The ugly is no face no color no skin
It you won’t find on surface
The ugly also known as bad’s worse twin
May hide beneath a pretty face.
None is born ugly but later convert
Lured by power and greed
Ugly is ugly from meanness of heart
A shameless and self centred creed.
Bad for this world that it usually rules
Dominates politics and governance
Both bad and good are to ugly easy fools
Victims of ugly’s pretense.
The clan of ugly raises its head
To shed blood and wage wars
When ugly reigns the good falls dead
Struck by its satanic curse.
The bad is one that lives on threshold
Can go with either on ride
Deviant of good its soul isn’t sold
If wants can switch to good’s side.
Bad isn’t as bad as ugly can be
It has quite a few streaks of good
It still has the choice to make itself free
And be as good as it could.
The good is surely of the three the only wise
That serves without craving for glory
Makes for us this earth a paradise
Hardly finds a place in history.

Among strangers faces unknown
Tears rolling on your cheeks
You cried “mom, mom”
And my heart bled!
I kissed and cuddled you
“Don’t cry little baby”
I played your mom
I played your dad
Like you I became a child!
As you grew up
Often I scolded you
But believe me
It was not real
I wanted to make a man out of you!
Did you respect me, love me
Or hate me?
I have no answer.
I am now blind with age
But can see you my child
I can’t hear anymore
But still listen to your voice
I don’t know where you are
But feel you in my heart!
Do you remember?
I am your teacher!

The golden tinge of the shy sun
Peeked onto her pinkness
The youthful night was full of fun
Leaving residues on her face!
Whole night the storm blew
That no cover could protect
Denser the darkness grew
Hankering for a ****** perfect!
It’s still there the bed sheet
Spotless without a stain on it
Gone is the storm with its rage
Pinkness stolen, she has come of age!

Oh what salvation lies
In rain’s musical note
That gathers the dreams for eyes
Makes reality remote!

Gadgets you buy
Tomorrow die,
Pity
So fast
Lose novelty.

He thought he could easily glide
But on the road hit his head
The dog was on the other side
The dog wasn’t fed.
In that wee hour he bled
The winter fog lay dense
The poor dog remained unfed
There wasn’t an ambulance.
A little faster and he could make it
But he landed on his head
The car had him deadly hit
The dog wasn’t fed.
A few steps and he could be there
But he was lying with a swollen head
God he was not fair
The dog wasn’t fed.
He could have taken his time to cross to the other side
The car could have seen him and not knock his head
But ifs and buts as always leave possibilities wide
He was so keen on it but the dog couldn’t be fed.
His eyes askance gazed lifeless at the sky
His blood stained the road red
Though a kind soul that made an honest try
God saw the dog wasn’t fed.

The winter haze hangs on the meadow,
In the veiled sun the ghostly apparitions
Mourn the ritual of yet another day,
To smell the wet exudation of the grass,
To till the field praying for the sun!
Once a while moos pierce the silence
Joined by the clangs of the tiny bells
That adorns the creatures as mournful
As the ones goading them to move on!
They bellow when unable to take anymore,
Hoping for a miracle that would unburden
And bring a freedom only yearned in dreams!
But as ordained the pale orb grows bright.
God frantically pours his passion in the disc
Colors of which spill over in the firmament!
Blazes in another day of harvesting hopes.

It's so hard to make, harder still to maintain
So easily it can break, may never be built again!
For heaven's sake hold onto it
The slightest crack can rip it apart.
A thing once so dear, a thing once so sweet
Can go astray and break your heart.
Just one hurting word, the smallest frown
A little loss of patience to understand,
Like a card house it comes crashing down,
With one unguarded blow of your hand!
Be careful, the castle is built in the sand,
There's dark cloud, gale and thunder
Hold onto it with your heart and your hand
Let it not for heaven's sake come asunder.

I'm escaping again to Green Island.
Here the landscape never changes,
The rocks never grow moss,
The mystic river is never stolen.
They are as they were eons ago.
I am the odd man there,
Worn out by time,
The bald patch on the green,
A barrenness on the fertile soil.
Yet here I'm forgiven
For seeking her face,
Youthfully there on the wallpaper.

Can you
recite from memory
your own poetry?

Come here to mend a broken heart
Come here to make a new start
Come here to set passions ablaze
Come here to turn a new page.
Here the hills wild and verdant
Purge out all meanness within
Here the streams gaily abundant
Wash the mind's dirt to make it clean.
Here the hearts only know to give
Lust not to get in return
Here the tears when the eyes they leave
Not in the revenge's wrath burn.
Take home these pix hang it on your wall
See it when despairs torment
Wear its beacon on the night of squall
To find way under starless firmament.

In a room dark
I’m killed everyday
I can’t see the wound’s mark
As there’s no sunray…..

No religion no race
In the darkness
I’m just someone with no face
To be killed without trace…..

They could set me free
My stomach was empty
I was starved and lean
No way could I win…….

I pray for a little light
As anyone would on a dark night
To see where it hurts
When the bullet departs……

Hunger has stilled my sense
Can’t feel the death sentence
Still in the dark I pray
To a God who kills me everyday!

Don't regret, never mind
The day you have left behind
A beautiful night is in wait for you
For dreaming again hoping anew!
Feel blessed that you got to stay
To live and love for another day
To rise again and see the sun
Get to do what's still undone.
Know it is from god a gift
To renew your spirit and give it a lift!

With length
a poem
loses strength?

The most fulfilling happiness
is the one that brings
without a reason
rapture to your heart
not needing you to pause
to find a cause!

The riddles inside me
Are set free
Through poems.
They go on a ride
In the world outside
Turn to frozen frames!

I couldn’t read you
After these many years
Words I thought would bring you cheers
Brought your eyes a drop of dew.
I couldn’t be your perfect guy
What I tried all the while
Couldn’t bring your eyes a smile
There still lumps of sadness cry.
My woman after these many years
I couldn’t get through your tapestry
You still remain Christie’s Mystery
Couldn’t explore your hidden layers.

Hey, sir, take home this razor
The sharpest one in silver chrome
While you would have the shaving pleasure
I could cut bread at home.
Cuts so fine your face would treasure
Get it and have the smoothest cheek
While you would have the shaving pleasure
I could feed my kid for a week.
It’s so cheap sir, just a shilling
Your fortune’s armor in silver chrome
May bring you good luck, god willing,
I could light a fire at home.

It’s not what I thought
Youth wasn’t all carrot.
Once past its peak
I was shown its stick.

Night though deep
Still elusive
A drooping eye,
Toss on bed
The thoughts in head
Moon passes by.
Needs a break
But wide awake
The racing mind,
Thinks it best
To forego rest
Search and find.
The night no bliss
Peace goes amiss
A trying time,
Though sleepless
The saving grace
Is a streaming rhyme.

Just after that pretty shower
Frivolously drenched the sunlit path,
I thought of taking a walk in the no-man’s park
To smell there the dampness rising from earth.
I tiptoed on the deserted walkway
Smelling of bleaching to prevent a fall,
Not a soul there even the leaves were quiet
But didn’t read much as they do bereft of wind.
The sentry at the gate sedated by lack of footfall
Possibly had locked himself in his small rest room,
These drizzles he thought coming off and on
Might deter the lovers who usually spoil his day.
I imagined in that eerie silence without a cricket’s buzz
Time had taken me to that time when God was all alone
Grappling to find solutions to his absolute solitude
And tearing hairs to find for himself something to care for.
And here I am Adam his first make in his own image
With God still working out a fairer version of himself
To give me company in this mythical garden of Eden.
I expected to see my Eve anytime round the mossy corners
Thought if she would be dressed like me or she would disrobe me
And then hand in hand we together would walk
To find the apple tree, eat the fruit and be banished….
Two lovers emerged from behind a bush still unhinged,
I had to leave as Adam had found her Eve.

Hidden in the pages of a dusty book
I found a note- ‘waiting for you'
Who wrote it? How did she look?
We never met, it's long overdue.
Beneath dust of time, my mind was a mess
I couldn't remember her or recollect the face
Is she still waiting or sailed elsewhere
She was waiting for me, why didn't I care?
Why didn't she call again, send a reminder?
She was waiting, I didn't go to her.
In life's passage, an event mundane
The note in the dusty book became heart's burden.

Without care it grows
Till the flower shows
Birds brought the seed
It's just another ****.
In a corner of the garden
Amid beauties a burden
One you would like to miss
It grows unloved in bliss.
You care not about its name
The uninvited without shame
That needs no water
‘**** it', you mutter.
Hardened it stands stubborn
Mocking you night and morn
Unloved yet in love with you
Baked in sun bathed in dew.
You can't take it anymore
It has to be shown the door
With gun you madly shoot
It's gone head and root.
Summer passes comes the rain
Your garden is green once again
For your love sprouts the undying greed
Once more the birds bring back the seed.

The city is in flame.
Spring has set the streets on fire.
The walkways are glowing red.
Like the forbidden, the indifferent passersby
Stamp on them.
Under busy feet, littered on the concrete,
The raging fire paints the city wild.
They fall noiselessly on your path,
Giving you all and hoping nothing in return.
If you are not moved, trample them not, lest
They turn away not to be back again,
Flames of the forest!

Tell me words simple
that on my heart
when softly land
I understand,
and when they depart
leave me a smile's dimple.

Two little birds
One green one blue
I really don’t know
With them what to do!
In the markets yesterday
There were birds galore
But I cannot say
How they landed on my door.
From the many colorful ones
The hands that picked these two
Sold them off and flew
Not telling me what to do.
The blue one is too small
Its tail not grown enough
The green is a perfect doll
A prancing chirping stuff!
Amid the birds umpteen
Maybe they were apart
But fate has put them in
To become my household’s part!
My words they don’t heed
I really have no clue
For food what they need
For their upkeep what to do!
In a day they’ve carved a space
Stolen my mind strangers though
Bringing me a gust of happiness
On my face a joyous glow!
I’m worrying when they’re quiet
Feel blessed when they dance
My wonder doesn’t abate
At these mates thrown by chance!

The scent of pollen
Draws it nigh
The butterfly
Needn't fly high!
It needn't go far
Nor mind the briar
To draw nectar
From the yearning flower!
I learned it from butterfly
All I ought to find lie
So near me
I only have to see!

The wrinkled hands
Bear not the slightest hint
They ever grabbed the golden orb.
Age mockingly hides
This body ever rose with the tides.
Now before the eyes
A swirling mist
Waits for the final tryst!

The music plays on,
He lies motionless,
Sedated forlorn,
End looming on his face.
There isn't a trace
That he did ever embrace
Life and love that fulfils it,
But forever lying on the crumpled sheet!
The music plays in his head,
His fingers faintly move on the bed,
Now from death no more immune,
They celebrate the symphony of one last tune!

At the bottom of despair
Lies
The seed of repair!

Whole day their wings ache for the sky
Their eyes thirst the moribund blue
But here they are and will be till they die
Without ever knowing why.
The black striped beauty in velvet brown
Paces restless in utter distress
A majestic beast robbed of its crown
Wallows in its caged recess.
So I say friend if you need sunshine for your gloom
For your sore eyes an open blue
Imagine them all from the confine of your room
But don’t ever go to the zoo.

You could have stayed back in the sun.
But you sail in the stormy ocean
You brave the cold nights
While the fire burns out in the hearth
You dive deep and climb high
Never choosing the calm, not afraid to die!
You could have stayed back in the sun
Enjoying peace and the mundane fun
But you choose the flower's thorn
You grab the bull by the horn,
You know you have to overcome and win
The battle against the enemy within!

Over the ebbing tide of noise
Falls the hush from the sky,
A crimson farewell to the day
Paints a melancholy in the air,
One last flutter the wings come to rest
Waiting for starlight to warm the nest…
Looking back, so hollow the bygone times ring,
As quietly sets in another evening.

On the bend the rosy face
And I've grown so old
The ponytail the flowered lace
Once ends it's never retold.
A moment's fullness of the dewy lip
And I've grown so old
The hazelnut eyes quick n deep
Once and forever was I sold.
In the air the silken hand
And I've grown so old
A touch that dreamed to land
Would not land was foretold.
Night's end a touch on forehead
And I've grown so old
Always knew it was dream-made
Fantasies the passing years rolled.

At the worst of times
See me through
Rhythmic rhymes.

Sitting there on the lap
He claps when the audiences clap
On him painted an aura of happiness
A smile is permanently fixed on his face.
Eyes forever stretched without a frown
He plays to the gallery a perfect clown
You may envy his easygoing ways
Gathering laughter on all that he says,
His widely open unblinking eyes
That show faked emotions feigned surprise.
You may like to have his rapturous nights
Drawing applauses hogging limelight
But you would have pity for him once you know
He’s a talking doll in the ventriloquist’s show.

For long there’s no rain, for long
The dying soil stretches its tongue
Towards the firmament, begging on its knees
‘Rain, come rain, even if a little, please’!
It’s eons since the clouds squeezed out
The last drops, knowing they’re all in vain
No yield would come of them, no sprout
Horrified they wilted to be never back again!

The race progressed with their grim toil
Forgetting rain is born in the soil
Dreaming of a distant thunder
Yearning the clouds to come asunder!

My grandpa told me a fairytale
That once on earth the rain fell
It washed the body and made souls clean
Lives shot up to make the earth green!

The almond pearls bounce on the leaves,
Drip to drench me with the heavenly boon,
What magical transformation the sky weaves,
Its wands of clouds creating another monsoon!
There's though a different spell on the ground
Where water flows like a river in high tide,
Silence broken only by a splashing sound
Monstrous holes yawning on all side!
You longed for it in the summer's pain
Hallucinating in agony the coming of it
You curse it now calling it a bane
As it pours from above and deluge the street!

Witty
Finds humor
In self-pity.

Prosaic
Finds solace
In poetry’s grace.

Keys
Find it hard
If often not
You change password.

First love forever lasts.
Cinders from the past
Gather fire from the cold
In your heart light a spark.
First love forever lasts.
In your eyes it alights
In the middle of the nights
Turns a drop of tear.
First love forever lasts.
When you get up in the morn
You see it appear
In renewal’s attire.

From the mother's breast
It landed in prison
It was a different nest
For it without reason!
It had not grown wing
Sky was a distant dream
They wanted it to sing
They and their strange whim!
Controlled by alien hands
It sought the mother's warmth
Surrendering to odd demands
Hiding sorrow in a forced mirth!
There was no way it could sing
Joy was barred by walls and ceiling
It had only a fragment of sky,
a grieving heart, mournful sigh!
Then one day opened the cage
It was free from all *******
‘Is it faking death? ' said someone
Never knowing its freedom was won!

There's so much prose in this world
Yet poetry finds its way out of your heart
Deep inside you is an island of emerald
Where the other you refuses to depart.
There's so much prose in this world
Yet you look for light from the pit
You let your dreams be unfurled
To turn the bitter to sweet.
There's so much prose in this world
Yet in you lives an undying child
That breathes in the island of emerald
Keeps you untamed and wild!

She was gasping for air
And left this morn.
I had to brush my teeth,
She was in the mirror
And in my eyes.
I had to sip my tea,
She was with me
Plunging deeper with every sip.
All through the rituals
She kept clinging to me
With every motion
The grasp was tighter.
I went out to face the day
And there she was in the sun,
In the air, all over me.
She was a guest in my world,
A few moments' find,
Leaving echoes in my mind!

Wearily reclines the midnight moon
Stars dreamily wait to fade
The nightjars somewhere sleepily croon
My eyes slumber doesn’t invade.
I hear my bloodstream in the canals of vein
The lubdub of my doughnut from deep
Echoes of footsteps, long forgotten pain,
My eyes can’t trace a wink of sleep.
The night ages the moon seeks west
Stars yearn an end to their trek
Inside my head they still abhor rest
Run random my thoughts without break.

His eyes meet
The passing feet,
They watch.
If from gallops
One stops,
A prized catch!

5.00 am

mr. run-o-mill
from a mundane slumber
wakes up.
His sleepy eyes
Scan the walled curtained
Half-lit room.
He introspects
In gloom
Tucks it into his head
It’s not worthwhile
Leaving his bed
To open his window
To the same show.

5.03 am

he heard a tune
a bird’s call
that soon
turned a cacophony.
He felt tickled by the buzz.
Curtains
Rebellious no more
Yielded dollops of light.
Mr. run-o-mill
In him something stirred.
He couldn’t say what it was
He didn’t see
He just heard.

5.05 am

two-three words
came to his mind
and to his pleasant surprise
they found a few more
and formed a line
and then more and more
poured in….
that end of night
without breaking a sweat
mr. run-o-mill
by some hidden design
turned a poet.

My dummy rules the days
The real I hide deep
So many things it says
The dummy puts it to sleep.
The dummy is scared of me
For in fantasies I persist
It knows it can't afford to be
Like me an anarchist.
For food it must earn
It must do hard work
Life's skills it must learn
It must make its mark.
The real I if had its say
Would do none of these
He would shape his own day
Act as his wishes please.
Leisurely he would take his horse
To where the green touches the sky
Run at will and take a pause
Not allowing the dreams to die!

He spends his work squabbling, haggling over a rupee
Foul mouths, abuses and all that drains his energy
You couldn’t tell if he is drunk just pretending to be sober
Battling through a rotten life, his ordeal never really over!
But when night comes and the half ball silver glows
Leaving behind the muck, he can stop being morose
He neither reflects on his misery nor feels the need to weep
On a six by six potholed floor, quickly he falls asleep!
Are you not curious to know if dreams visit him then?
With sweet angels with words of love or beautiful women
No curses no shouting men, only friends surrounding him
Hugging him, cheering him, he is a winner in his dream!
Or the same evils haunt him, the ones that storm his day
Mock him, spit on his face, kick him out of their way
He struggles to find his way out, shouting curses in his sleep
There’s no light or end of the tunnel, he doesn’t know to weep!