‘The coffee is getting cold’.

The sweet retold
From her
Waiting with the winter’s brew!

No ambition I harbor
For here my woman
The best way she can
Makes steaming brew
Worth my savor!

She knows too
In the wintry nights
With her I crave to be
Sipping her hot coffee
With it drowning the winter’s pain
My only reward, best bargain
A sweet story retold!

‘The coffee is getting cold’
From her
Creating for me summer’s brew!

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!

Today I was hoping a breakthrough
seeking good luck my way
lift me from bad times sticking like glue
growing like weeds by the day!

My coffer long starved badly needs to fill
but dwindling faster instead
no more can cope with long line of bill
falling time barred unpaid!

Fortune you know has her weird style
in choosing the man to shower on
while I dream for her just one smile
she prefers to leave me alone!

The ways she chose to send me her love
could in no way lift me from bog
she threw on my way a bleeding dove
dying from the fangs of a dog!

She cast on my way a famished old hag
who for bringing good luck was no good
just short of **** in her surviving rag
couldn’t count the days without food!

Without a windfall on the mire stuck
my hopes lay ruined by sunset
the night found me still a sitting duck
with another day lying in wait!

Price rises in spate
So is not earned buck
Hits me hard market
I fall like sitting duck.

Home’s need for grocery
Rises so too price
My call for austerity
She finds not at all nice.

Goes up quickly tariff
Not my meager earn
Life is pretty stiff
With bump and ugly turn.

Still I breathe carefree
Though my poems don’t pay
With her as company
Look to another day.

His last piece of work I touch everyday
and feel not the water but sadness
flowing from the faucet.

From the sound of the sink
I hear him say
didn't I do a good job?
not once broke down
but think of her
she's broken down
the faucet has withstood
she hasn't
there I did a bad job
letting water flow down
the broken valves of her heart.

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!

A dark cavern
Yawns wide
Cobwebbed
With corpses of storage
Of prehistoric age,
Went in long time
Put stay
Without again
Seeing light of day,
Untouched by squall
on the wall
In hibernation
An archive
Beyond retrieval,
A black square hole
Without a role
In my living room,
I’ll never take a ladder
to hold me aloft
and peep inside the loft
but let continue
its slumberous mystery
date prehistory

Bansharee

tends cows in the field
her hairs deep wisps in the wind
her dark skin
an unfathomed mist
her perfume
rice washed
her feet
conqueror of wild grass

Bansharee...bansharee...
she tends cows in the field
a warrior in the wild wind
an autumn of all seasons
runs self willed
floats on the field
over her clouds gather
there isn't a match for her
in her cracked glass mirror
she is two
one a wild warrior
with a face only the wind loves
and the other
weather beaten
by fate cursed
but dreaming...

in some heart somewhere
for her
love is nursed!

Bansharee...Bansharee...

Beyond the walls of sandbars and streams
waves break into silent white foams
often I've crossed them in my dreams
beckoned by the distantly looming haze.

The sky goads me to traverse the stretch
clouds hinder to ask what if rises the tide
the sea is all around in deadly embrace
her monstrous curls in hunger bared wide.

Climb the sandbars and reach her remoteness
calls the wind of the sizzling September
days as this would be gone in haste
shelled in memories to be ever remembered.

I slip into the lagoon in a drunken trance
the ripples break into a victorious song
the sea she breaks into a joyous dance
the time is here and the tides won't be long.

as i turned at the bend
the house showed up

at the gate she stood
smiling at me
her hair fell down on her back
black slightly curled
perfumed oil fragrant
which when she raised her hand to comb
revealed her navel
that like every other day
lusted me to grab her
press her onto me
coalesce
till i would not know
the part that was she
the part that was me.

the house stands freshly painted
there's a woman at the gate
but she is not her.

i sniff the wind for her fragrance.

twenty years is a long time
but why my lust still seeks her

why these hands burn
to grab her just once

do the time we leave behind
and the space
immortal?

I never knew how the roses you grew
the myna flapped again broken wings
soils thirsted for touch of you
longed for your gift of saplings!

I never knew the depth of your eyes
reaching to the densest of bush
I only snapped the mating butterflies
the day end’s scurrying mongoose!

I never knew what hidden key
was in you to unlock the door
to be in a world yours only
with a sky for limitless soar!

I would never know why said you
when at dusk I pointed afar
*your eyes and my eyes together make two
please never show me a lone star!

Hope has no merciful face.
It bludgeons us harder
Than despair
To which it turns
When the result spurns
Our expectations!
Yet ironically
Most adored is hope,
A sauce for the sufferer
A spice to spruce up
The leftover
From the last despair,
Never really tidying
The ashes of shattered dreams
But staying back
Till our last breath
Goading us to hold onto it!

When she says I’m hanging up
Stop her before she hangs up
For her click of disconnect
Might never again get you
To hear what she couldn’t state
Create a disconnect
Between you and her
When you can only see from far
She’s drifting a deadwood
Receding to a distance
And your cries on this shore
Is merely mouthing a silence
Of a dumb heart within a locked door
That crafted its own fate!

When she says I’m hanging up
Stop her to save a killing
*Disconnect!

Why we delay in saying what matters the most
place it at the bottom of the list
scared it might let loose a fearsome ghost
of what's last but definitely not the least!

We speak this and that leaving it aside
keep the most necessary in the mist
beat about the bush in that bush we hide
not saying what's last but not the least!

Why we speak the most needed at the last
treat it as a monstrous beast
when we have to say it and say it we must
not say first the last but not the least!

What's the point of the deferment to last stage
and not say it at the very outset
keep delaying it and blunt its edge
turn the last but not the least into waste!

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.

You needn’t so elaborately state
You don’t want to complicate.

When the sun scorched the sand,
I went to Henry’s Island.
The winter came and left the shore
Spring was for a while and then no more
The rains beat the shingled beach
The soothing autumn was within reach.
Yet I spurned these tempting seasons
Couldn’t persuade myself with good reasons
To visit the island in fairer weather
And landed on it in the harshest summer!
The sands bit my feet like burning coal
The beach seemed alone without a soul
To the distant horizon my eyes could gaze
A fishermen’s boat hung in the haze.
The red ***** though found it a fun
To come out of hole to bathe in the sun
When I was close they were quickly gone
The beach was alive and I wasn’t alone.
The seagulls skimmed the waves for fish
The sea was all mine like in the dreamiest wish
Placing all her beauties at only my command
Gifting me a glorious summer at Henry’s Island.

the blue marble below him
looks a distant dream

wrapped in silence
frighteningly dark
he drifts away from it.

how he now lusts
for that curvaceous sphere
where he left his human part
to be adrift in the dark matter
rimless endless infinite!

once a patriotic earthman
he now travels a space
without nations borders
sinking into deeper ink of silence...

**he never loved his planet more
than from this distance!

Most of the people hate isolation
only a few taking it as blessing
and such is the one I'm talking about.

What if the familiar have shunned me,
he would say, the world is now mine,
to the strangers I bare my heart,
as they do to me, a complete stranger,
in the once and possibly the only meet
between people otherwise divided
exchanging thoughts and contacts
sure no call would ever follow
but happy in the chance encounter.

He thus meets a melange of people,
the man whose wife fled with her lover,
the woman whose husband deserted her
but she still wears red in his name,
the son abandoned in childhood
the old woman disowned by son.

He takes all their sadness into him
and feels his own greatly diminished
thankful that fate hasn't been as harsh
or how he would have coped with
the misfortunes that befelled those strangers.

He bows his head, for in the isolation,
he knew how it hurts to be deprived of
what was obviously legitimate.

At the last hut of the village
Lives the girl of tender age
Her eyes though love filled
Meet only the long paddy field!

Forlorn on a lonely summer noon
She hugs her image on the stream
Wishes on her way would come soon
The boy she had found in her dream!

The last hut is ever too far
But for the winds blown away
None knows if ever a traveler
Would stray to her door one day!

She hugs her image on the stream
Washes her cute rice bran face
If ever comes the boy of her dream
Finds out her last hut address!

Her heart weaves a wish upon a star
On moonlit nights in silvers’ gleam
Next morn if the boy comes to her
She would ever cage him in her dream!

I dipped my toe
in the inviting shallowness of the creek.

her muddy water
gurgled in joy

she stoked the fire of my desire

wove me dreams
with moonbeams

and I waded far on her

till the water rose
above my nose

death seemed close and nigh.

I didn’t die

drifted away on her

going stronger
growing weaker.

(so they say once you dip your toe
soon lose your way
in the muddy creek’s flow)

It hung in the air
Hallucinated a while
And died like a smile!
Was it ever there,
This marvel
When I dreamed my lips
Touched her navel!

thief, burglar, you're stealing again?
I told you not to touch my biscuit

never been a stealer dear never been
me a stealer? you surely don't mean

a lie at the start of the day?
and you aren't a liar you say?

I ain't no liar you know that sweet mate
I'm a liar when one is waiting at the gate
should I keep the biscuit back at its place?

I'm no liar dear I'm no stealer
come to be just a kind dealer
when one is waiting at the gate
but would go back without regret

enough stealer go start your day

*yay...............................................

Sometimes she visits
leaves mind no traces
sometimes she lingers
for long

Sometimes her spirit
quickly vanishes
sometimes she stays
like a song!

Sometimes she dresses
real too fast
sometimes her clothes
she not finds

Sometimes she presses
for her fill of lust
sometimes she messes
my mind!

Sometimes her eyes
upon mine stay
sometimes her cries
look away

Sometimes her smile
showers like rain
sometimes they rile
cause me pain!

Sometimes her hands
cling to me tight
sometimes like sands
drift away

Sometimes her lands
are hazy and grey
she seems remote
far away!

*Yet she ever makes me feel
she loves me upon her sight
me her heart always wills
all of the day and night!

If you call it a digression, I have to agree
Not every mundane occurrence can be made into poetry.
Take for instance what happened the other day in the bus
An aged woman was struggling to cope with the office rush.
All the men occupied their seats looking the other way
Offering her a seat being too heavy a price to pay.
Of the all one kind soul vacated her his seat
I call him kind because not many like him you meet.
The episode could end here with her polite thank you
The act wasn’t so great that more than it was due.
But that woman god bless her kissed him on forehead
Said, ‘sweet angel, you are in heaven made.
A stranger though in you I see more than my son
Our paths may not meet again but my heart you’ve won’.

What’s there in this account of a mundane occurrence,
To make from it a poetry and burden your patience?

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.

Go join the long and winding queue
At the space station WYXLC2
Where they take you to time left behind
To dig out the lost love from your mind!
You are transported to a recreated space
To regain moments of forsaken happiness
Of holding her close, sing, and dance
A night out with her, for a second chance!
A precious chance to show your passion
Under the sky of heavenly constellation
Unspoken gestures of love that never fail
Feelings that words can’t explicitly tell!
Words you uttered you never wanted to
Vain, hollow and rang so untrue
That poured only from the lip’s surface
To ***** out love and **** its progress!
This night with your ex-lover for chance 2
To make amends, it’s what you must do
Utter not, for love words can disguise
Hold her in embrace, look deep into her eyes!

As the sun rose,
vermillion on her nose,
weary from the night’s consummation,
she was by the seaside.
She smelled of a fragrance
cheap but astonishingly sweet,
her eyes incredibly melancholic
gazed as far as the sea.
The worry shadowing her face
made it look outlandishly beautiful.
He is sailing to faraway sea
whence many have not returned,
and here she is to see off
her fisherman on a perilous voyage.
Soon the boat crowned the waves
and merged with the horizon.
She turned back for her hamlet,
determined not to cast her eyes on a widow.

Precariously perched on crossed log
Around his neck tightening noose
Did once repent the most lovable ****
Why only wealth did he choose?

I too will go to you, says the son
to the face of the father.

He broadens his smile
thin and gathering dust for long
as if to acknowledge
he always knew
one day his son would stand before him
resigned and weary
willing to join on his route.

The son sees his father's lips
move in the briefest prayer..

Welcome.

Not all masked men are robbers

*All robbers aren't masked

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.

You're daring enough to have ventured into the night,
he sounded delirious in the wispy light.

Half a mile across the lagoon
moondrunk Ridleys in ghostly shadows
would be digging holes in the sands
to lay their lives for posterity
away from the phosphoric melody
leaving the orphaned to find their way
once the shells cracked under silica.

They look like a procession of mourners,
the man whispered between strokes of oars
sloshing the rising tides of the channel
his deft hands rowing the fastest
cutting across the half mile to Cuthbert Bay.

The night ripened enough by that time
unfolded the crawling shadows from the sea
slowing time in frameshot motions
of rows of celebrating marchers.

Dead of night the stars were burning out
and I called out to the boatman.

To this day I don't believe what I heard.

None was ever ferried back by the boatman.

You’re a poet flying on wing
Your world a great heart only rules
You’re no fighter in a boxing ring
You’re no charger like bulls.

a piece of cheese in the caged house
smells so fine walks in the mouse
when in hunger in the need of food
it stops not to ponder if it should.

a billion mouse and most think straight
not breaking head on cause and effect
live by the meals and between the breath
not balding in the fantasy if god is a myth.

happy they aren’t like a few other-wise
brooding contemplating what’s lying in disguise
but just being mouse salivating on the food
without morals or scruples of should not and should.

when hungry craves food some sleep and rest
never bothering if their life is a complete waste
if you think detachedly of the wise and the mouse
it would seem both cohabiting the same caged house.

Do I see flicker of a shine
being left without a choice
when I sing to her the first line
and she has to lend her voice.

Girl I needed to see your face
but you hid it for too long
denied me that one happiness
till I broke into a song.

From you I needed just one line
see once your parted lip
to make you girl all of mine
sink into your eyes deep.

Sing a line girl sing me one
promise I wouldn’t ask more
I would treasure it when you’re gone
hold one line in heart’s core.

back from work when he rings the bell
his face tells me not all is well.

there's a dog out there,
seriously wounded, can't even get up
saying this he picks up a plastic bowl
pours some water in it
and to show him he isn't alone
I follow him with a bowl of milk
with breads soaked in it,

must be some insolent car tyre
crushed his hind legs
a black emaciated one
with a patch of white

and upon that grass
beneath the sinking night
we two mourn.

Fast more fast and a faster drive
Speed not kills but saves his life
Reach quicker and deliver more
Matters only numbers of door.

Someone's son someone's heartthrob
Forgets all when ******* job
Quick quicker on quickest mode
Bike wheels burn on asphalt road.

In lanes bylanes must find address
Can't afford one small recess
A brief meeting and end of deals
Pocket bunched with paid bills.

Around moon is a haloed mist
But night is one cruel beast
Won't let him look above
Think of a poem sweet in love.

If you pause awhile and look into their eyes
You would find sadness tinged with surprise
These sentinels of trust, with themselves at peace,
Need your love a little, but you hardly notice.
None really knows what goes on in their head
As they forage in the dirt for a crumb of bread
If they chance upon a scrap in a dingy by-lane
They wag gratefully in the shadow of men.
Food is so scarce though so often they waste
The men are too miserly to share with the rest
Yet they bear no malice as they flock the dustbin
These loyal creatures never know how to be mean.
Today on the street if you see one of them
Don’t just pass by its emaciated frame
Ignore not and notice, it’s there on the street
Waiting for your love in the dust and heat!
Stop awhile and look deep into its eyes
Step out of the shadow and reach it sunrise
See how it returns the love you warmly lend
And rewards you with truly a lifelong friend!

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.

She sobbed ceaseless, her pretty face, was such pitiful a sight
It moved the stars, to think what curse, had befallen the night.
On her empty cot, left with her thought, pillow wetted in tears’ stain
Moon felt morose, stopped on its course, at her pain’s sad refrain.
In that moment, in agony spent, she hadn’t a comforting arm
To smooth her hairs, soothe her tears, ask what had caused her harm.
Was it her love that deserted her, some cruel blow of fate?
Loss of dear one, untimely gone or treated ill by her mate.
None knew what it was, why her eyes were awash, with steadily flowing stream
Did her man abandon her, moved away afar, shattering her heart’s all dream?
Her lips didn’t tell, what her befell, not a soul was there to know
Unbridled rain, spoke of her pain, she couldn’t rein the flow.

At that instance, as if by chance, a man stood on her door
Said ‘quickly take, the pill for toothache, don’t you cry anymore’.

at the mirror above the wash basin
i pause at my reflection

in spectacles and muffler
is a face familiar

where have i seen him, where?

i remember it was beamed on tv, newspaper
made headlines for some days
before on an early dawn

he was quietly snuffed out.

from the mirror
i make a hasty retreat

so closely resembles my face

with that terrorist!

back on the writing table

i ponder

if the resemblance
goes beyond the face!

Uncle Benu preferred his evenings alone
When sun touched the western horizon
He would make himself a cup of tepid milk
And without showing a sign of worldly care
Would retire to his easy chair.

Then he was the most difficult man to approach
Occasionally swiping at the flying cockroach
And microbat intruding into the room
Accompanying him in that night-lamp gloom.

What he brooded was never known to me
To me he was a ghost and as scary
Quietly waiting in that darkened zone
If ever a living soul stepped in alone!

The only time I called him I would ever recall
As he moved his head towards me
And it still haunts me on lonely-bed nights
The eyes were all white!

Nobody believed me
None in my family
Not even mum

She only said

*Do you too like him take *****?

Do I look I could trouble anybody?
I’m just a quiet nobody,
Can’t even hurt an ant.
Look close my face
See engraved lines of patience,
Trouble I keep a safe distance.
Never ever thought of war
Held storms locked within,
Walked limits than walked far.
A no danger man to the bone
Always left conflicts alone,
My place is in trouble free zone.
Can’t be pushed anymore
My back is glued to the wall,
I’m peaceful to the core.

Girl, I meant you no harm,
Touching you was an accident,
Do I look anyway troublesome?

Now that I’m growing young / into my second childhood
I’ve decided to forsake / brooding brows and swinging mood
All things that I tell now / and all stuff that I read
All thoughts I jot on paper / must be understood by a kid.

Now that I’m growing young / turning green once more
I have decided to think simple / leave behind the abstract’s door
All things that I do now / all thoughts that I seed
All words I shoot from mouth / must be understood by a kid.

Now that I’m growing young / I must not find it hard
To not beat about the bush / speak straight not mincing word
All words that I speak or write / all words the others read
All my penning on the paper / must be understood by a kid.

Now that I’m growing young / I must break each old rule
Make clarity my hallmark / lucid expressions my tool
Whatever price I have to pay / would not pay the abstruse a heed
All my outpouring on the canvas / must be understood by a kid.

Every time you light up
Light goes off!

Longing lungs
Hoping hearts
For you suffer.

You don’t care about you
Let not your view
Derange other lives
Even your children
Your wife!

Every time you light up
I don’t care about you.

Let not your exhalations
Choke longing lungs
Hoping hearts

Hurt other lives!

a few strokes of scalpel art
reveal the man's heart

awhile ago it was throbbing

wanting
loving
smiling
weeping
committing
fearing
fail­ing
feeling
filling
falling
rising
daring
dreaming

end of a fable

lying in peace

on the mortuary table.

Love stories are not meant to be lived
you know that from the deleted faces
and vanished traces
of the ones once most valuable to you.

I don't get you I said
don't I feel a regret
for the women i loved
but was never able to live with

don't they still haunt me?

Regret is not the word
the man was adamant,
it's more a mourning for your failure
a tormenting reminder of an undefined deficiency
that you were not up to them
or in the wrath of missing the target
they were not up to you
and then he fired the killing shot

what you remember is not the love
years have wiped out the details
leaving you with the embers of unaccomplished missions
which in the first place
you didn't deserve to be a part of.

I hated his departing words.

True love lives in the stories
and love stories are not meant to be lived.