Pleads her mint blue eyes
Thank you for the patting touch
If I crave for a saucer of milk
Would that be asking too much?

Of course you have the right to ignore
And throw my way a vacant stare
Signing me to move away from door
Pretending there’s no milk in Frigidaire!

But I beg you to act humanly
Be ethical and firmly fair
If you got some milk for your tea
Surely you’ve some for me to spare!

Parting a few drops wouldn’t make you poor
My blessings would give you manifold back
You would feel far happier and I’m sure
Sky won’t fall if your brew is more black!

Well if you still ignore I would move away
With dignity I would leave your ground
But don’t blame me when comes the day
You feel a void and I’m not around!

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!

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!

wind scatters the fallen leaves

mother roams helpless
child in her arms

fleas merrily peel the stray
and her two pups

girl offers her flower
for a dime

as the clock strikes three
the devout race for a glimpse

the deity’s stone carved face
beams with divine grace.

The woodpecker whistles ttt,
Coucals call cluk clu,
The drongo tweets twit tt,
The night is out but we don't rue.
The crow caws ka ka ka,
Sparrows chirp chik chik,
Waterhens sing wa wa wa,
It's time to go for the day's pick.
They all announce its glory,
As the sky is painted with light,
To script for them a new story
That was brewing in the night.

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!

There’s no love sated
In one man, one woman
It flows unabated
For endless span!

In life she had seven husbands
But love with her is buried where her tomb stands
Many more might have come to her life
The lady she’s known as *the seven husband’s wife.

Empty would seem her heart’s treasure trove
If she had stuck to merely one love
So when tired she banished one for good
Found herself another as her soul’s food.

She searched love towards that end made attempt
But after a while grew familiarity’s contempt
Love is no water that can be held in one jerrycan
When one man was exhausted was time for another man.

Often she fell for them drawn by their exterior
Only to find afterwards their inferiority to her
All their sweet talks were hollow in every bit
Impossible was to endure their annoying habit.

Yet she didn’t cease her search for love true sublime
To bond in a relationship that would stand the test of time
But that she never found remained empty her treasure trove
She passed from one man to the other not found real love.

The seven men that failed her in love she ended their term
For they unbeknownst to them had caused her fatal harm
By not fulfilling her cherished goal not being loving husband
*Leaving her with no choice but with their blood to smear her hand!

The dark wood resists the light of progress
Lives there for thousands years an introvert race
Here they are born here lie their sepulcher
A few withdrawn people with a fossil culture!
Needs they have little, a little bit of food
All that they want they get in the wood
What lies beyond they don’t need to find
These folks of a tribe with plain thinking mind!

Those civilized outside thought it otherwise
The poor tribe suffers is what they surmise
‘Rare as they are they are really prized
Let’s groom them to become civilized’!
So long happily away from a farce called mainstream
This intrusion broke them, shattered their dream
Why turn them out and not be left alone?
The question is unresolved the battle goes on!

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!

The cold moon breaks through the crevices
and where do I hide?
there's nothing to haunt my mind
but only the guilts inside.

Told not to venture into the night
I braved in the power of moonlight
where every shadow was a ghost
every dark nook a lost coast.

If I had someone with me
it wouldn't be all that scary
but I left them on the way
thinking I wouldn't need them anyday.

The loves I betrayed
the souls I traded
descended behind the tree
like the waning moon.

Before long the dark would devour me
knowing, I moved down with the moon
with none but the sighs on my side..

The derelict offered no place to hide.

Uncertainty is the name of the game
Putting things in jeopardy God in shame
A particle’s position is immeasurable so its momentum
An imprecise arbitrariness for the Seeker a conundrum!

Drunk in the wine of Creation God had no inkling
Uncertainty would be inherent in his nature of things
Little slips He would make would be a stumbling block one day
One would affect the other's behavior without a remedial way!

It appears such a twisted thing making so little sense
The objects you measure with will themselves influence
The particle to be measured its velocity and speed
Discarding precise determination not yielding a perfect read!

Lovers take heart from this though her heart you may win
There’s no way with precision her love you can determine
She remains as yet unknown in her love’s position and quantum
You the Seeker can do little than to live with the conundrum!

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!

When over the rail bridge
on the sky autumn blue
clouds floated in cotton pieces

I longed for home.

The port light tower
and the masts of anchored ships
made me keen to reach home
like a sailor long on the sea
disembarking with dreamy eyes
thinking if at all is one home
a tender lip awaiting his sunburned cheek
or if he would retrace to the waves
and someone waiting was only in his head.

I was at Remount Road an old station
with home not really that far
and disproportionately small to my yearning.

I was making a brisk walk
and when at the door
fell into a reverie of
rail bridge
anchored ships on the port
white on the autumn blue
and the small station
Remount Road.

i sat to write a poem
tapped on the key
words turned lame
thoughts mystery

blank blinked the screen
mocked its cleanliness
while the head's din
made mind a mess

i thought of the girl
who gave my eye a cut
the one with a curl
stole my childhood heart

and the ******* her door
i met on way to school
she has grown no more
still gives my heart a pull

the one who ran me down
called me foolish child
the cutest in town
in her love i was wild

one upon one
floated up the face
my poem was undone
unborn undressed

Nice to see you are opening the shop.

Saying this
I search for lines of distress on her face
On her widowed eyes a painful strain
For when went her man
The way she wailed
It seemed she would never be sane again!

She smiles *now I run it alone
Sale is low
And I’m weighed down
With his pile of debt!

In her smile are hopes regrown
A telltale sign of grit

The show must go on.

Hurrying to my work in the untimely shower
Caught my ears the mews but it was rush hour
Must be another kitten born with no luck
Abandoned in the shrub dying on sidewalk!

The day soon rubbed off the mews from my mind
Till my feet trudged home leaving the drudge behind
Once upon that sidewalk in twilight’s grayish hues
I heard it from neath of grass pain’s plaintive mews!

Must be an angel possessed me I did find it out
Picked up took home put warm milk into its mouth
My lady unpleased said our hands are already full
Here you bring another like you isn’t another fool!

But she was the first one to make it a cosy bed
She was the one worrying how it to be properly fed
Yet filled the air its agony’s mews all day and night
She said your taking it here wasn’t all that right!

Its ma must have left the baby in the bush safely hiding
Picking up and taking it home was quite a wrong thing
She must be now crying wild searching everywhere
The baby wouldn’t stop crying till getting back mother!

So the cute kitten I placed back in the hideout on sidewalk
With the prayer it gets back ma wishing it good luck
Leaving it with heavy heart I walked away for day’s work
Sighed the silent sidewalk on my way home after dark!

She's a beautiful woman.

When age left her side
she grew a bed of marigold
blooming yellow and red
catching sunshine in winter
and as the years tiptoed to her
a fresh bed of love she made
and lay thereupon newly wed.

Where sways in the wind the eucalyptus
with chiming bells rolls the bullock cart
lies the hut of my dream sown in wild grass
lives the girl I have loved and given my heart!

She is the girl not been ever to a city
she isn’t the girl can call clever and witty
a girl without a mirror she’s the most pretty
and I have loved her and given all my heart!

Her skin is dark cloud her lips river’s flow
her eyes are sky deep tinged with rainbow
she isn’t the girl skilled in love’s fine art
she is the girl I have loved and given my heart!

Her hair rusty black makes the winds insane
her smiles streaming brook no artist can paint
a girl without polish yet a beauty on the earth
and I have loved her and given all of my heart!

I spread my wares and wait.
From morn till night
Longing that you would turn up
Love what I show and get it.
The shadows lengthen
The moon rises with the nightjar
The shadows close on me
I sulk in despair.
I am back with the first light
With renewed submission
Longing that you would turn up
Love what I show and get it.
The day spreads wings and departs
Fly away heart's dead embers
I embrace the loneliness.
Once again I cry in pain.

Thus I wait eons for you
That one day you would turn up
Love and get what I have to offer
Never knowing that you were there everyday
Holding me through the night
coming back with sunray!

‘See we aren’t leaving anything out,
check once more to be sure’
she said with a nagging doubt,
‘we’re going to come back no more
once behind us we close the door’.

The hassles had made her tense
Moving out was trouble immense
I said to soothe her nerve ‘be assured dear,
We would leave nothing here’.

Still for her peace I went in
To make sure nothing lay within
And what I got was a jolting shock
On the wall still hung our bedroom clock!

She fumed and blurted on my face
‘I always knew you’re too careless,
thank god I goaded you for another look
precious things might be lying in some nook’.

I went in not to seek anymore things
But for the spent moments still fluttering wings
Smell our joys and sorrows hanging in the air
Of the times living as a tenant here!

Winds brought her smell on the Broken Hill
it stirred a butterfly somewhere inside me
danced my **** to get her skin’s feel
grab her impale her ride her merrily!

But she looked scared the few times she saw me
kept moving away at quickened pace
in her hazel eyes seemed written boldly
in the stream haven’t you seen your face!

I had no notion of love but a void of pain
that sighed as the winds’ moan on Broken Hill
her laughter with her guy of a clan alien
made my hands itch to go for the ****!

But I refrained for the yawning difference
sensing I could never be her match perfect
the way she walked to me made no sense
she was taller and strangely more *****!

village girl pillage mind on the first sight
hazel eyes gazelle runs hair dark night

barn’s smell holds tale fathomless deep
flutters heart falls apart resolves fast slip

she knows it my heartbeats quicken for her
in love glow paint rainbow on day sky a star

she can catch as I watch slavish eyes’ plead
more than me it is she can my dreams read

but wouldn’t bend have me lent one little kiss
honor ******* her guard not let me do as please

she soon fades stays in head lives carefree
ever far upon a star sweetest memory.

Upon sleepy creek she rests
calm water dull august noon
memory are now all the crests
riding the waves in the moon!

Sailed the lunar breeze pearly sea
swam wispy phosphorescent gleam
when the night sang a lullaby
stars wove a blanket of dream!

Held her heart all the lovers’ trance
stolen kiss blown in the wind
on her breast joyous feet’s dance
tears of romance fallen ruined!

August noon resting weary
spins a sea for her to retrace
must find her way the ferry
to be lost in the waves’ embrace!

(1)
English pronunciation
is immense confusion
and often I seek
clarification
from macmillan
but when I try my luck
to earn fast buck
I log on
makemillion.con!

           (2)
Three thousand five hundred
his labor's price
his labored prize
he hands over to his father
his father
who knows better than to spend it
rewards of son's toil
bitter and sweet!

           (3)
I wish I were dead
and not he
now who will look after me?
cries the woman
a heart failure
having robbed his man.

with no hint of tears in her eyes
she doesn't disguise
her plea

*I part her with a hundred rupee.

When you're cloaked in a pall of gloom
Life seems bland with colours gone
The little flower in her humble bloom
Will say she's there you aren't alone.

moonlight's shadows on bats' wings
in the sky the stars abound
but keep me busy so many things
my eyes are stuck in ground.

my mind is stuck in arithmetic
the end of day accounts
so little time to be romantic
unfelt has lost all count.

croons unheard the unseen nightjar
***** owls' eyes glow
my mind still finds too little to stir
to pause a while go slow.

mystic night is lilting unheard
the moon still hopeful round
I'm busy picking the shards
of a mirage strewn around.

Cats galore here in our home
Crawling kittens in their tow
Puppies in our rooms roam
We don’t need anywhere to go.
My wife she proudly hosts
Boasts of her budgies many
Now she has added two parrots
We are in glorious company.
The bulbuls are kind to stay outside
But they too have to be hand fed
The mynas in us lovingly confide
Our rabbits love to be on bed.
She says she needs a few hens
That in the backyard would freely roam
I know you don’t see any gains
In having a zoo in our home!

To hell with it, enough I say
It's time to rise and be ready
With the sword's sweep to go and slay
The dark forces of my enemy!

Madly I go out for the drive
Beware foes you've no retreat
I'll hunt you out wherever you thrive
And will not come back before I do it!

All around I find echoing hollow
Pitying laughter in mocking glee
I move and my own shadows follow
Despairingly crying where is the enemy!

Where is the enemy, taunts my vengeance
Where is the enemy that my wrath seeks
Where is the enemy asks my impatience,
My enemy inside me reigns in bliss!

To give their face a facelift
on the lip and around eyes
invented was lipstick
extracted from dyes.

Ah a woman’s lips
have held for countless age
her mind’s secret tips
love, hatred, rage!

Her lips parted pursed
speak the subtlest lines
of a relation gone accursed
or one in glowing shines!

It’s not when lips do part
but when she’s tightlipped
the silence breaks man’s heart
the strongest one gets ripped!

But sure her puckered ones
they invite you to a bliss
sparkle like thousand suns
when land on you as kiss!

when we see ourselves
as being here
to comfort others.

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.

The girl with the blue umbrella
Caught my look,
For a moment I loved her
Then she was gone far.
I drank her eyes a sparkling wine
Forbidden she couldn’t be mine
In my heart she left a scar
In my eyes a remote star!

Under the mango tree where the shade is dark and deep
she waits with years on her skin.

The face though weary with the burden of time
has not yielded to the fate
of having once loved and lost.

She believes the winds from the barren field
will one day carry the rustle of footsteps
raising a song from within earth
that the moment is arrived
for the dead river to rise in tides
and flood her cheeks with the sapplings of
all the unplanted kisses.

When the nights come
the fireflies would sing
love is such a beautiful thing
basking in the glow of her heart.

It was bothering him the noise that came at night from outhouse
He didn’t give it much notice in the barn was a lot of mouse
Just wondered why in the day he would hear none of the sound
But it all started with him on the bed and the lunar path westbound.

As the grandfather clock chimed past twelve he kept counting the gong
It was about time to ***** up his ears the music would soon play along
The glass windowpane brought him the sky with stars all over firmament
Shaken out of wits he would tell himself it couldn’t be done by rodent.

Night after night it went on happening he couldn’t wish away with a laugh
It reached him one night to his patience’s end he said enough is enough
With his gun and torch he left the bed the truth for once he must learn
Who played the music regular midnight was somebody there in the barn?

He made his way through the shrub laden path under a half-lit moon
To find what it was that robbed his peace the source of the pestering croon
The outhouse loomed eerily in semidarkness a magic of night’s artistry
The man wondered what was hidden within what piece of baffling mystery.

Just as his shadow fell on the door floating in the crescent moon
The wind hushed off descended a lull stopped abruptly the tune
Nerves frayed in the nightly trudge his brows furrowed in doubt
He shrugged it off unlocked the door the fact must be found out.

A yawning black swallowed him with the smell of years’ dust
It took a while to see past it for his strained eyes to adjust
Then he remembered the torch in his hand his only aid for light
He pressed it on in the beamed circle caught the piano’s sight.

*Lying un-strummed for ages the piano had stood the time’s test
Playing host to its squeaking mates turning itself to their nest
They gaily treaded on the undead keys the notes were sheer fun
Their plot was uncovered on that night without the use of a gun.

On the deserted riverbank
lay the painted boat
his youth glistening in the half baked noon,
the river wide beckoned him to taste her depth,
skim her stretch and see her other side.
The boat was raring to go
riding the wide river's tide
masts high up full steam
to wherever she would carry him.
At each call of the river
his oars rended a soulful cry,
the river echoed him back
holding into her his futile longing
her waves wreathing in agony on the shore
if that could fetch him to her embrace.

The half baked noon
dull empty unchanging
knew
there wasn't a way he could ever launch into her....
the painted boat on the painted river!

Hand

A few playful beaking from him
And I remember
Did not soap the dirt off my hand!

Here I stand
Bothered
Praying

My parrot doesn’t get an infection.

Head*

Because it bothers
Low I stoop
To pen about bird ****!

On my way from office
Fell the hit-never-miss.

Finding no dried leaf
I used my handkerchief
And verified from a stranger
There wasn’t a stain!

Bird **** is a bane.

So they said
Is the chance my head
Would soon be bereft of hair

Quite unfair!

Here I stand
Bothered
Praying

The few remaining don’t leave me.

Bit by bit the monster river
swallows her flesh
her chunks a little quiver
then break in lumpy mess!*

She loves him in high tide moon
bears him children in insane fertility
falls for his sweet lapping croon
loses her in his enormity.

Since he mouthed her his first kiss
she had given him her ego
shrunk with his each bitten piece
washed away with his flow.

In love she never wavers
to offer her to the river
yielding to the monstrous slayer
knowing him her destined lover!

High atop the spire beneath a cloudless sky
the Cross stands forlorn Christmas is nigh
since long in the past time beyond recall
no bells chime here is sung no carol!

But its heart still flutters as hears the Lord's voice
I carried your burden and set for you the choice
to do this world much good and love your fellow men
be happy in others' happiness take share of their pain!

Kind Lord mutters the Cross men still live for gain
act the way it seems your blood was shed in vain
they war and breed hatred between them raise wall
hanker for pelf and power in their loss they squall!

The church lies abandoned starkly white and bare
only the Cross bows to the Lord in silent prayer
hoping it's not far away when the bells would ring
the Lord would carry the Cross on his second coming!

being the topper in the class, he developed certain pride
that the envious derided, ignored flatterers on his side.

the first bench was his permanent place
from where shone his haloed face
when the teachers spoke seemed it thus
there was only him in the whole class.

all questions he took the answers he knew
solved hardest sums others had no clue
not once an intruder could invade his space
he shined in glory of his flawlessness.

from him was never unfinished homework
ruthlessly made on exams his mark
was taken for granted he would win first place
the rest of the herd would just run the race.

the teachers indulged him the pride of the class
but you know all fame are fragile like glass
it so happened a new teacher joined the school
unbiased he was not to blindly toe the rule.

he asked the first boy if he had ever flown a kite
played marbles on road picked up a fight
if ever he had walked barefooted on the grass
stole a look at sky bunked even one class.

if he had ever chosen to close the book
hid him alone in the scariest of nook
scanned the horizon to catch first moonrise
counted the stars bamboo grove's fireflies.

he looked nonplussed didn't utter a word
anything than studies he hardly bothered
had he answered it would all have been *no
to him most precious was his place at front row.

he bowed his head down with ashen face
for the first time in class he failed to impress
what happened next was no riddle to guess
that teacher was gone without a trace.

As the day dies sun to west slants
my hands water the few potted plants
an evening dawns in melancholic hush
pesters my mood the cawing corvus!

The nose in the air polished jackdaw
can’t fathom why men break nature’s law
wipe out forests root out the green
then on the roof try to grow seedling!

Why at all shrink the men so smart
stretches of wood to build habitat
all the clever brains profound and wise
destroy wastelands to madly urbanize!

The corvus his eyes speak of dark scare
frightened beak caws how is unfair
denuding of trees in insane haste
leaving scarce space to build him a nest!

I could blow to smithereens
the wealth of the rich
could play a rob-in-hood
**** and steal
to give the poor a fair deal
could hang all the glib talkers
from the highest post
feet up head down
publicly displayed in the town
break the iron walls
bulldoze the palaces
pull them down from the throne
where I sent them
put an end to their dastardly game

but this mind’s wrath
this hand’s gun
can’t pop even one bullet
can only ink
a dawn pink emotion

of Revolution.

Who else but only the miser knows
Preciousness of attachment!*

He would not easily give up, not easily part
Loss of what he values easily breaks his heart!

He demeans not one object, knows to love not discard
Treasures each possession, each zealously guards!

Nothing for him grows old, with each he’s intimate
His ownership is blind, associations passionate!

Never demean the miser, rather adore his commitment
None else but only he knows true meanings of attachment!

In the ill-lit room singed with ovens’ heat
Swift hands deftly turn wheat ***** sweet
The air exudes a smell of pulpy soft taste
Blended with the odd fragrance of sweat!
Here reigns under the tin shed eternal night
As if by some design is forbidden daylight
Roll out confectionaries crisp and light
To fill the mouths with salivary delight!
Bread, cake, cookie and cherry bun
Kneading them in the heat is no fun
The bakers’ faces glow warm and red
Faster they must go before they rest their head!
The delicious stuff are relished by kids and grownups
They savor the flavor with their hot morning cups
Do they ever pause or give it a thought
How those laboring bodies in the heat rot!