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.

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!

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.

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 *****?

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)

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.

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.

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!

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.

A year is going to die
but its memories will stay
in the times ahead.

The success, the failure, the try
will be there next day,
the worries to carry to bed.

But over all else
the love I got
will still warm my heart.

As certain as time sails
what can't be bought
will be life's special part.

Was I as generous in giving
for this special gift I received
was I as kind?

The question is haunting
though I tried indeed
my best wasn't good enough I find.

Forgive me where I failed
didn't shine in the light
you let me be in.

I promise to make amend
and keep it in sight
loving you more is all I mean.

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!

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!

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!

Not all masked men are robbers

*All robbers aren't masked

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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

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.

The only good thing about devil is

he resembles me.

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!

Find and fill the less
Always.

It’s not little
So much more
Knock your door.

Do.

Walk by side
Wipe a tear

Grow your wings
For the good things.

Bother not you can’t be great
Being good is far better.

I have heard people say
Only if I had money
Could have done so much good.

The world is in no mood
To be good
with money.

Remember
Without spending a dime
Many a time
You’ve lit up a face
And rewarded
With an inner happiness.

And for this task
You only need to ask
And that’s the essence

Aren’t there enough in this world
That hurt me
That need me
My will
To fill.

Then you would find the answer

More than your need
Is someone waiting out there

Needing you.

after one euphoric kiss
you hardly notice
her weathered cheeks

she is a Venus
she's tenacious
her beauty sticks

it moves you to tears
when went the years
you didn't notice

she matured from teen
ripened her green
since that euphoric kiss

how it's so
her beauty's glow
breezed past you

it moves you to tears
though ripened the years
she was ever new

was it so far
you right beside her
yet gave her a miss

ripened her years
you now see through tears

the first euphoric kiss

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

By his side, the devout chant God's glory
in a life so brittle and fragile
yet not lacking in strength to navigate
on the river of chaotic turbulence.

Some are tearlessly silent,
a few are about to embrace a cry
and there is one whose wails
reverberate and pound the walls.

The ascent to the greater kingdom
is adorned with white lotus
and incense that smell of heaven.

Filled with the finality
there is no point denying,
the atheist sleeps on peacefully.

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’.

would have been unbearable
but for
our beliefs and assumptions!

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

Lured by the bait of a golden trap
Got down on the road for one quick snap
Season’s harvest lay the gleaming yield
Pains of seeding sprouted fulfilled!

May I take a shot of this wondrous show
Of homing the crop in its brightest glow
Would you mind if take a photo or two
To carry with me this freshest hue!

A hint of a smile broke her lipline
She said please don’t take any of mine
For the harvest can take as many you need
Of the pastures stretching far across the mead!

But as one you know bred in the city
Smart and scheming gainfully witty
I said the soil you must have perfectly tilled
To have reaped now this abundant yield!

Won’t hide my wish to you won’t lie
Some I would take home if you let me buy
To remind me of the glory of your toil
Spent on the farmland rewarded by the soil!

On her lips now broke a girl’s rippling laugh
Why sir I would give you of what we have enough
To give you some as gift would be a pleasure nice
Can’t stoop so low as to charge you a price!

She put in my bag some of her bumper yield
Her heart’s gift to a stranger his wishes fulfilled
As I drove away from her leaving her on her land
Through the window I saw love’s waving hand!

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!