Will you help?

Or you need the world only for yourself!

Then you needn't heed the warning bells,
Sparrows are vanishing, so are squirrels,
Water hens and coucals are almost gone
But you don't need them you wannabe alone.
It's such a small thing disappearance of a bird
Tiger is vanishing, not far is leopard,
It doesn't matter let your tribe grow
Let them perish the thylacine and dodo.
You can live alone so what for the howl,
You need no drongo no nightjar no owl,
Rhinos are butchered, gorillas only a few
Not the wild ***** must survive is you.
You must alone rule with tooth and claw
Let them all go the eagles and macaw
The otter, the cheetah and the polar bear
You needn't think till they're there.

Then when they go it'll be too late
To know on their survival depends your fate
Even the smallest one lends you their help
But you needed the world only for yourself.

‘How much more can one bear?’
Her words almost emerged from the rain
And echoed in the droplets’ din on the soil,
‘How much and how much more?’
Her voice rose above the thunder.
She was looking weird in the lightning’s flash.
‘The first man in my life left before I was a woman,
Let woe befall him I don’t remember his face.
He left me for the feasting vultures and wolves
And the devourers spared nothing but my bones.
God, I’ve no faith in him, played a greater devil,
From that lust of rain, a drop planted in me a seed
That birthed in this debauched heart a seed of greed
Of hope, of life, of a love of my flesh and blood,
One that I could bring and nurture with pride.
But my womb infested with the rivers of poison
Couldn’t ripen it enough to drop on earth
And there I was alone on the rough wild sea
With no land on sight, no shore to anchor,
Floating aimlessly where no light would ever shine’.

‘You write so much about loneliness and suffering,
Make it up having seen so little of the real face of it.
But I’ve lived them, each day sinking evermore
Into pits from where my agony’s cry couldn’t be heard.
How much more can one bear, how much more I still have to?’
Her words fell like thunder as the rain lashed the earth.

I knew the vainness of all the pictures I painted!

The mirror above the washbasin
Reflects a lonely face,
Eyes sad cheeks shaved clean,
They tell of an inner wilderness.
A space that you alone traverse
There's none but yourself to converse
Outside the teeming world roars
You are shut within closed doors.

Soon you compromise for a sleep
No dreams to soothe no relationship
No lullaby to douse the heart's fire!

You embrace the dark, slip into its mire.

Time stands still on the twig.

The sky keeps changing colors,
Blue, dark, ivory, violet -
She grows old, I turn feeble,
Ego, enmity, jealousy fade,
Our stories dry up to the end!

The twig remains there,
Braving rain, bad weather,
Doesn't break, doesn't complain,
Endures mutely the passing of pain,
Standing robust under the changing sky,
Reshaped landscape, agony's cry,
With no wars to fight, no belief to defend,
Just there to see us reach the dead end!

I keep tonight for you
On my porch will light a strobe
For you to find my way
Tiptoe in silken robe.
I keep tonight for you
Smell wind of olden breath
When your shadow is on my door
I’ll kindle fires of yore.
I keep tonight for you
On a bed that was never made
Hunt where those years flew
Find them in drunken head.
I keep tonight for you
In my eyes the stars gleam
For you to find my way
And walk into my dream.

The curtain quietly rustles in the taunting silence
Bearing no mocking shadows to bridge the distance
For death is certainly the ultimate solemn toast
There’s no getting back of even a faintest ghost!
Nothing but a fading smell that’s not really much
Other than the living one’s yearning for a touch
For words left unsaid and relations that never grew
Alas no rewinding, a once more living through!

The leaves on the grave rustle in the taunting silence
The gnawing pain inside, no phantom lessens!

‘Nothing is impossible under the sun’
impressed the father on his son,
‘can go haywire all stability,
everything is in the realm of possibility’.

The son grew up and duly had his chance
To go on a date of youthful romance,
That soon matured to a relation of heart
There was no looking back once he made the start.

But fate so often bares its cruelty
The girl left him for another,
Leaving him a note scribbled on paper
‘everything is in the realm of possibility’.

The son was so shattered by his lover’s deceit
Living seemed not worth anymore,
He was found hanging tied to a bed sheet
Behind his room’s closed door.

A note he left bearing his last words
From a son to his father a cruel levity,
In endorsement of what his father had once said,
It read ‘everything is in the realm of possibility’!

coming up another high rise
on the gate they’re planting trees
the maker surely is wealthy and wise
to have stolen the lowly one’s breeze.

one more tower to eat up the sky
on the gate they’re planting trees
soon the goliath will raise its head high
to make rooms for the busy bees.

coming up a high rise gobbling open space
on the gate they’re planting trees
will blow a deadly kiss on the sky’s face
our breaths will be hell of a ****.

how many trees can plant these men
to compensate for the air they decimate
robbing the blue for a handful’s gain
killing the open space with no regret.

In the rush of new, old ones go dead
Ink dried up, their colors fade,
Poet, pause a while from the race of rhymes
To dig out the ones buried in olden times.
They’re precious pearls, each some moments’ capsule
Fires of bygone era that soon cindered cool
Your tears, joys, broken pieces of your mind
Made with alphabets, with your spirit refined!
Though pined for life your poem’s each word
Once delivered, you consigned to graveyard
A day’s applause that staled into night
No sooner than born, shoved out of sight.
Poet, the old ones, beneath dust they moan,
Dig them out, they are your own,
Take a break, from the gushing ones’ race,
Dip your heart, in the old wine’s grace.

In the stillness of night
The chiming clock sings the hours.
Eyes in deep sleep don’t hear them anymore
Care not in the clock’s rhymes what’s in store,
But it knows its chimes are songs of dirge
For life’s harvest and then the down surge,
And it’s a mere witness in this open-n-shut game,
Its chimes a reminder of time it can’t tame.

From the day his mother died
He had no time to mourn.
From the very next morn
The same robe he had to adorn
Same wares he sold door to door,
Forgetting mother is no more!

She remembers the lump of joy on her breast
Where love made a permanent nest,
What she didn’t know was between smile and sigh
Years would quickly pass by.

Years would quickly pass by
Years would quickly pass by
Riding on smile and sigh,
She would never know
She could never know
The nested love would soon die.

When I held the lump of joy between my hands
I saw only love quietly making its nest,
But now in my eyes sorrows’ rain lands
Knew not the years would pass in haste.

The years would pass in haste
The years would pass in haste
Riding on smile and sigh,
I would never know
I could never know
The nested love would once die.

When we brought the lump of joy between us
Love made a nest in our heart,
We never knew the years would quickly pass
Leaving love’s nest a barren desert!

The years would quickly pass
The years would quickly pass
Riding on smile and sigh,
We would never know
We could never know
They would leave a gulf between us.

Faraway on a distant shore
He labors hard to earn
Money he needs more and more
The self-exiled lonely man!
He puts aside a small amount
Rest he remits to his wife
He keeps filling her bank account
To provide her necessities of life!
Her necessities of life he couldn’t fulfill
Because all them money can’t buy
She couldn’t for long endure the ordeal
Got herself another guy!
Our man he comes home once in a while
Greets him the woman in joy
The time he stays he sees her smile
Knows not she got another boy!
It goes on like this dollars pour in
When home he sees her happiness
She keeps walking on a rope stretched thin
There was no way she could now regress!

Once it so happened he arrived one night
She had no prior advice
He reached home on a late night flight
To give her a pleasant surprise!

God if you had seen her whitely ashen face
After she had opened the front door
On it there wasn’t a trace of happiness
She almost swooned onto the floor!
Our man never knew why she shut the door again
It never did cross his head
In his absence his wife had made a bargain
Her lover was snoring on his bed!

She woke the guy up for a fast exit
Through a door at the back of the house
Came down again the wife cute and sweet
A loving and caring spouse!

Now friends I come to the moral of the tale
For the ones away on distant shore
Wall it up do it without fail
Do away with your houses’ backdoor!

A low monotone ‘snip snip snip'
Drooping heads as in slumber deep
The mirrors reflect telling it all
The shedded strands quietly fall.

Goes on the buzz ‘snip snip snip'
Are they awake or in deep sleep?
Getting off-loaded here's no hike
Lines of souls sit vampire-like.

No one speaks it's nobody's call
Heads mildly roll, tissues fall
Shrouded white from world disguised
The snipper's spells have them hypnotized.

The stupor breaks once ends the ride
A cruel world is waiting outside
The spell was so short, it's a pity
Time again for reality!

Carrying silence on its wings
Over the night's city
The bat moans unheard by men.

Softly it flies in hunt for food
The noise down below seems distant,
An alienating sound he never was a part of,
His flight engraved on the pale moon.

There's so little time, morning will come soon.

But the city spews up only soot
His search is despairing for a tree bearing fruit.
Oblivious life noisily flows below
Consigning the bat to a death of doom,

There's no food, and morn will come soon.

Around her green rows of trees
Breezy breaths and buzzing bees
Her crystal face mirrors serenity
A strip of pond far from city!
From autumn clouds sky pours its mirth
On this small village a mound of earth
Here men of soil hands smudged with clay
Merrily live in huts of hay!
When they smile it’s smile sure
Tooth bared from feelings pure
Truth they know learned no deceit
With open arms they warmly greet!
What they speak is unrehearsed
Flow from heart no grudge nursed
They don’t mince words haven’t the skill
Speak only that they truly feel!
This autumn day I’m their guest
By the almond pond in their thatched nest
To submerge deep in placidity
And forget awhile rush of city!

I hide my eyes behind dark glass
Paint weird colors on my hair
Day and night with a painter’s brush
I try if I can catch a stare!
I want to be noticed, I want to be seen
I want to rise high
I want to be admired, I’m so keen
To be a star among stars of the sky!
All those layers of colored grease
Give me a space to hide
The hidden ‘I’ say, ‘Love me please,
Take me for a trail blazing ride’!
I want to be noticed, I want to be heard
But who the hell is that ‘I’?
I’m still on the lookout and I’ve grave doubt
If ever shall I know it, if ever afore I die!

Kick the dog, they kick the dog
Living a life worse than a dog
Shabby smoky hopeless hogs
Used to the lives in the bogs!

The dog is innocent, it’s so good
It scours the streets just for food
These guys are dingy, dark and morose
They kick the dog when it’s too close!

The dog wonders what it has done
Why the hell do they kick him?
Is it hatred or a moronic fun?
The dog is baffled by their whim!

The ebbing sea had retreated when I reached the beach
She was afar though the ******* lured me to reach
I had no choice but to cross the lagoon
Half-merged in water wading in the rippled moon.
What delight it was when I was on the other side
Behind me the channel before me the silvery wide
Above me wispily spread an ethereal band
I stood on the cushion of softly sparkling sand.
I could joyfully die holding them in my eyes
More I couldn’t take more I couldn’t surmise
The agonizing beauty was an unbearable sight
There seemed nothing more to live for beyond that night.
In turning back I knew would be no rejoice
But I had to retrace I had no other choice
Afar waited faces in the waning moon’s shadow
My feet were heavy in the return tide’s flow.

You made that corner about it only you know
Where in the light and shadow strange things grow
That though with you in placental bond breaks in the faintest touch
You own them you breed them about them you don’t know much.
When storms rage fires burn and the world outside turns grim
You find in that corner hope’s beacon healing rains of glorious dream
There you retreat from the day’s cauldron to rest in peace and muse
Find in that corner a moonlit shade from the night’s dark abuse.
You made that corner it’s only yours for anchoring the weary ship
From rolling waves and breaking froths in a voyage in marine deep
Your ravaged heart finds a berth when the ship runs aground
In that corner awaits a sunset place when it’s time to turn homebound.

I know I invite reproach
When I speak aloud in wonder
Why boys are the first to approach
And girls are mere responders!
It’s the boy that discovers the chance
In the girl next to him in school
For a courtship and steady romance
Though the girl must play it cool!
If the girl eyes him just once
That’s enough to make him bolder
Just one look puts him in trance
Though the girl must give him cold shoulder!
The boy so oft reads the signals wrong
Cavorting buck with wildly beating heart
The girl cautious doesn’t fall in love headlong
Makes sure the boy is good to make a start!

The dying body wanted to say something,
Too frail, it spoke only with eyes,
One can do little around the time it dies!

The wife, the son, the ones close to him
Pressed the ears on the faintly parting lips
Death is surely winning, yea, its scale tips!

The body lay dying with just enough to cover shame
Audience was the living witness, of this silent mayhem
Eager to know the last word, or some last name!

The dying’s eyes dilated before they narrowed to slit
It couldn’t say, they didn’t know, what was it?

“Naked I was born, and make me that as I perish,
Remove my clothes”, was its last departing wish!

"Good evening", said the cyclist,
It echoed in the evening mist,
I was baffled I never knew him,
The dark stranger tall and slim!
Before I could acknowledge
He was gone in the haze,
The unknown messenger of good wills
A roaming angel on two wheels!

"Good evening", I said on my way,
The passerby was baffled had no word to say,
In the silent evening of misty haze
I was happy to turn a new page!

Whole day I carry a burden of load in mind
A way out of this maze I desperately try to find
Rewinds it like a flashback in a slow moving film
Was he at fault or wasn’t I unfair to him?

Then there’re words that I would rather not have said
They raised some eyebrows a few enemies made
In course of the day they make me sulk and fret
Agonizing mishaps breeding gallons of regret!

Add to that my actions that might have caused a hurt
Sweet bonds loosening relationships coming apart
I’m tormented by these diurnal horrors the recurrent day-mares
Be sure they’re much scarier than any of your nightmares.

Under the gnarled mesh
The shrinking crust
Down the mantle
Collapsing on the core
The child is sinking.

Under the sinful loads
The shrinking space
The burden of knowing
Transforming into despair
The child is sinking.

Under the wise care
The vanishing imagination
The pressure of achievement
Lightening speed to grow up
The child is sinking.

Give it space to timely age
Give it time to leisurely laze
Let it be heard.

Let not the child be a caged bird.

In the dark their eyes glow
Shadows emerge from shadow
Cruel fangs they bare
You freeze where you are.
Now in the lonely zone
Phantoms from dungeon
Evils you slaved and fed
Would be glad to see you dead!
You can do little but stare
Praying an end of nightmare
Knowing it's too late to choose
They're already on you let loose.

From the shadows you emerge as shadow
The night darkens howling winds blow
Seeking prey with endless greed
Upon fresh corpses you madly feed!

A riddle,
How his golden beard
Parts in the middle?

The elephant is poacher’s target.
Ivory
The irony of fate!

Today I was depressive, was really in bad mood
Downcast and demeaned, I was feeling no good
Darkness surrounded me, I hadn’t a place to hide
Just then something happened, and made me laugh so wide.

Here was one disheveled man sitting on the sidewalk
His palm was stretched barren, to show he was out of luck
As I dropped a generous coin, in doing so paused a while
I saw the guy’s twinkling eyes, his face beaming with smile.

He keeps his face always that way, a smile chiseled on it
Never minds the bad weather, sitting in the rain and heat
His smile worn broad on the face, he does it with wondrous ease
A man with a home and a decent life, why can’t I do it please!

I once asked a bird
‘Would you swap place with me? ’
'Oh no’, it said, ‘I’m free’
“See my feet are firmly on ground”
“I fly high happy to be sky bound”
“I have an intelligent mind”
“Simple happiness I easily find”
“I too can fly in an airplane”
“Lightly I glide in sun and rain”
“My food is served on tray”
“I chase and catch my prey”
“I live in a big house”
“A small nest I build for my spouse”
“I work till late night”
“I catch the morning light”
“I have knowledge and wisdom”
“I would rather have my freedom”

Pure innocent wild,
That's the child.
I wish I could be one again
To forget the grown-up's pain
And rebuild life
The way it should have been -
Simple, straight, clean!

When can we joke about our anger
And together lovingly remember
The time you left home in a huff
And were forced to return home with a laugh
Limping and with a long walk’s sore leg too
Because in anger you wore my oversized shoe!
When can we joke about our bitterness
And together lovingly remember
The day I told you on your face
And you left midway in your dinner
Saying on the street you would rather roam
Than ever having a meal at home!
When can we joke about our past tiffs
And together lovingly remember
The times our anger scaled the cliffs
And on our home hang a heavy weather
Where you and I drifted apart like islands
With tear laden hearts and desolate hands!

Before the night paints the world dark
Daylight surrenders to the evening and fades
A carpenter digs through the dead tree’s bark
Before nightfall a hole has to be made.
A hole has to be made before nightfall
There isn’t any place else he could stay
Since he can’t make the night stall
He must fast dig the passageway.
He must fast dig the passageway
Make for him a warm space
Till the sun gifts him another day
He once more gets back his happiness.
He once more gets back his happiness
The thought drives him in the cold night
It’s enough if he can just dig a warm space
To hold on patiently for daylight.
He must hold on patiently for daylight
A rewarding time until dawns darkness
A warm space he must dig for the night
Therein lies the woodpecker’s happiness.

Why bother weather forecast,
If it rains, rain it must!

To all music morons
Glued to their earphones
The look-alike clones
Sunk in the dune of tunes
In the crowded buses
In public places
With drooping eyes like a yogi
Cracking heads and bursting ears
Thinking it the only escape
Salvation’s gateway
Balm for boredom
Pleasure’s pinnacle,
Don’t just fritter away
The one chance to be here
For a brief while
And leave with a blind existence
And a blasted hearing,
And before it’s late
Redraw your fate
Take off the headset
Open the yogic eyes
And in the yogi’s spirit
Give the world a good look
Recreate in her beauties
Make her melody your pastime
Her rhythm your heart’s rhyme,
So you don’t regret
When your time comes along
That you never could tell a bird from her song!

When bog water steals her wings’ day-smell
Comes the night heron to roost on the marshy night.
I have often caught her lost in the dim orb of moon
Got a whiff in the wind of her fishy smell
That says the night is not yet old
Her feathery dreams still unripe,
But like a philosopher in thought shy
The winged wonder would at my slightest hint fly
Leaving on my homebound way a trail
Till the moon reclines the night turns pale.

I wonder what thinks the night heron
In the stillness of the boggy night,
Is it her day’s catch and contentment
Or some way to carve a place in the starry firmament!

Nothing escapes, nothing stands a chance
He’s the seeker of theme, from life’s each instance
From random babbles to soliloquy
From a breaking glass to a droning bee
Nothing escapes his elephant ears
From joyous guffaw to lonely tears
Doesn’t matter if he’s alone or in crowd
He’s looking for one and surely hounds out
His ideas from the vortex of life
From the most innocuous to the raging strife
Picking each grain like the pecking birds
Make each grain into woven words
Anytime of day wherever he is
From a *******’s burst to sound of kiss
Shaping in glory seeming mediocrity
Making idols somber to the most witty
Through sleepless nights on his dazed bed
From the dark silence picks glimmering shade
A possessed man with the destined fate
His canvas is never blank, he’s a poet.

Time is running out and what a heck
A few moments from now, they'll break my neck.
A shiver down my spine, I'll be no more
The noose is ready, and so is trapdoor.
Here they come, for my last statement
Going through rituals, it's my predicament.
Someone asked if I would make a will
What I would like to have for last meal.
I'm so scared, dimmer gets the light
There's no way I can have an appetite.
My head is jumbled, my thoughts in a mess
The hangman is ready, they give me my dress.
My feet are so heavy, it's hard to stand
Not wasting time, they drag me by hand.
The gallows looks ominous, I'm dead pale
Just a few steps and I'll be in hell.
The world is so alive, I'm in no mood
They pinion me tight, put on the hood.
The lever goes bang, tightens the noose....




Down I go, hang limp and loose.

Shadows move in the foggy streetlight
The lone dog's shadow, there's no food in sight.
All skin and bone, it shivers in the cold
O God be kind put the cold on hold.
The dog begs warmth, frozen is his nose
In pursuit of warmth two shadows get close.
Seeking the heat two shadows clasp tight
The dog is stiff cold, there's no warmth in sight.
The night will be long, hunger will bite
O God let the dog see another daylight.

Two shadows merge warm close and tight
The dog will not give up without a fight.

Till dies down the music in our ears
Come let’s go back to the yesteryears
To those beaches of youth’s wild hunt
Run again with the wind and play truant.
Come let’s go get one more hold
On those duckback years that couldn’t make us old
Fly with them to where we dreamed to reach
The realm of youth’s sweated whiff adrift in saline beach.
Come let’s go back and ride the breaking waves
Dig out love’s fossil that our heart still craves
Retrace our imprints etched on the sandy shore
Till the music dies down and in our ears plays no more.

I am just a name
No money, no claim to fame
Just an ordinary guy
Who holds his head high!
You can count me as any
One among the countless many
Just another face in the crowd
Who has not stopped being proud!
You may ask why the vanity
You can pity the humble's dignity
Not knowing the true measure
Of the possessions in my treasure!
I have a richly simple life
An undemanding girl as a wife
My heart she really does win
She's a woman no boasting queen!
We have a son (a daughter it could be)
A bubbly one that babbles in glee
I don't mind missing the sunrise
We see it every moment in his eyes!
I have a house with little to show
But a patch of blue from window
And a backyard so cutely thin
To barely hold a streak of green!
But it's not the house so much
The wonder is my wife's magic touch
That tides whatever the weather
And keeps our home together!
So you know dear reader my mate
The key of my pride the secret
With all the world's wealth on my side
Shouldn't I bear myself with pride?

In the depth of the ocean
Swells a cruel motion
Submarine rocks rattle
Furious is earth's mantle.
The sand and blue seashore
Doesn't tell what brews in core
The silent revolt deep within
Can cause havoc and ruin.
Innocently I sip my tea
Before me the peaceful sea
So cool and beautiful
But elements, they still rule.
They build it up slow
Pounce on you before you know
Unshackled, wildly they break free
As calm sea's torment called tsunami!

When hunger gnaws,
Exits poetry,
Moon becomes a mere prose.

Years wear down
This body a rusty town
The cells fast shrink,
Yet somewhere deep within
A faintly throbbing green
Keeps us from the brink.
When it all seem to recur
Getting closer to departure
Past stories’ repeat,
Some things don’t grow stale
Their pleasures immeasurable
Memories bitter sweet.

i give you my word neela
i'll set you free
to go back to the forest
home on the greenest tree.
the blue your eyes dream for
beyond this hole of doom
from a life you perforce endure
for comforts of a prisoner's room.
i give you my word neela
i can't take it anymore
my heart is set on setting you free
should have done it long before.
i'll love to see your aching wings soar up the tallest tree
your feathers to sing in glee wind's sweetest melody
when you glow in the sun bathe in the dewy rain
you'll forget in that morrow all of today's pain.
i give you my word neela
i'll set you free
to escape from this hole of doom
from this hell of misery.

i give you my word neela
for a small favor you must do
speak before i set you free
my lessons of a word or two.

Before the east glows in the sun
Run boy run.
Only they who run
Know the fun
Of leaving the bed
And going ahead.
5 chimes the bell
And off you sail
Sniffing the smell of grass
Past you the winds rush.
Run along as if on wing
To reach where the larks sing
Up down down up the feet
Lub-dub goes up heartbeat
Like invincible one you run
To feel the morn so sweet!

What I like best
Is when the sun dips west
To come with a hop
To the Rooftop!
I see how red with blue blends
As another day ends,
After a tiring day looking for rest
The birds haste to find their nest!
As the light grows dim
Colors spill on the sky at whim
I feel a peace rise in me
That breaks all shackles
And sets me free!

Past utility
It's time to dissemble.
One last large blink
And he would collapse dead,
His fragmented pieces
Moved for recycle
To beget a new one
No one welcomes,
Like death was un-mourned.
He could sense the lethal blow.
It was sometime coming,
The premonition of end
The lump in the throat,
But not equipped with tears,
The emotions couldn't outpour.
‘I was a fool', he thought
‘to have thought them my own'
‘live them in dreams'
‘toil so they can be happy'.
Now one among many,
He waits for execution
By the ones he thought his own,
Though he couldn't otherwise,
It was built into him.
The anguished cries from his heart
Reverberate in the corridor
And the cries of the others
Melt and merge with his.

He wished he was not born an android!

Under scorching sun
On asphalt road
In knee deep water!

Make choice
To listen
From the din of all noise!