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.

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

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.

In his own class
His ninety summers’ lens focus
On the fine print
To uncover the hidden tint!

All his peers long gone
He cheerfully carries on
In a way he isn’t mortal anymore
And death would never knock his door!

But for occasional drifts into past’s ember
He needs not much to remember
Except to pour over the thick bound book
Befitting his timeless wizened look!

In his nook on his lonely perch
He still isn’t tired of the search
For chancing upon that ultimate tint
Still baffling him in its blurring print!

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.

would have been unbearable
but for
our beliefs and assumptions!

What magic is there in the spotless pin bird sky
Dreams sun in soft glow pause in whispered cry
Amid the cooing white doves bathing the aural calm
Lament the lengthening shadows of winters yet to come!

The silent wind stirs deep in to find the mind a wretch
Mourning of the moribund time of unseen wasted stretch
If only it could still pick up the threads of each instance
Retrieve what’s gone with them by a miracle one last chance!

The songs come back the past is heard in its sweetest voice
The years you lived you lived in full by your destined choice
Each of them the winters gone exists in sun kissed piece
So you live them this afternoon and you too they don’t miss!

You too they don’t miss is when the winter speaks its heart
For times will ever roll in amid the illusion that they depart
Amid the cooing white doves bathing in the aural calm
Someone you would be there in the shadows of winter to come!

Lust moves easy mind roams crazy
What you like you want to own
Past turns of years when limbs lazy
Only then find love full grown.

Unripened age when turns new page
Lovelorn young minds be must
It’s only when the seasons age
You find in love true trust.

It’s made that way we have no say
Though love is summer born
It strongly holds till winter stays
Breaks not when trouble torn.

Can’t define how made like this
It takes years to own
The richest wine and the perfect bliss
Of love with time full grown!

Crispy leaves winter brown
crackle neath her feet
she looks good out of town
her eyes are playing sweet!

A little haze morn at ten
the place is real peace
on my lips desires rain
wishing stealing kiss!

She knows it quickens feet
maybe she wants too
her eyes when my eyes meet
read the twinkling cue!

Just we two froths a brew
none to find and look
blushing lips’ crimson hue
knows only that nook!

Welcome to love station.
Please dock your heart here
Slowly, softly, carefully!
Hope your journey thus far
Through the moon-bathed tunnel
Aglow with the choicest stars
Was pleasant and dreamful!
It would be sometime
Before you come out of the hangover
All earthlings have when they arrive
And be blissful in your time here
Holding onto your heart knowing in peace
That it would never stop beating
And instead be caged in another diaphragm
To live, love and go into transit again!
It's such a tragedy across millennia
That heart after heart was lost in death
Till mankind could find way to change it
Discover the key to immortality
Of transiting heart from one to other
And not let it be buried with the corpse!

You're now entering the heart lab.
Your replica is too eagerly waiting here.
See how it's already dancing in joy
Celebrating your immortality
And also its own!

Welcome to love station.
We assure you when you wake up
You'll know what it means
To be undead in love forever
And the key that was love!

He can’t get any shorter than an alphabet
Breathes mountain air pens mountain-speak
World he might roam but his love’s nest
Rests in his heartland the Stoney Creek!

He finds bliss in that blessed harbor
With his matey crazy Daisy
Walking a moonlight of bone color
In half-sleep star-eyed crazy!

On his journey along river tide
He tells of his joy and loneliness
Takes you on the deck on his side
Sails you with a sailor’s finesse!

He’s a graceful alphabet
A layer of love brick by brick
In him lives a  confiding mate
Whose love lives in Stoney Creek!

The king it’s well known found it no pleasure
When the princess cited salt as her love’s measure
How much princess you love me what’s the quantum
Her reply left him dejected he looked intensely glum.

You know what happened thereafter she was driven out of land
She lived with pains of ignominy for taking a truthful stand.

Love is too glorious a thing to be measured in spoonful salt
The princess could find a better measure from her heart’s golden vault
But she dug her heart deep for something unblemished without fault
Found none better and precious than a grain of salt.

The princess could say she loved like moon or any such pretense
But to her father she didn’t lie her love for him was immense.

Just think how life without salt would turn dull spice-less
Palate would pine tongues rebel for salt’s sweet embrace
She knew it well in her heart dwelled love’s gracious taste
So she said I love you like salt a truth nurtured in her breast.

*Take lessons lovers you can pass love’s most rigorous test
So long you hold in your mouth the salt’s timeless taste.

On my first day as a tutor (a sad tale for tutors)
Said the boy, sir, your face looks like a horse
Shocked beyond words by the slapping commentary
I said how it matters boy show your book of history!

History, oh no, that’s a subject I abhor
It hasn’t anything that needs a tutor
The kings and queens and years of wars
Got no charm for me all the unending curse!

My hands itched hard to pull out his hair
Just a kid I said and it won’t be fair
I must put up with all the nonsense
Mend him and get my reward for patience!

Don’t talk like that boy bring your English book
How far you’ve progressed let me have a look
English, it’s so easy I can learn by myself
It’s one subject I need no tutor’s help!

It’s time I thought to use my last card of trump
Bring boy your copy of subtractions and sums
Surely you need there someone to guide you
He kept quiet and my hopes soared anew!

Maths, that’s truly something from you I need to learn
If you offer to teach me there’s no way I can spurn
But before we proceed his chuckles he could hardly hide
Do crawl on all fours to be the horse I love to ride!

A thousand bees stung me a million sparks flew
I knew my time was up wasn’t anything more to do
I wished to give his head the hardest hammer’*****
Just a kid I had to swallow made a hasty retreat!

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.

They didn't need the sea
nor words
but a ploy to escape
their own dulled image
familiar faces and spaces
weary conversations
a place away
where the mind rested
and silence filled the cracks
healed the holes
to a whole
contented in being there
in the room for two
counting day's pick
smelling dead shells
feeling sea in their cells
and when the night was high
surrendering to sleep.

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.

O boatman, for a while, pause
Before you ferry me across
I need to be on this side
Hold your oars for next tide.
Time isn't ripe for the final sail
I'm yet to bid her last farewell
Get last drop of love from her heart
See her smile before I depart.
O boatman, pause before we sail,
To my beloved I want to tell
Not to forget in her lonely tears
The happiness of our sunshine years.

My lens intruded into their privacy
Two butterflies in mating symmetry
Lured, my camera froze the ecstasy.
I never knew when they parted spent
I only have the frame of that moment
And the guilty conscience of catching
Two enamored souls in the act of mating.
Are they still there the two butterflies?
Paired even now in heavenly guise
The tree where they mated is long gone
And the like of them I haven’t come along.

Let me not pen the pain of sadness
Not say what made me stay away
I would rather be in cheerful face
Forget tears of the bygone day.

Last few days I was like shelter less
A shelter isn’t a mere roof on your head
Home beyond brick is a heartfelt address
Not in concrete but of love made.
Once more I knew it really had no redress
Even the best of all else isn’t any best
Home becomes a mere void without her grace
A lifeless hollow, an abandoned nest!

This morn I found in a bowl of my ceiling lamp
On gathered twigs sat a mother dove
She has made there a blissful camp
To see the fruition of her love!

Sunshine I felt deep in my mind
She must have her shelter all the way
With this the dark clouds I left behind
Retrieved my nest on a revealing day!

The day you walked in
Stood on my door
You were nineteen
I was twenty four.
A look at your face
Weakened my knees
In your sweet fairness
I experienced bliss.
Throbbed hard my heart
My body felt so light
That spelt the start
Of my love at first sight!
The day you walked in
There wasn't anymore
Happiness for nineteen
Peace for twenty four.

flock to the jhil in December
the birds from the snow

merry goers catch them on lens.

some travel that far distance

like peafowls and hens

tasty with salad cucumber

end up on plates

adorned with spice.

some have a fate that's more nice

brought to the market
sold at high price

so they live grow up in age
with the sky ever beyond cage.

a few of us not knowing why

fall in love with jhil bird's eye.

My shadow casts a shadow of war
So I can’t go so far as to say
It’s a warring world
For war from me I don’t debar!

I never pay heed
When breeds war my greed
But go on to feed
Competition, jealousy…

They too are wars indeed!

The warring world
Starts from me…
My war dance
Don’t give peace a chance.

My righteousness, reasons, religion
Stoke an all encompassing me
That leaves the world with no recourse…

*From me begets the war of course!

He went from one room to the other

Unable to go any farther

He came out to unburden
At his open garden

There too stopped him
The inverted bowl of blue

That like the ground’s glue
Entrap in dream!

He knew there’s no escape at free will

from this freaky deal!

Wished he had the guts to hold a gun

*And bleed himself under the sun!

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

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

Not lose your mind
nor heart
when a job you lose

there's another to find
make a new start
another to choose.*

With the job you lose goes the earn
don't think there you would be stuck
soon for you the tides would turn
come knocking your door good luck.

You never really loved the job you lost
money was the only call
but it made you pay a high cost
and the return was meagerly small.

Ruined your hours numbed your soul
the job robbed all your smile
surely on you took a heavy toll
caged your mind all the while.

Money is the need to pay the bill
for even breathing needs buck
but the job you lost stole your free will
made you to be a lame sitting duck.

I have enough reason to grouse
For the cats in our house
Can’t catch the mouse!
My family is quite panic-stricken
As it runs amok in our kitchen
That little brat!
Each thing it gnaws and nibbles
Quickly hides cleverly dribbles
Nowhere are the cats!
It’s irksome it plays so cool
As if our cats are bunch of fools
The mouse is a real genius!
It has made the kitchen its hearth
Run and frolic in mischief’s mirth
Make look our cats genuine ***!
Lapping milk gorging fish
The lazy cats never wish
To go after the mouse!
If you ask we rid it how
‘Go get one mousetrap now’
Says my spouse!

Nirvana was half awake
When broke into his stupor
A dove’s plaintive coo,
Still a little rattled from a dream
Where an elephant chased him,
He kept his eyes closed
To send his languor back to sleep,
But then the dove didn’t sound as plaintive
And his baggage of worries from the day gone
Tugged his eyelids against gravity,
He was so bothered that
Bestowed with one more choice
He couldn’t rejoice
In the chance to live
The simple way he could.
He got up to make himself a cup of tea
And start once more
The arduous task of finding himself!

They still follow the lizard’s motion
Her eyes a sky mirrored in ocean
My oldest mate at the kitchen door
She wants love and nothing more!

At age of six a grand old dame
Understands when called by name
Her furs are white grey fleck on head
She’s a ravishing beauty heaven made!

I still don’t know her fondness how
Sings the notes of melody’s meow
Her profound eyes they forever plead
I want your love more I don’t need!

In the morn’s hour when making tea
Her loving look births the first poetry
Tell her lips her heart’s tender purr
Love me a little don’t keep me far!

When I pour her morning’s due
Croon her name to give her the cue
Blue ocean’s eyes in gratitude say
Love me a little I’ll make your day!

how do you go about it
when you write a poem
scribble on a piece of sheet
then think about a name?

or do you just tap the keys
seek a clue to start
your way to save the trees
yet find a vent to heart.

do you sit tightly stiff
intent on the screen
or shuffle in the strong belief
they would pour the way you mean.

how do you find the time
or do you have enough
to betwixt work catch a rhyme
grab the thoughts by scruff.

do you write all alone
without a soul around
in a place quiet to the bone
but for your clicking sound.

or you have but little choice
to be by yourself in a room
yet bud a poem from the noise
grow it to full bloom.

my mind ponders the questions above
but the least I can do is to brood
how you pen a poem of love
that makes me feel so good.

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.

The only good thing about devil is

he resembles me.

One day at a time is what we need to borrow
within a day is a world held sublime
why waste this day in the thought of tomorrow
when a day can be made into lifetime!

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!

Radheshyam

ninety years
and hasn't won one transaction.

He has lost each and every dealing

failed business
lost job
broken family

down in everything

smiled upon only in mocking
looked upon only with pity
befriended only to be exploited

poor in maths
always ended up on the wrong side of measurement

fool in love
her woman bore the child of another

unskilled in societal ways
cursed by one and all

and to top it all
he wasn't clever enough to know
why it were so
he wanted to reach out to everyone
but none could reach out to him.

Radheshyam
named after god
but never someone's god

ninety years of being a loser
he doesn't feel.

The stray animals and birds love him much.

He feeds them,
they repay with love.

From his glassed verandah
he stared in wonder at the motionless sky
with not a star twinkling,
he felt sadly amused,
the little stars don’t twinkle here
and he was so far away from the land
he had known all along as his home.
suddenly it dawned on him
that it wasn’t for no reason
that he felt rootless and homeless
in what was so long his abode
the same way he’s feeling now
in this glassed verandah
one fifty million miles away
from the place he calls home.
he shivered in this thought
looking at the vast frigid sky
where hurtled the ghost of phobos
whose pale orb he found too dimmed
to spin webs of dreams
he did with the silvery disc
in his once familiar sky.
at the sight of that desert terrain
exposed yet bereft of the wind’s ravage
where time stood timelessly frozen,
he felt lost in a massive alienness
listlessly searching for a way out
to come back to a tranquil equilibrium.

then his eyes fell on the ocean water blue
and he couldn’t hold back his tears.
like a man possessed
he started tapping the keys….

The first flower blossomed on that lifeless world.

Amid the rustles of leaves,
he strains his ears
to hear the footsteps
gone before him.
Through the web of mist
that rises from under his feet,
his eyes probe intensely
for the trail of the traveller
he walked with yesterday.
The jungle stiffly silent
hides the secret deep within
veiling it in dark shrubs.
The man feels a smoke
rise in his eyes,
‘where is the traveller,
who just the day before,
walked with me? ’
His questions
more like wailings
rend the unresponding wind.
Before him as far as the eyes go
stretches the unending path.
He begins the search once again
not knowing
the next traveller is on his trail.

On this first day of September
as I look up at the rainwashed sky
with cheerily flying grey white storks
I grow fonder of belonging.

This is the place I call mine
where in the autumnal shine
open all doors
and the wind whispers

All is yours
yours

this is your place
forever and no less

all of today
and tomorrow

for you made
yours in essence.

This September day
insignificant becomes transience!

Her fur in the morning is deadening white
But how does it matter I slept the whole night
The chill stayed out I didn’t need to hark
Her unpleasant stories and frantic bark!

Her eyes in the morning are watery grey
But how does it matter she makes not my day
My quilt was warm till the sun was up
My day was begot with the brewing cup!

Her look in the morning was piercingly pale
But how does it matter I slept quite well
I locked the door and shut out the curse
Peace was all mine agonies were hers!

She smiled to the proposal.

I marked on paper the site
where screeching gulls
would shut out our voice
and her toes white as rice
curl in the touch of waves
waiting a freakish wind
pushing mine into hers
passing seconds to eternity.

She felt vaguely beautiful
when my shoulder held the earth
shaped like her head.

Do you still love me?
my silence questioned,
but she said nothing.

I thought I heard,
Yes.

Pretty Woman

rest your head on my shoulder

you are richer wine

as you grow older!

On my shoulder is a space

that craves much

the spark of happiness

from your loving touch.

Now my shoulders

been imprinted these years

with your joys your tears

there you have not grown older!

Pretty Woman

my shoulders lust your rest

and for as long they can

reap the divine harvest.

around the hut gathered a crowd
the Englishman had made them proud
by taking an Indian wife.

what kinda man he could be
a white skin yet unhesitatingly
embraced a native's life.

they viewed him with awe
to his kin a flaw
living and loving in a thatched house.

he was a bishop's son
that made an alien land his own
and Kosibai, a Gond woman, his spouse.

November mist wraps a wet blanket
as I walk the falling day’s labyrinth
beneath neuronic trees of a waking forest
along a river dying in hyacinth!

the boatman sings a home going song
floats happy at the end of the ride
the river is narrow a few furlong
and his home is on the other side!

oil lamps flicker from the bank huts
winds carry their laughter and cries
grow darker tree barks as darkness shuts
all but the sky’s heavy sighs!

I hasten to escape this melancholic gloam
an alien in this forbidding night
the boatman must have reached his home
and the river is lulled in starlight!

They gasped for breath in that dark dungeon cell
A hundred and sixty six men huddled in black hell
In that hole of Fort William eighteen by fourteen
The screaming souls realized next morn wouldn’t be seen.

Two tiny windows were all there was high up on the wall
Slowly passed that night of June hung in deadly lull
Water water they wailed their throats were desert dry
The summer heat poured in sweats as the tears of their cry.

Two women were among them they were the first to go
Suffocated by lack of air their breathing began to slow
Was dying Tom’s fiancée and he wrung his sweated shirt
If could revive his moisture’s drop save life of sweetheart.

One by one they collapsed amid the buzz of death’s din
Begging for a drop of water in despair drinking *****
The dead stood on their feet there wasn’t a space to fall
Survived only forty three men among them Holwell!

In the history it’s known as the tragedy of black hole
With many riddles still misty the Bengal Nawab’s role
Account of that summer night the ghastly horror’s tale
It’s now known was exaggerated by Commander Holwell.

Each clay model was fast asleep
Frozen in slumber deep

But I had a promise to keep.

My doll I promised would have her say
And on this summer day
Her I mustn’t fail.

She had to have a clay model.

There wasn’t a thing wasn’t there
Men, women, birds and even a curd seller

Bald Brahmin, English pair
Village belle in flowing hair

Men flirtatious, women loose
At small price pick and choose.

Lost in the potter’s terrain
She was back a child again
The afternoon was almost spent
When ended her playful moments.

I picked the fortune teller
She chose the curd seller.

On the way what I had to say
Hope she remembers till last day

*At the potter’s having seen them all
Found none crafted like my lovely doll.

Shadows are taller
run-ups are smaller
throws don't go any far

morale is lower
bat moves slower
no more can hit a sixer.

Muscles aren't sturdy
movement is tardy
lethargic feet hardly run

only lean patches
missed easy catches
nobody says well done.

Can't see it clear
from daze of fear
fumbles my unsteady bat

the opponents dance
they don't miss a chance
the field shouts how's that!

I have a feeling
this body ain't willing
to run on the green anymore

yet the ****** mind
still hopes to find
one last three figure score.