Ten kittens in my home now
Ten little brats
Their mothers never knew how
To catch the cupboard rats!
Their mothers never knew how
To go for hunt and prey
How the kittens would learn now
Anything other than play!
Their mothers never knew how
To pounce on a mouse
The poor kittens are all now
Just idling in my house!
Their mothers never knew how
To make their own food
Why still the kittens now
Making me feel so good?

A funny date
getting messages that say
HAPPY DAY

It's a happy day
a wonderful date
only when seen the English way
but the wonder is gone
when it's arranged American

12/11/13

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.

Can a year change a man

to what he is
from anything else

of life
his notions
emotions

Can a few garbled words
of unshapen thoughts
inked on paper
carve the way
for the rest of his days

Can a teen’s painted mind
a treasure finds
that he holds on
making him alone
but rich in loneliness
never craving to possess
but embrace
what’s his destined
a love a heart
but when goes past
never breaches his trust

Can a year make a man
what he would be
the rest of his life
when he inked on paper
his first poem
that to this date
shapes his fate
keeps him free.

Did all these the year

1973.

What’s the chance?*

She frowns askance

My face she wants to feel
Soon after the deal!

Lights up my face
When jacks and nines bless
Shows up the mess
When I go pointless!

***** is strong if I finger my hair
A tap on left chest means heart
I don’t mind being a little unfair
She must know my strength from the start!

The hints she knows too well
Why I touch the forehead
In my heart she dwells
Clubs with me on diamond bed!

With us are king and queen
The trump suite suits us fine
No way can’t we win
This game of twenty nine!

On her course merrily flows the svelte rivulet
She meanders not alone carries the sky on her breast.
In him grows a longing, love flowers in his heart
She doesn’t know it, on the sea is set her heart.
The two flows embraced in unrequited passion
The sky ferries his lover to her beloved ocean.

Two walks at the park
Leisure strolls on her ground
Watching squirrels on tree bark
Before I turn homebound.
Today while passing along
On them my eyes fell
One in a bush alone
A little away another squirrel.
I wondered in my funny caprice
If they have ever had a chance
To exchange warmth and good wish
Or they haven’t met even once.
A little more daring in my whim
I thought the distance for them too far
So she roamed alone dreaming of him
And he unknowing forever seeks her.

If I had my will
I would’ve clocked back thirty years
With her on the Ferris wheel!

Go girl red ribbon on the merry-go-round
Go back on the rocking boat
Thirty years whizzed past us
That time looks dreamily remote!

My belle gaily girl of yore
Go ride once more on the wheel
I would clock back thirty years
I would hold time still!

Still lurking there in your eyes’ gleam
Still stirring there a dream
That goes back those thirty years
For popcorn and licking ice-cream!

Girl, go, run once more
Thirty years is never too far
It’s still there with open door
The time it can’t forget her!

If I could fly back to that strip of life
When showed the church clock three forty five
I held her hand together walked to the green lawn
Baffled how I would ever live without her alone!

There are three horses pulling your life
Attitude, want, and of course your wife
The first pulls you through life's high and low
The second pulls you to where monies flow
But it's the third that pulls you the strongest
The other two horses must run at her behest!

3 mice on the tin roof
though their minds were on food
an impulsive id drove them
they swung to different mood!

I warned myself here no poetry
no story to make out of it
let them have in privacy
a good time bitterly sweet!

3 mice on the tin roof
swayed by their id
I should have stayed aloof
and not watched them in greed!

I told me there’s no poem
in the 3 mice and their id
leave them alone with their game
but my greed paid no heed!

It’s not civil not nice
to act a peeping Tom
see furtively the 3 mice
breaching all courteous norms!

3 mice on the tin roof
to me I had this to say
go your way stay aloof
and not venture on their way!

There was once a family of three miserly men
Miserably miserly they were, spending money was such pain
So when they had to travel for business to another state
For the three they bought only a half ticket.

The train arrived and they occupied their seats
Forgetting they ought to have at least three tickets
They sat comfortably cut jokes and laughed
Very happy that the cost was reduced two-halved.

Merrily chatting they didn’t notice the man in black coat
Checking the tickets and marking off on his note
They thought there won’t be ticket examiners on that line
With a half ticket they could get away without having to pay a fine.

The alarmed men planned fast they weren’t short of wit
Two of them went below and one remained on the seat
The checker came and when found below the seat two huddled men
Asked the one above ‘for three a half ticket, how you that explain?’

That man of clever think without a wink said ‘I can easily do,
You too know it sir, it comes to half when one is placed above two’!

I beg just four letters of you
Of no use to me the twenty two
Give me those four letters of you
They’re all without them I can’t do.

Only four letters in your eyes I search
Can do without the twenty two
Is it looking for too much,
Seeking that precious gift from you?

Four letters I won’t ask for more
I can walk miles to get from you
When you find me standing on your door
Know I’m craving those four from you.

Four letters isn’t a tall order
You can easily spread them my way
Over all the wall all the border
Can give me those four any day.

I want little will do with your four
For them I do beggarly crave
When you see me on your door
Give them and make me your slave.

I go back to that place

Through the green door
Enter the red brick house

Mikhu is still the little fairy
My eyes look for
And still my shyness
Forces me to look away
In her mother's presence

In the faraway attic
She furtively cooks me a meal
We make love
That brush our skin faintly

When I come out
She stands at the green door

Then upon the here
She is no more

Far away from the city
One bed for the four of us,
We ignored the nitty-gritty
The night was superbly precious.
5 acres of open darkness
We couldn’t for more bargain,
The new moon hid her face
To envelope the 4 lonely men!
We sank and deep-breathed the smell
Of a languor that only silence can bring
Drunk timeless without any wine’s spell
We flew with the nightjars on wing.
In the sky’s faintest dream light
One bed with no hint of nightmare
5 acres of softly passing night
Transfixed 4 souls out there!

5.00 am

mr. run-o-mill
from a mundane slumber
wakes up.
His sleepy eyes
Scan the walled curtained
Half-lit room.
He introspects
In gloom
Tucks it into his head
It’s not worthwhile
Leaving his bed
To open his window
To the same show.

5.03 am

he heard a tune
a bird’s call
that soon
turned a cacophony.
He felt tickled by the buzz.
Curtains
Rebellious no more
Yielded dollops of light.
Mr. run-o-mill
In him something stirred.
He couldn’t say what it was
He didn’t see
He just heard.

5.05 am

two-three words
came to his mind
and to his pleasant surprise
they found a few more
and formed a line
and then more and more
poured in….
that end of night
without breaking a sweat
mr. run-o-mill
by some hidden design
turned a poet.

You came
At the 5 o’clock dream
Sat with me for sometime
Touched once with your lips
Left a wet imprint
It was still there when I woke up!
I asked, “Can’t we meet once more,
Just once? ”
You moved your head
A smile passed your face,
I couldn’t decipher,
“I’m always there,
And you always think of me,
Always, not just once”.
My eyes were wet
When the world woke me up
From the 5 o’clock dream!

When the westerly sun
on the canvas spills red dye
fly the birds to the other end of the sky!

Between the windshield and the sky
wind borne
the dreams fly!

Knowing I haven't seen a rainbow for years
sun makes one
with the rain's tears!

As I think how far is the city
the expanse above looks down on me
in pity!

Up and down the road
Nature on me
her treasures upload!

The farther I roam
feel insanely
sick for home!

Monday I swam out of cavern
Tuesday I grew my wing
Wednesday entrenched in tavern
I was jolly perfectly going.
Thursday saw my graying head
My knees weren’t that strong
Lights in my eyes did fade
When Friday came along.
I started missing the bygone
Took refuge in my past
Felt deserted all alone
Friday didn’t long last.
Saturday came clothed in curse
My senses dimmed voice hushed
Sunday arrived on a flowered hearse
Knew not when the week passed.

Today is 7 7 14

Starting from 1st Jan 2002
Such perfectly summed up dates
To once annually continue
at two yearly intervals
Till 2024
Repeating only again
From Jan 2102
Beyond the lifetime
Of most of us!

‘There’s nothing wrong with you’ said the doctor
‘I find you a perfectly healthy guy
But…
One thing I find awkward
A little aberration
In otherwise a normal man
Your way of speech
A little funny
If you pardon me
Irritating too
About which little I can do
Though speaking in rhyme
Is no crime.’

*‘Doc I didn’t mean to offend
Would hence try to mend
And do my bit
To kick this bad habit!’

Abigail, Abigail, keeps haunting me
I don’t remember when it started
Has to be the first seed of love
That planted Abigail in my heart
And etched it there for good….
In Martha I saw Abigail, in Ethel
In them all I chased Abigail
They were good, all of them
Flawless, spotless, free from blame
Lovable, dependable, transparent….
Yet I kept seeking Abigail
With a hallucinatory torment!
Did ever my eyes touch her once?
In a dream woven with fleeting romance
Or her face shone once in the moon
And melted as dew drops in the dazed dark!
Abigail my perpetual phantom
I neither get her nor fathom
I age, Abigail is ageless
Always there, but beyond embrace!

If you were a bird
with a poetic brain
could draw your thoughts
needed no key or pen
poetry you could pour out
perched atop the tree
float them in the wind
on sky ink artistry!

none would know the bard
masked in bird’s face
dipping hand in rainbow
scribbling on cosmic space
but they would read your poems
on the blue canvas
hear your mind’s nuggets
in the wind’s rush!

if you could spread your wings
a bird a hidden bard
in each flap a magic rhyme
each flutter a glorious word
they wouldn’t know the poet at work
but once a while would stop
to marvel at the night’s mist
early morn’s dewdrop!

Nothing could mitigate the woes
Of a being suffering in death throes
The ones around may feel a little pain
Going through an end never happens again!
When blood spills from the nose
The predator looms large and close
Standing there in helpless agony
You witness the messing up of all harmony!
While creating life God plays an animator
In destroying it the ultimate annihilator
Leaving us to know it time and again
The game we are in ends in a blind lane!

The sparkle in her eyes
Time-trampled dies
Her visions fade.
Ceases all surprise
She needs no disguise
She is heaven made!
Devoid of youthful width
Her beauty has reached zenith
The skin though is pale.
Through her stressed breath
Breaking all myth
She is a jewel!
She has taken on her stride
The rough yet joyous ride
Bearing no malice.
She doesn't need to hide
The life's other side
She's in perfect bliss!

We are living in war times
You can't see the blood though
The air is thick with it.
We are right, we are better
We stand for all that is good
We are in no mood to listen
Tolerance is the last thing in our mind.
People say there's so little war
There's so little bloodshed.
The war now is of terrifying silence
More ominous, more destroying
Cutting through love, endurance
Eliminating relationship, humanity-
Perpetrating a bloodless coup
Where blood is not seen, agonies aren't heard!

We are amidst war each against the other,
Silent, bloodless but more macabre!

bother not.

he is too cocooned
in his cosy abode.

Up the steep steps
as you reach the age old fort,
you breathless behold
the green valley down below
and that magnificent mound of rock
by the name Robinson Hill.

In the sweet silence of birds' chirping,
the winds reek of rifles and gun smoke
and you hear not the rustling leaves
but bullets echoing all over the valley
one more down, another down
as they held the fort till fell breathless
passing into tombs and memorials
you read to pause for a breath
up above the green valley
where the grasses grew over the blood.

A short sweet rain
Washed clean the sky
In the emerging moon's lust
Glowed the splendent dust.
The earth begged for a drop
Said the soil "it was my call"
Their joy would not stop
The leaves drank them all.
The rain was without might
Feeble its spell was brief
Yet it revived a summer night
As life's succour and relief.

The winter is slowly killing her
and me
but on the deck by her side
at the low tide
the river at three is a sparkling glass
feeding a belief
there would be no end of us.

Absence is a period with a period.

Visible, not visible, and repeat,
the mighty feat
the enduring human spirit
in the faith of subsidence of pain
that the book on the table
will be picked up and read again.

It keeps us going
the strength in the sense
too real is the presence.

Then a day
the book is taken away
the loved pens an ode
of absence definite
without a period.

Loneliness is now upon his throat

I know it for sure
What ails him hasn't a cure
He's shrinking like a sinking boat.

On the perch a plumed pain
He's lost without a care
Tells the vacant stare
Dooming into a never regain.

Death is an easy height to scale
When life remains to grieve
Without any incentive
As love retires to a dark well.

He's fading in the lost glory
And I know it for sure
What's killing him has no cure

My budgie called Story.

reading this morn's newspaper was different
said the father to his son
the prints are loud and bold
alphabets glitter as gold
crystal lucid is the page
and from the balcony,
whee, i can see every tree
without the haze.

the next twenty four days
he  was joyously rediscovering a world
in the exuberance of one reborn
only missing the car that ran him down
on the twentyfifth morn.

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

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

Inspector Fox felt emotionally blackmailed
his eyes blurred the first time in his life
the man cried pitifully to have the suspicion dispelled
there was motive for him to have killed his wife.

I picked her up almost from the street
you can call it love at first sight
whose fragrance in heart I always carried
showed me the way her love’s light.

If you ask if she was always faithful to me
she was and not a moment she left my side
laid herself bare and so happy were we
years passed like an endless joy ride.

Never ever, never once, I have to say
she set her eyes on any other man
happy as she was in my love all the way
as I was in my loveliest woman.

She loved not me but only my money
so would the tongues roll in mischief
how they envied that I was so lucky
our devotion to each other was beyond belief.

Behind me she slept with other men
I had to bear with many such gossip
two love doves we were crazily insane
our love was true and fathomless deep.

It hurt me Mr. Fox and I couldn’t take it anymore
those ******* spreading canards about her
so I started to love her more than before
and now must have killed her some jilted lover.

The inspector noted each word in his book
thanked him and got up to go
to give the note a good look
at home in his table lamp’s glow.

He read it once and then again and again
each line in isolation and with the rest
till he pieced together only the first lines
arrived at the confession cleverly crafted!

the mind
has its own futile cravings
satisfied in succumbing!

In the dark labyrinth penetrates no light
Sight like all else is out of sight
There’s no virtue no wrong or right
Nothing but evil and evil shines bright!
It’s the breeding ground for the darkest of thoughts
Putrefied stinking around it darkness clots
Where is such place where can we find?
It’s lying within us, it’s our mind!

Leave your slippers at the counter
said the watchman at the gate
an empty sack I put them in
entered temple on bare feet.

The walls were carved in fine granite
idols beamed in marbled shine
incense filled the ethereal light
breathing the air was purely divine.

After about a charmingly spelled hour
in lithe spirit I came out of temple door
presented the token at the shoes counter
poured the sack's content on the floor.

A strange pair mockingly looked back
not mine I shouted at the top of my voice
rows of sacks stared back from the rack
home barefoot wasn't a prospect to rejoice.

Obviously a wrong token was issued to me
the slippers therein belonged to someone else
and there I was arguing awkwardly
cursing high pitch over temple bells.

It took five minute's terror to find them out
so my feet could kiss the familiar smell
though not much something to write home about
those were the moments paradise felt hell.

Nicely she said was spent her day
run in her own plan having her way
I traveled from the morn had a long day out
she wasn't with me was with me no doubt.

On the drizzle washed path lined with green's grace
right up beside me beamed her smiling face
the verdant yield stretching far as horizon
sang she's here won't leave you alone.

As they passed by rows of thatched hut
enamored in the shade of green coconut
gave glimpses of her filled me in her scent
said she's here with you this moment.

When the sun travel weary dropped down for a rest
left crimson trails on his track down the west
my mind colored in melancholy's hue
urged time to go back she's waiting for you.

as you wake up each gifted day
you hear within a voice to you say
all that's hidden unknown untold
would lay bare gradually unfold!

a day is not just some hours' spend
have turns and twists at each bend
comes your way without a hint
smiles of joy sadness' dark tint!

you may be down or in high spirit
show your strength or lose your grit
may happen things to **** your cheers
brakes of failures to bring you to tears!

a day may break or make you peace
make pursuit of happiness a hit and miss
may turn not the way you want it to be
in colorful plumes like a bird carefree!

but then you know in whatever shade
a day is like temptation irresistibly spread
we have to walk in and inescapably yield
till they all walk out when our life is stilled!

How she glows
when she paints
doors and windows

her coloring skills
create magic windowgrills
trap me in her crush!

Smudges on her face
prints on her dress
does marvel her brush

she goes all the way
to make me lovely day
tempts to cuddle her!

It's how it goes
I move ever close
not wanting to be loser

she gets the naughty whiff
says don't play mischief
come not any closer!

There's no way I could justify
any of the failed loves.

They only demanded from me

a little more strength
some more endurance
walk a longer length

but when close to the peak
my knees grew weak
doubts brewed in my head
my resolves started to fade
I was seeking more precision
more commitment from the other side

and what happened was no doubt
their obvious fallout

a retreat when it would have been right
to in love scale the needed height.

Then as a cover up of my shame
tainted the other with all blame
last nail in the coffin being
hold her responsible for everything
then solaced in escape's upbeat mood
saying what happened happened for good!

Now I have to admit *****-nilly
my lapses in love come back to haunt me.

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?

On a dead dull night
When the moon goes hiding
And the barn owl hoots for its love
The fireflies romance the darkness.
The glowing beads dance to celebrate
The nights of long past buried for good
With the treasures of lost happiness,
Wind sings a dirge for transience.

Fourteen paces apart
They stood face to face
The place was Belvedere
In death’s close embrace!

It was morn at half past five
Air thick in rivalry
On stake was hung two life
They were bitter enemy!

As it lies all evil’s root
False ego and vain pride
Squabble and dispute
Demons men can’t hide!

That hour was eerily lull
Birds stopped to chirp in trees
As glistened the two pistols
And none could afford to miss!

Damp was the August clime
Time perched on rested wing
Zeroed in the scheduled time
Broke out the starter’s ring!

Francis fired first
But preordained was fate
Though loud went the burst
He badly missed target!

Pierced his powder’s stings
This time was there no miss
Found his mark Hastings
Fell to the ground Francis!

He muttered I’m a dead man
Hastings ran to the spot
Uttering as he ran
Good God I hope not!

The day turned golden bright
Mist of smoke dispersed
Revealed the glorious sight
How his enemy Hastings nursed!

Ever so silent in pain
Dour in death’s anguish
Called dumb by us men
To have their strength I wish.
Dumb yes without a remedial mean
No succor for them no medicine
In my backyard under open sky
These mute little fluffs quietly die.
I feel remorse a passing penitence
To have never been able to bridge the distance
Act in time for the help of a vat
Can’t count my humaneness, it’s just a poor cat.
Poor yes but with a strength underneath
To brace death the way they do
Uncomplaining till their last breath
Leaving me a lesson or two!