

Isn’t more hushed their din
A fear I feel within
They’re fast losing address.

Suppose one day they fully stall
I can’t hear a single wake up call
Only stirs my eyelids the light
To announce end of night.

Each day of progress
Of one invading race
Is some birds less

And more lives losing address.

The earth pours
All her woes
To the stars,
How her eons of toil
The earthmen spoil
She can’t as fast renew.

The stars burn
In her tragic yarn
Till the night pales,
Leave on her leaf
Their tears of grief
As the morning dew.

On my shoulder a heap of garment
In two hands two birded cage
In my mind time management
That I love to do with craze!

List of my works to do
Keep growing in a hellish way
Clipping nails polishing shoe
Time is too short for one day!

When to do them you may ask
If all loose ends I’ve to tie
So I take up multitask
There’s not even time to die!

At 8.30 her medicine
9 I must run the pump
I must keep my cheek trim clean
Traitor time not run but jump!

With one hand I push toothbrush
With one eye I keep check on milk
Alertness aids in the morning rush
Time’s too alert for you to bilk!

Stairs to climb windows to open
Pluck some flowers from back garden
Time autocrat hears no bargain
Slow down a bit get a big burden!

I’ve to make time to blow her a kiss
Will be away whole day she’ll miss
While I peck I hold a biscuit
For the dog at the door badly needs it!

I don’t ever think time kind to me
Give me respite a little time free
But chase it hard without relent
A multitasker bent on time management!

*In this thankless pursuit I can’t tell thee
If I manage time or time manages me
But one thing sure I make time on bed
For not just love but what cooks in head!

Your paintbrush all powerful your canvas mighty
On your palette countless colors of endless variety
You make them whole or cut into slice
Add salt or sugar, sea or mountain spice
Can cook it delicious or brew darkly bitter pill
Make or break hearts at your sweet will
Can weave a journey spinning hidden tales
Reach dream’s oasis fly on wind’s sails
Go on turbulent ride or sing a lullaby
Show where it hurts find too a remedy
Can cause eyes to rain give flesh a goosebump
Part the lips wide or bring the throat a lump!

There was once a family of three miserly men
Miserably miserly they were, spending money was such pain
So when they had to travel for business to another state
For the three they bought only a half ticket.

The train arrived and they occupied their seats
Forgetting they ought to have at least three tickets
They sat comfortably cut jokes and laughed
Very happy that the cost was reduced two-halved.

Merrily chatting they didn’t notice the man in black coat
Checking the tickets and marking off on his note
They thought there won’t be ticket examiners on that line
With a half ticket they could get away without having to pay a fine.

The alarmed men planned fast they weren’t short of wit
Two of them went below and one remained on the seat
The checker came and when found below the seat two huddled men
Asked the one above ‘for three a half ticket, how you that explain?’

That man of clever think without a wink said ‘I can easily do,
You too know it sir, it comes to half when one is placed above two’!

I’m nothing more
Than a bore
As all my stuff
Are shitfully sad
Can’t make you laugh.

I’m just a plain bore
For almost always
I knock your door
With a mourning face
Not finding laughter’s address.

I wish I could write stuff
To make you rollingly laugh
Belly ripping laughs
Choked in coughs
Yet never enough.

I’m a bore
A failure
Time and again
Only sketching sadness
Pity
Deformity
Never giving you a laughing recess.

Forty years ago
She wrote me a note
Insubstantial
But ending preciously…

‘only yours’

In fountain ink
On a scrap paper
Written surreptitiously
But passionately
On a break period
Delivered through a common friend
And there wasn’t enough privacy
So it seemed
To read it alone
And not enough strength
To unfold that first call
Till the eyes
In youth’s first thirst
Spread it
In the stolen reflection
Of streetlight
In trembling hands
Barest words
Yet infinitely precious…

‘only yours’

She couldn’t be
For she was
Destined to be someone else’s
And leave me nothing
But her everything
In those two words
Time couldn’t stale…

‘only yours’

She
Possibly now a grandma
With everything
For she left me nothing
But two innocuous words
Barest infinite
Her everything
Mine too…

‘only yours’.

It’s seven days and the dove sits there pretty tight
On the mess of my chandelier never used for light
Trivially bothersome but her I bear no grudge
Never thought of shooing away or giving her a nudge!

The bird in enviable meditation sits in elegant poise
Looks more like play-dove I brought home by choice
Stirs not in my presence bats not her eyelids
Embodiment of patience and patience is all she needs!

How many days to be there, she knows but I don’t know
Sits there the ravishing beauty in love’s radiant glow
But I know something of it, in her eyes have seen the gleam
Of a longing to be in time there, by holding onto the dream!

What comes of her what’s in store I thought I little care
Never knew when of her dream I had a part to share
How she became a partner in life seeking a shelter of love
I have no answer but only know I must shelter the dove!

Hurrah for the General
He has won your vote
For the loser a funeral
For the victor a toast!

Celebrations will not be long
The music will not last
Soon will stop the victory's song
Your vote has been cast!

The changes you voted to bring
Will look like never there
No blunting of recession's sting
No ending of daily nightmare!

Life will go on as it had gone
Promises will just be a memory
Then there will be another one
Who you'll vote and repeat the story!

A prolonged war with virus has worn her quite a bit
Back home though from hosp she is still far from fit
I don’t know how to cook can’t make a simple meal
She drained of strength has to gather all her will.
For she knows for all my rhymes I’m practically no good
Won’t budge from my ignorance to make for us some food
In the kitchen I tell her ‘show me how to make
A few basic dishes I’m tired of cornflake’.
She says ‘too late dear, know what I feel?
You lost thirty years to grow some culinary skill’
Then she busies herself while I get lost in rhyme
Her occupation is life saving, mine not worth a dime.

I never noticed,
turned away my face,
in your eyes
has survived a place.

The rain has dried up,
they are now arid,
love's seed is lost in ****.

But it's there,
in your eyes one last place
holding the relics of the world's loveliness!

When the west moon tilts and goes on the wane
Becomes a dying streak on your windowpane
Your frenzied sleepless mind breaks in roaring lust
To hammer the unyielding night into powdery dust!

All else but you in slumber dwell
Your rebellious thoughts burn hunger’s fuel
To pry out from darkness fading treasures of night
Dig them intact and bring them to light!

You could buy peace and live within norms
Bathe in moon’s kiss stay away from storms
But a ****** madness in you wreaks havoc
You nurture it, allow it to run amok!

Past the ebullience of night your furies vaporize
Can’t hold back the transience, stay in poet’s disguise
The dawn would devour it for transform you it must
To conventional sanity from the garb of an iconoclast!

Weary faces bored with the long wait
Sit with stony eyes as in hypnotic state
Some way they suffer in liver or gall
Hoping help would reach when comes their call.
Each time the bell rings breaks the languor
Rustled footsteps cross the corridor
Expectant eyes find way to the door
To find what remedy is there in store.
Minutes pass and is heard before long
Inviting sound of the next bell’s gong
The ones coming out rewarded for patience
Make way for visages still grim and tense.

She swam in her delirium in an unfamiliar semi-darkness
Around her an ocean in slow motion engulfed her dizzy senses
Voices from a faraway space echoed garbled in her straining ears
She flew past all horizons wings spanning across many light years.

The flight was such thrilling she wished it had never ended
But she was slowing down on an emptiness she descended
Seeing and hearing nothing she fell inside senseless gravity
Lay silent in anaesthesia the patient in Bed 223.

She loves though my offer’s delicious taste,
Pines for forest!

I bow down before you God
Not because I'm servile
Or seek your favour,
It's not an unquestioning surrender.
I bow down before you God
Not because I sense
That before your omnipotence
I must succumb as a dumb.
I bow down before you God
Not to seek your blessing
Nor to please or appease you,
It's no fear of an unseen power.

I bow down before you God
Not seeking heaven or other abode
But knowing all the world's goodness
I can see in my heart as your face.

Let me not pen the pain of sadness
Not say what made me stay away
I would rather be in cheerful face
Forget tears of the bygone day.

Last few days I was like shelter less
A shelter isn’t a mere roof on your head
Home beyond brick is a heartfelt address
Not in concrete but of love made.
Once more I knew it really had no redress
Even the best of all else isn’t any best
Home becomes a mere void without her grace
A lifeless hollow, an abandoned nest!

This morn I found in a bowl of my ceiling lamp
On gathered twigs sat a mother dove
She has made there a blissful camp
To see the fruition of her love!

Sunshine I felt deep in my mind
She must have her shelter all the way
With this the dark clouds I left behind
Retrieved my nest on a revealing day!

always had that feel that a poem could be born
when you're doing nothing lazily munching popcorn
because doing nothing is everything, it's not a void
but a streaming popcorn welling inside you can't avoid!
in sunlight and shadows in pricking pinching weather
the nothing that knows no rest doesn't give you a breather
doing nothing is the busiest time it's everything to savour
like your spicy popcorn that lends living a flavour!
doing nothing is the most fertile time for a perfect brew
munching your popcorn thinking wildest things to do
When bored of doing nothing that in His head earth was born
God surely conceived it when He was lazily munching popcorn!

In a desolate corner of the Ross Island graveyard
I found a 19th century memorial stone.

Inscribed "Lawrence,4 hours,
Opened his eyes to the squalor around,
Shed a drop of tears at the misery,
And closed his eyes".

Waited not for the love to blossom,
Cared not for the bud
Blooming in his mother's eyes!

One mile down the drunken river
I lost my mind in her midday yellow haze.
Residues of the river-wind-kiss lingered saline on my face,
Wild sun on the wild river scathed my skin copper,
And I glided upstream in blurred eye sweat
Losing and finding the river’s mangrove shore.
My mind in delirious mess wondered
What it was that wined the river, made her a swirling detachment,
Bearing all with the endurance of a drunkard
But embracing nothing like an all foregoing monk.

I dreamed adrift one more mile and then another
Till I was windswept and wined like the drunken river.

Why the tears I shed?
Hunger is around,
I'm well fed.

Why the tears I shed?
The fire has gone out,
Warm is my bed.

Why the tears I shed?
Love makes no sense,
On me lies her head.

Why the tears I shed?
The living is on alms,
Aplenty is my bread.

Why the tears I shed?
Life seeks mercy,
More blessed is the dead.

I give you my heart son
For today you gave me my bread
And I knew it was time to pass the baton
Shift the crown on your head.

Today you passed me my bread
A precious gift in love I earn
To softly place on your head
The crown as it’s your turn.

I felt so great and so good
You’ve taken over my son
With the humblest of attitude
From my hand the long held baton.

Today as you passed me my bread
In the crossroad where we now stand
Happily I unburdened my head
Passed lovingly the baton from my hand.