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!

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 can call it reliance
You can call it faith
When two souls span the distance
Stick as lifelong mate!

You can call it miracle
You can call it a chance
When four eyes joyous sparkle
Beginning with first glance!

You can call it fate
You can call it nuts
Only they know the secret
In love united hearts!

Call it by any name
Its reach is boundaryless
When touched by its warm flame
Springs fountain of happiness!

On the low tide marshland I run
to catch the miracle from close
deft splash of colors godly done
river bridging twin gorgeous rainbows!

Now I can leave in peace
without a regret to die
having seen fulfilled my wish
of a double rainbow on the sky!

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!

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.

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.

‘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!

For some days
placed you on the pedestal
of goddess.

Today
mere straw and clay
with the ganga

your skeleton flows away.

Woman,

hands that worship

immerse thee!

He was for long on the river sailing since sunrise
When under afternoon clouds the hamlet caught his eyes
Wearied by the sojourn to that land a faraway call
The green beckoned to rest his oars for a leisurely stroll.

He sat under a banyan to heal his limbs of pain
Darker grew the clouds the winds hinted rain
His heart too was aching the heart of a lonely man
For he had left behind his sweetheart his beloved woman.

It’s not known if clouds swelled in his dreamy eyes
His mind was too obsessed for the Empire’s rise
There he stood on the riverbank an alien on another’s soil
That he must till to build a kingdom paying with sweat of toil.

He remembered his three children their skin’s blended tan
Their rustic eyes reflecting their mother the one his woman
He reminisced under banyan shade how he fell in love with her
Only if he were a little late she would’ve been burned at the pyre.

*The man loved that sleepy hamlet built there a factory
The trade post became a city earned place in history
The river still meanders laden with the tears of pity
That swelled in his eyes for the woman he saved from suttee.

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.

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!

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.

In the stillness of the night,
The lake was drinking the moon.
Though shattered, he was not crying,
His eyes just glistened with a mist.
She was his world and bereft her,
It meant nothing to live.
Slowly he got up,
And with a sweep of charcoal,
Wrote in bold on the shabby hoarding,
‘I MISS YOU'.

Then he went into the water.

Drive fast must get outta here
Run back to the city’s lights
Daytime beauty hides the scares
Can fall prey to the swallowing nights!
Still hundred miles time running out
Rush back to the known comfort
With darkness here monsters sprout
Don’t expect with them any rapport!
Day’s golden innocence so alluring
Vast expanse winds’ endless blow
Magpie robins from treetops sing
In praise of the drunken river’s flow!
You feel tempted to fall for it
Crave for a while’s silent pause
To smell in soil a fragrance sweet
Be drowned in the bliss of serene repose!
While in the breeze the cornfields sway
The sun tilts west makes the sky crimson
Your uneasy mind wanna call it a day
Move away from there forget emotion!
When darkness falls it dawns here quick
Monsters loom in shades unknown
Fear gnaws your senses go weak
Your timid mind finds fears grown!
Though stars twinkle on milky way
The crescent moon anchors in sky
You feel you should’ve foregone the stay
And not stayed back for daylight to die!

Drive fast must get outta here
Leave them to fade in the rustic night
The hundred miles you must steer
Reach where you belong the city of light!

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?

I want to erase that ugly line.
It’s not seen but it’s there
Between you and me
Day and night
Deep down
Eating
Thru
Us!
You
And I
Created
And allowed
That line to grow
And build between us
A rift that makes us enemies
Drifting away as two islands!

Sometimes
Give the poems in your head
Some rest.

Don't write them on,
Write them off.

Internally arrange a funeral
Bid them farewell
Give them an unceremonious burial.

The rising poem won't complain
They know well your anguish and pain.

The labour you go through birthing them
Shape their body, give a name
They would understand.

Failed poems are not as arrogant
As the birthed ones.

They too are weary pounding your head
Making holes in your soul
They would rather rest than be born.

Sometimes
They deserve rest.

Let them float away to a place
Where they find peace
And will not be missed.

Wipe your tears
I wasn't meant to be here forever.

Did I say I love you
or was it unuttered
too feeble to be heard!

Maybe you knew it in the small moments
our eyes met
you could read my emotions
in the chance glance
I cast into that ocean
and you caught its fleeting shadow.

Do your tears betray that love
of two souls on a voyage
in turbulence and calmness
in light and in darkness
building nests on the way
where you showed the child the sky
to fly away one day.

You too  never made
I love you audible
but I heard them in your lips' quiver
like a prayer.

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.

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!

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!

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

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!

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...

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

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!

He lives life in his whim
No light flashes on him
Unhassled and free
He in his own way is happy.
He doesn't mind his way
Doesn't worry what he's to say
His mind is aimless as is his thought
He's not troubled for what he is not.
It isn't that the sun doesn't please him
The moon doesn't bring him the dream
He drinks them without getting dizzy
They pour in smooth and easy.
Beyond avarice and greed
He walks life unnoticed
A familiar face you pass by
He is just an ordinary guy.

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...............................................

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.

Silent, dark, bats rest
Photos of a few days' guests
Peeling plaster, lost lustre
Years of life gone to waste?

The men now, little know
About the men then, hang hollow
The air dull, cracks on wall
The men now, will soon follow.

Once life, there lived galore
Dancing feet rippled on floors
It's all past, turned to dust
The masters left, so the ******.

Men now, they care not know
All will sink in time's flow
Cobwebs will rule strong
Spiders have survived 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?

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.

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.

I was not that lucky

Not that lucky

Always.

Till came you

Came you

Filled heart’s space.

I was not that lucky

Not that lucky

Ever before.

Till you walked in

Walked in

Through my door.

I was not that lucky

Not that lucky

In the past.

Till you stepped in

Stepped in

Placed me trust.

I was not that lucky

Not that lucky

Had times arid.

Till you brought rain

Brought rain

Sowed love’s seed.

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!

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.

She loved the mesh of hair over her eyes.

My hair is all messed up, she smiled
I'm enmeshed in love, she kept smiling.

The winds rushed past
piercing her with kisses.

There goes the girl
the sky parted the clouds to see
her cheeks are sunset blush.

The birds hovered low over her.

They cackled and the air rippled.

The engine in awed silence
felt her weight.

Oh she weighs so low
light with the burden of love.

Over the bridge and down the highway
she melted in the crisp autumn glow
and he would never know
behind him she rose and fell
in that only once ride
with him.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

he's a much sobered man
when he's drunk

words then flow with elan
he's a jolly hunk.

he's a much sweeter pal
tipsy when he is

nice and warmly liberal
he puts you at ease.

does it so smooth
each inspiring peg

no more uncouth
he's no more a dreg.

when drunk he's at his best
never was a kind sweeter man

unburdened of his heavy breast
he kisses long ignored woman.

when boozed he's passionate no doubt
the hidden emotions are in spate

his heart freely speaks out
opens his secret's floodgate.

next morn he can't just recall
why stands an empty goblet

he lies in smell of alcohol
worries aren't light on his chest.

when i see the youthful faces
i feel a bitter regret
curse how time crazily races
rue things for which i'm late.

my youth now seems wasn't there
or was just a fleeting span
fate dealt me a blow unfair
made me too fast old man.

if only the years did roll back
if time travel wasn't a fancy
if only was laid back the past track
i would've loved to be twenty.

why it's such i didn't care
let twenty fly too fast past me
why that year if was very much there
i didn't lock it to be forever twenty.

twenty at twenty seemed absurd an age
a fabulous but unreal mirage
it was the year i passed out college
twenty did i ever have that age.

twenty when came too fast it went
survives in the now twenty's face
for me no year an imagined moment
i curse how years quickly race.