With her grandchildren on the seashore
where the sky has mingled with sea
a rumbling she hears over waves’ roar

this was the beach she was supposed to be!

The boy rained kisses her eyes had poured
she was breaking so breaking within
cut her bones the splintered dreams
couldn’t take it the girl of eighteen!

Though parting for now will be in your reach
when the full moon makes tides wildly rough
please be that day on the Cuthbert beach

passed thirty years to cross the gulf!

She doesn’t regret wonders to this day
if really the boy caught the moon
standing alone on the crags of the bay
hearing the gulls’ mournful croon!

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.

Two decades and a year
I come back to Darjeeling.

The blaring horns
have snuffed out
the pines' whispers,

and the glorious hilltops
retreat beyond
the many hilltop hotels.

Richmond hill is rich
with structures
that have made men richer
and traders have ensured
Nature here has no future.

The once magnificent Mall
has grown so small
you wonder if it's there
you laid your soul bare
to the woman of your love.

Darjeeling,
once where
she rode a wild horse
I would never come back.

And I will have no remorse.

One last time I drive past the pinewood
On the fogged road washed with rain
My eyes misted up in melancholic brood
If here I would ever come again.
The winds passing through pine chains
Bid me a whispered farewell
Sulk in silence the clouded mountains
In parting grief somber and pale.
In time afar on a forlorn night
If my dreams soar on wings
Bathed in milky moonlight
They would fly to Darjeeling.

When lengthens the night’s shadow, on the street the dogs bark
The barn owl strums an eerie tune, from pipal ghosts disembark
I sink in the blanket deep, in its dark secured hollow
Can their eyes still see me, can me still they follow?
When the clouds hide the moon, stars wear shroud of black
The winds rattle the window, floats misty shadow’s track
I shrink small beneath my blanket, sweats from forehead drip
Do those eyes still follow me, clawed hands itch for a grip?
When night seems a black paste, spread on around my bed
From tree trunk descends a dark shape, a torso without a head
I slip afar through the blanket, to escape the monster’s reach
Can they still hunt me out, my fear’s demon and witch?

The old man mumbles in a dying voice
had my sons been alive.

A tear wells in the daughter's eyes.

She pours a spoon of water in his mouth
and wipes his lips and her eyes.

Having lit the pyre of his three sons
he was willing to barter his daughter's life
if that made God grant him another son
and here is the daughter by his bedside
feeding, cleaning and even shaving him
her only prayer to God being to save his life
bartering her entire means.

Outside the thunder cracks the sky
and she spreads a tarpaulin over the bed.

my son laments the father.

Inside her is no cover for rain.

The unveiling of a grey liquid dawn
Sleepily I welcomed with a cheerful yawn
The eyes slowly opened to forms unfolding
Hopes soaring once more on fluttered wing!
I’m alive, a day older though, with all my sense
Exist at this moment and emotively dense
A day stretching out its red carpet
Saying, ‘come running and don’t wait’!
It may not be shaped the way I want
With pitfalls enough to draw my grunt
Yet, like all birth, the most precious gift
It has held back death, giving life a lift!

You were creating the show
When moonlight poured through window
On your hands it painted tattooed designs
That danced as your fingers drew out the lines.

Your mind was singing the night’s tune
Time didn’t matter you were immune
You just saw ink glowing in moonlight
Strings of script surfacing on your sight.

You held onto that almost spectral image
Fast filling up diminishing the page
For you only knew this glorious whim
Could melt any moment in the day’s gleam.

Thus you write cocooned in the created mists
Swimming in the eddies of turns and twists
On a night that’s not there on no one’s sight
*Blinded as they are in the blazing daylight.

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.

Got it right,
Day’s pains find light
In creative night!

be happy
the days you are here

before they disappear.

Kicked around

Numbers countless

Makes no sound

This numb ****!

For some days they talk about the dead
he was a good man even his enemies say
kind friendly and very well bred
may his soul have peace they pray!

By some magic death bares goodness
hitherto unseen come to the view
you wonder the man made so much place
that when he was living you hardly knew!

All his deeds get a paint of shine
it is said he was a soul to emulate
his manners is seen as highly refined
more than the living turns dead man’s weight!

The ones who had journeyed his life
lived close to his bone and flesh
they wouldn’t know children and wife
how weighed on him his loneliness!

suppose you're on a sea beach
where the waves are frozen dead
you don't hear the seagull's screech
not one is flying above head!

in the wind not rise the rolling roar
the sea is a darkish gel
no silver spray bounces on the shore
clouds not on her blue face sail!

the sea is flat dumb and still
staled painting on papyrus
that weary of man's mindless deal
is lying in dying hush!

think of it as our good fortune
the sea isn't so looking as yet
but she can't be from us immune
if we dump on her our waste!

Why of death be afraid

When living looks visibly dead!

When moon like an empty plate
mocks the hunger
the famished bones hunt for a morsel.

Clinks of cutlery fires the belly
aroma of meals calls like a melody

there's a table full of happy faces
chewing and chuckling and chattering
picking eating dropping and littering
their plates are full aha never less
food after food over food always
a fire in oven a bed of clean sheet
never they're they're never short of heat
eyes that are heavy droop easy soon
behind tightly shut windows to the moon.

Snuffed out will ***** out all traces of light
they break into wails rending the night
nothing now moves over the dead town
except the bones with moon as the crown.

Beyond dolphin lips
Surmounting wavy ridges
Breaking defending walls
Invading gorges
Above ruins of treasures
Passing one and eighty summers,
There lies a warrior,
Dead in the search of love!

Dear Nat,
Yesterday I was out of town
that gave me a chance
not to weary you down
but master poet as you so well know
business when pressing won't let poetry go
even when I go out of station
they won’t free me my ****** creations
small sights I see small sounds I hear
brings out a poem to tire my reader
by all the adornments showered on me
you put me in a place I don’t deserve to be
but I do need to pause lest I forget
from my prolific taxation eyes need rest
for words when they pour endlessly run
might make them seem no more such fun
so there should be breaks some needed cessation
to save along with me reading eyes’ exhaustion
but know poet I can still survive by one occupation
reading your poems from that won’t take vacation.

A fear in the certainty

A bliss in the forgetting!

A few months I haven't called him

At the beck and call at any hour
And the shortest notice
A dial to him has saved many an emergency

Last night a broken female voice
On the other side of the wire
Mumbled he died on May 13

Left her with three daughters
At forty at short notice

The plumber is dead

Now who would clear
My choked wash basin

The plumber is dead
And I've no other number to call

I couldn't see her face
Gauge the faceless sorrow
At the other side of the wire

The plumber is dead

I must find another
And then rejoice
Forgetting the widow's choked voice

The room reeks of medicine,
Crumpled, *****, dark, unclean
A burden is lying on the bed
Once youthful and now almost dead!
The ritual of attending on him
Is an aberration of life's rhythm
Except letting the time go by
Waiting for the man to die!
His relations he so cared for
Now find him the one to abhor
His time is out, why he still goes on?
Wonders the people he thought his own!
Still alive he's sinking in bed
Just an alien as good as dead
They're counting time, the ones his own
When death is on door, everyone is alone!

i give you my word neela
i'll set you free
to go back to the forest
home on the greenest tree.
the blue your eyes dream for
beyond this hole of doom
from a life you perforce endure
for comforts of a prisoner's room.
i give you my word neela
i can't take it anymore
my heart is set on setting you free
should have done it long before.
i'll love to see your aching wings soar up the tallest tree
your feathers to sing in glee wind's sweetest melody
when you glow in the sun bathe in the dewy rain
you'll forget in that morrow all of today's pain.
i give you my word neela
i'll set you free
to escape from this hole of doom
from this hell of misery.

i give you my word neela
for a small favor you must do
speak before i set you free
my lessons of a word or two.

I forget you
Forgot you
In the din

Years roll
Taking their toll
You sleep within!

You slip within
In the din
I forgot you

Never gave
Will never give
What’s your due!

My wearied soul
As years roll
Reach December

It’s then you come
Your song I hum
I remember!

I remember
The face of her
But not her mind

Deep I brood
What’s lost for good
Alas no rewind!

In the din
She sleeps within
A little scar

I remember
The face of her
In December!

Quietly I buried her,
It was only the last,
In life the burial was time and again.
Did she feel the banishment?
I never knew
She held it from me,
Just to keep alive the sunshine
To make it feel like a whole
Hiding the yawning hole
That makes bedmates
Strangers under one roof!
She played it to perfection,
******* was only a ploy,
She knew it was all game.
She did it for the children,
For me, for the family!
With her going to the soil
The banishment was complete.
She held life to be decent,
And got a decent burial!

All night it throbbed in his head
Dug into his sleep with a ruthless *****
Nailed him delirious dreams’ recurring theme
His words had all along failed him!

A fool he was to think he spoke only the right
Used the most appropriate in all of his write
That his words showed them brutally bared
His thoughts with other minds all the while shared!

He sank his fevered head inside the wash basin
How he wasted himself being an egoistic machine
Absorbed too long in his mindless impart
Of word’s deemed bounty born dead at birth!

A shameful gratitude brought his eyes tears
They cared not to tell him all these years
Vain was their wait for the face of his dream
Was never revealed *his words failed him!

Not the attraction a boy of ten
has for his peers
he was not even among
the intimate friends
yet a kind of lust I felt
when he was around
a flutter and denser breath
and in his absence
paling of all else.

That early seeding
was a hushed gust
blowing awhile in the ravine of
deep south.

Pretty girls emerged from the dust
and the first man in me
grew out of first love.

the dayend corpse of me
touched by the sunlight
is reborn a baby.

thus each morn
defying finality of death
in hopes wild
opens eyes a child.

he sees no death
in renewed faith
finds revival.

all pains aside
retakes the ride
of survival.

Love is not undefinable,

It has too many definitions.

Pay no heed
To your greed
Do it once
Just to give your greatness
A chance.
Once and then once more
As never before
Defy the greed
Pay it no heed.
Here and there
A small sacrifice
Would suffice
You’re learning to share.
You’re learning to defy greed
Learning the worth of a good deed
You’ve it to take the lead
To free the world from greed.

In the drizzle I rushed as usual I was late
The 9oclock bus I had to catch at any rate
If I missed this one I had to think of a ruse
Explain late attendance make a good excuse.

It’s those moments that bring woes to men
Perils linger on the way waiting to happen
Throwing caution to wind as I blindly strode
My feet hit a cobble lying middle on the road.

The sudden pain halted me made me emit a groan
I cursed under my breath the god-forsaken stone
Abused the unseen fate that had thrown it my way
Caused me such suffering conspired to spoil the day.

But there wasn’t much time to vent more my wrath
I kicked it out of way so none else could cross its path
Hurriedly limped along for I couldn’t afford to miss
The 9oclock bus that would reach me to office.

In the bustles of life it was a small incident
Other things occupied me I forgot the event
Till one evening I saw it on a corner of the street
The stone smeared with vermillion away from unwary feet.

The cobble placed under a banyan tree had men gathered around
It lay there in austere dignity they had found it a secured ground
I asked one in the crowd ‘how came here this stone? ’
‘You can call it a miracle it’s there naturally grown’.

‘Now it’s going to stay here none can force it a shift,
It’s God among us in disguise to give our spirit a lift’
In the face of that belief I dared not on his face say
‘So this is your God who I kicked on the other day! ’

One Sunday as I was busy with the off-day’s pressing chore
I heard a din outside urgent knockings on the door
*‘It can’t be like this to leave the deity without a roof on his head
Please donate as much as you can a temple is needed to be made’.

Heavy hammers are pounding my courtyard
Have to reach thousand liters deep
Each blow is hitting my mind hard
Demolishing what I thought forever’s keep!

What was built up over years of toil
Now dug out as mossy broken dumps
Lie debauched the dragged out soil
As the dark hole to the gaping depth slumps!

I look down it with a sense of hurt
And down the years I ride
Sniffing to catch smell of a lost part
The times that in this cavern hide!

How I looked as these were built
How youthful she surely was then
Fossil moments embedded in the silt
If only I had them regained!

The peephole into past is now bare
Paving the time traveler one chance
To swim with the memory and be there
Give the living remnants last glance!

Lost years are never dead I believe
They all live what we think we demolish
It’s only us that are forced to leave
Leaving them breathing in buried bliss!

In the balcony where you used to stand
The sun reflects vacantly,
You are in a distant land.
The flowers your hands plucked
Blossom and wilt without your touch,
They miss you so much.
The winds that brought your smell
Now moan dull odorless,
They can't touch your face.
From the grief-laden sky
Drops as tears the morning dew,
With them all I miss you!

The dying body wanted to say something,
Too frail, it spoke only with eyes,
One can do little around the time it dies!

The wife, the son, the ones close to him
Pressed the ears on the faintly parting lips
Death is surely winning, yea, its scale tips!

The body lay dying with just enough to cover shame
Audience was the living witness, of this silent mayhem
Eager to know the last word, or some last name!

The dying’s eyes dilated before they narrowed to slit
It couldn’t say, they didn’t know, what was it?

“Naked I was born, and make me that as I perish,
Remove my clothes”, was its last departing wish!

Summer's additions
can no longer cope
with my winter's deductions!

Her perfume weaves a hint of tempest.

The blanket hibernating the illusive summers
lights a spark of desire.

He doesn’t open his eyes.

The smoldering fire
would bring him smell of cinders.

At the bottom of despair
Lies
The seed of repair!

Today that disc of life, when in the east it rose
I found it a little more ominous, its end a little too close.
You don’t seem to mind it, maybe you don’t at all care
The object that makes your day, won’t be forever there.
Today it lends a friendly halo, shines bright on your homely turf
It won’t be like this for all the time, when it turns a white dwarf.
You find it nothing worrisome, too faraway to be any omen
That it is silently wearying itself out, burning up its hydrogen.
The blinding luminous ball, at which your eyes can’t gaze
Has still billions years to bow out, and halfway through its phase.
So what’s there to worry, the end is too longtime yet
Generations will come and go, before reaching destiny’s date.
But still the issue is something that deserves a serious plan
It involves a grave consequence, for the future of human clan.
Where will be our habitat, when dies our star of stars
When earth becomes inhabitable, will our abode be Mars?
For it will be billion years more the fireball will hold there out
Of all the planets the best bet, is our brethren Mars no doubt.
So maybe before our star burns out, we seek out another shore
Colonize the red planet in the sky, also called the planet IV.
An entire civilization will shift there, an enormous migration
Carrying with them love and hatred, all the human emotion.
They’ll make Mars another Earth, in a strange way I feel
We’ll not leave behind human divide, the inequity’s evil
Our boundaries and walls of color of skin, stigma of racial curse
Will they be all carried with us, transported to the new home Mars?

Red to green
Green to red
Whereto
Do I head?

Detective Dalton is all confused about the ******.

Mr. Smith's head was bludgeoned with a heavy object
the impact reveals the vengeance of the killer
Bill the Butler had before closing for the night
heard the couple quarreling over something
Junior Smith was having a night out with his fiancée
and Daisy the daughter had retired to bed early
for she was to set out for an excursion early next day
Mary the maid had taken her leave by the evening
to attend to her husband ailing for some time.

Dalton has no clue about the ****** weapon
nor any lead to point to the possible suspect
but for a scribble on the page of an old diary
found neatly folded beside the victim's body
that reads as follows:

behind the humble mask is a ***** man
time and again he has ***** a beautiful soul
all just for the pleasure of his flesh
mauled her with his ugly tooth and claw
constantly used her to feed his lust
lost the right to live this man
and he deserves his place in hell
a mighty blow to his head
will for sure end this monster
will do that with my hand
and see his blood oozing out
to recompense for the sin
he forced on her.

The murderer has kept the name hidden in the letters,
Detective Dalton has only to find out.

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!

Where are you Devi ?

Up in the Kailasha
in the arms of Mahadeva
snowclad silent in meditation
while down below in their settlement
humans in the belief you've come down
adorn you with flowers with their hands
and with those same hands **** own blood
rob own kin debauch mothers and sisters
crowd your place of worship with no piety
but for selfies with your image on the background
for Devi unbeknownst to even you
you're no more the Shakti
the prowess against the Evil
but a commerce, a commodity
in the hands of men of 21st century
who know to worship only money.

When I entered his chamber
The boss was shaking with anger
Red faced burning like fire
He thundered “is it for what I hire? ”
I felt inside me a creeping terror
Worried must have done a grave error
Some serious lapse or glaring mistake
That caused him a severe heartbreak.
"see here this ‘are’ where it should be ‘is’
How the hell it escapes your notice
The way you work with closed eyes
You surely don’t deserve a payrise".
Awhile I bore the brunt of his abuse
Not tried to hide behind an excuse
Then gathering composure and all my will
Blurted “not to err is the job of Devil! ”