On one of city’s endless wires
Above spits venom guttural swears
When the sun tinges an orange red
The lone bird cries a dirge for dead!

The dead footsteps that left the shore
Walked million miles could walk no more
Their joys and pains on earth foothold
Silenced now deep buried in cold!

The bird it knows the stories untold
Hurtful sighs of hearts of gold
Silent fall of molten pain
Left for good here won’t be again!

The lone bird knows how hard it hits
The ones still here forlorn heartbeats
When death maims bonds breaks love’s pairs
Moonless eyes wake through nightmares!

For some time
they were very happy
at his return

his wife daughters sons
all the beloved ones
as he himself was.

Only for some time.

It made him think of
forever eternal infinite
and more
he attributed to love

all that he yearned for
now remaining no more a dream
but right there before him
to embrace
and continue living in happiness.

But now
after the some time

why they appear to him stale
this replica of a life
he had lived so well

the thought of leaving which
the fear to die
had made him cry!

Craving to be back among the stars
he mutters

*if only I knew
coming back would be a curse!

Friend I stand on your door with open arms
For the grace of your words they truly charm
I love them your agrees and the little spats
Your flowers in my hand bouquets brickbats!

It’s for you only that I get to see
What I am and what I could be
For that you never mind to part precious time
Gift that to me for my trifling rhyme!

My heart’s reader your words always charm
Your likes light up even the humdrum
It’s in your views that my writes come alive
They make a poet breathe his poems survive!

It then so happens your words become my own
Your seeds of thoughts in me get sown
My dreams meet yours mind touches mind
An awakening blooms in that priceless find!

Not a word I say
As long as the salt is okay.

It really makes little sense
Depend on salt my goodness and patience.

The sooner it goes wrong
Sparks fly from my evil tongue.

As if a little less salt is good cause
To bare myself in fangs and claws.

In fuming anger and blind of sight
Forget the times when it was alright
Once in ten when salt goes less
Monster takes the human’s place.

I console myself it’s an ingrained fault
In man to flare up for less grain of salt.

The beast in us can no longer hide
When deficient of sodium chloride.

In these what I read makes me darkly brood

*For the love of salt I couldn’t ever be good!

If ever the sun shines like gold
air smells of unknown happiness
tightly them in a bottle hold
secure in your safest place.

When hits you the roughest wave
a patch of shore you badly need
bring them out from where you saved
take off the lid for a spoonful feed.

If ever shines a passing light
forget not to store it well
in times of living through darkest night
take off the lid in it revel.

When hits you life's toughest phase
in the raging storm can't find your way
delve within to reach that place
where the bottled sun you stored away.

Fellow traveler
As you leave
You leave me your love.

Will it
Till it
Fill it

For tomorrow
If time kills you

There’ll always be someone
That’ll find in
What you left

The YOU!

Thank God
to be with
there's someone
and a warm bed
when the day is done
with a roof over head!

Today I was hoping a breakthrough
seeking good luck my way
lift me from bad times sticking like glue
growing like weeds by the day!

My coffer long starved badly needs to fill
but dwindling faster instead
no more can cope with long line of bill
falling time barred unpaid!

Fortune you know has her weird style
in choosing the man to shower on
while I dream for her just one smile
she prefers to leave me alone!

The ways she chose to send me her love
could in no way lift me from bog
she threw on my way a bleeding dove
dying from the fangs of a dog!

She cast on my way a famished old hag
who for bringing good luck was no good
just short of **** in her surviving rag
couldn’t count the days without food!

Without a windfall on the mire stuck
my hopes lay ruined by sunset
the night found me still a sitting duck
with another day lying in wait!

Fluffy cute chicks
barely two weeks
huddled in one small space

for men's bowel bred
scared and afraid
their minds are a jumble of mess!

Readied for a ride
to the river's other side
ferried on a small wooden boat

where the market
will decide their fate
finding kind home is remote!

Those chicks that are dead
will sink to riverbed
the living will leave them behind

I can only mourn
pray they are never born
as victims of greed cruelly blind!

The least I can wish is

Enjoy everyday in peace.

Without care it grows
Till the flower shows
Birds brought the seed
It's just another ****.
In a corner of the garden
Amid beauties a burden
One you would like to miss
It grows unloved in bliss.
You care not about its name
The uninvited without shame
That needs no water
‘**** it', you mutter.
Hardened it stands stubborn
Mocking you night and morn
Unloved yet in love with you
Baked in sun bathed in dew.
You can't take it anymore
It has to be shown the door
With gun you madly shoot
It's gone head and root.
Summer passes comes the rain
Your garden is green once again
For your love sprouts the undying greed
Once more the birds bring back the seed.

It seems yesterday
she lay four eggs by me
but didn't come to stay
she was soon a memory.

Her plume yellow green
eyes dark as sea
a short time she had been
then gone hastily.

She was not by my side
nor in the nesting ***
my heart was pierced wide
she was all I got.

Seeing me glum and hurt
they brought a bluish plume
I shunned her at the start
my heart was still in gloom.

Before long I fell for her
she preened me soft and sweet
helped me heal the scar
get back lost heartbeat.

Back to happy mood
I worked up one new nest
loved her best I could
putting the past to rest.

Rolled by fast the weeks
good times leave in haste
past few eggs and chicks
death laid her to rest.

Like this they came and went
seasons of joy and grief
the ones my love I lent
stayed but for too brief.

Now stalks me the claw of age
my plume are shedding fast
all I have is a cage
to ruminate loves of past.

some feeble tunes the ears catch
hushed dialogues overheard
in the shadows a lighted patch
windborne caught one word

you they haunt daylong chase
nibble your thoughts and tease
not revealed from greyish haze
yet keep your mind in leash!

what are they you wonder aloud
shadows in wispy outline
all those naggers hidden in shroud
you feel but can't define

day and night they gnaw inside
a lump of mass sans sense
drag you low climb you tide
fly you unseen distance!

with them within life you roam
spelled in all you do
why your mind they make their home
you haven't the slightest clue

only a few you can hold in hands
purge with the flows of ink
most them die stillborn strands
to a depth quietly sink!

Every night the time I ready for a slumber deep
I think of the morrow and all my words to keep
Commitments made things delayed left undone
Not one seems to be pleasant not one seems any fun.

To accomplish what’s left out I feel I should hurry
But feel as much I forget blame it on my memory
Today was once again one of unfulfilled commitment
I have a lurking fear morrow won’t be any different.

Do now what can be done later bring tomorrow’s work today
Love the saying but can’t do much I don’t know the way
What is to be done now I keep them putting in shelf
Today’s work I defer hoping of tomorrow’s help.

Every night when I ready for a soft plunge on my bed
I think of the morrow today’s undone buzz in head
Un-kept words undone work their thoughts don’t bring cheers
If truth is said I don’t bother been doing so all these years.

As he scanned the far horizon of the mangrove beach
He imagined her silhouette by the sea of Norwich
A home he had left long to be so remotely far
On this alien shore with her face a distant star!

The sea winds kissed his skin in a bid to make amend
For his walks in the blazing sun weariness of dayend
He felt a peace in his ruffled mind craving for a rest
Amid the waves’ serenade dreaming a lulling nest!

What if he made his home on this ****** desolate beach
Walked the sands thought-romancing the woman of Norwich
Swam wild in the saline sea then lie in the mangrove’s shade
With no statistics to worry about only love’s buzz in his head!

Not going back to the asphalt path he would build here a hut
Laze dream lying in the shadows of wild and green coconut
In the starry evenings when the sea would hold her bewitched
He would walk the trails of scent left by the woman of Norwich!

This man went with the mission of building on the sea a port
But the mangrove gave him a reason to make there a love resort
No relic survives now the waves having carried beyond reach
All except the lingering scent of his love for the woman of Norwich!

That night she dreamed of a freedom blue and sweet
God blessed her she got it, escaped through a slit.
She’s gone, she’s gone, she has gone into the blue
For what lies beyond her cage, she really has no clue.
The prowling preying perils, she has no idea about
Can chase her, erase her, monsters strong and stout.

She’s gone, she’s gone, she has vanished into the blue
For what lies beyond her cage, she really has no clue.
In the mad rush of wind, in her mad flap of wings
She never knows, did never know, all the coming things.
In the hunting eyes of hawk, trailing her in the sun
She’ll soon learn freedom, is not an unmixed fun.

She’s gone, she has flown, vanished into the blue
If only had she known, if only she had a clue.
The dream run will soon end, when comes the night
Her weary wings will rue, she took this fancy flight.
Her eyes will gather a mist, for the ones she left behind
Though she dreamed it, and longed it, the freedom in her mind.

Handsome girl
You charge two rupees for your service
And it’s too small for all your distress
Being for sometime my mistress!

But I love those silken cheese
That charge me five rupees
Wet in oiled black curls
Handsomest dark skin girls!

Can’t get me all the white
What I get from her all night
Turn me a slave her power
Aroma of her hair’s flower!

Are you free of shame
O girl what’s your name
Else how you give freely
Yourself for a sum measly!

Someone’s wife or mother
Tell me why I bother
And not pay you in my pity
When you sell you for poverty!

On my canvas white
The characters spill
At free will.
They roll
Without control
Way they feel.

I don’t fret
Being no reformer
And just a poet!

Friend* when you pronounce me
the word takes a tongue
licks my mind vigorously
breath takes it to the lung.

How I die for that one word
and would anything spend
just to have it from a voice heard
one breath calling me friend.

Friend once from your tongue rush
pumped out from beat of heart
break the dam rivers out-gush
make me your inseparable part.

Friend once you utter tie me with a lace
tender yet not brittle like glass
remind me in love we belong to one race
break down all barriers of class.

In the cloudy evenings with strong hints of rain
You heard them once and you heard them again
The air would rend with their cacophony
The torrents would send them in ecstatic glee.
Even a few years back you could find them around
The harbinger of monsoon with harsh croaking sound
On your yard and garden in quite large packs
Frolicking for insects, the great jumping Jacks.
They scoured the marshland in search for food
Calling in monotone and setting you to brood
With your mind gnawed by the incessant rains
That rattled your thoughts and the glass window panes.
But then lands were devoured by the human sharks
Soon disappeared open spaces and parks
Came up apartments and rows of house
Urban growth you accept without grouse.
Now in the lonely evenings with fair hints of rain
The rains will be back but you won’t hear them again
Their habitats are gone there aren’t left any bogs
And with these are gone your neighborhood frogs.

see her salt feet rimmed in wet sands
wade the creek of the fishermen
gay abandoned black mystic strands
hair wildly adorned in sandgrains!

don't leave me girl for that fishing hamlet
where they count for the day's catch of fish
though times will go and eyes will forget
on the sealine your dreams will never cease!

tell me o girl your all the hidden pain
your desires winds carried to the sea
that along the creek you seek wild insane
long longed but never found in me!

come back my girl from beyond waves' roar
tell me of thousands one wish
before the tides go to come back no more
let your heart be for once unleashed!

Since then been carrying water in that 600ml bottle.

The one she lured me with in the scorching heat
When my throat was dying for a drink

You need it more than anything now sir
Said she her thatched shop in the land of nowhere

I yielded for the price was not too high
For a thirsty soul passing by

On the highway happened the fair deal
She had one less to sell
I had my fill

Like the car sir our body too needs oil
Said between smiles the woman of the soil

For once I loved her piece of wisdom
The unpretentious savior, proud owner of her queendom

Dunno why since then
I’ve been holding onto that bottle
As my fairest bargain!

They just came back to me.

Smells of the last winter!

They brought me back
What slipped through
Before I could grab it!

The colors
More diverse than rainbow
Mocked me in their warm glow
For I’m a year older
But their color
Still holding fast
Many of them may outlast
Me
Warmth intact in mothball
While I’m dominated more and more
More harshness I feel
In the winter chill!

*When at last they’ll take me out
They still will be there
Ageless in the cupboard
Holding the once wearer
In their warm void!

there is no respite from love

no need ever

really.

A kilo of fish brinjal pumpkin
Cauliflower raisin and bean
Washing soap and eggs one crate
Need to buy bring from market!

Mustard oil some milk and rice
Cashew nut and a horde of spice
Gourd and potato spinach cabbage
The list is long fills a page!

Feel confused from where to start
How to pile and stack on a cart
Shoeshine cream to adhesive glue
All calculations and maths to do!

Ticked what’s got unticked what’s not
Cash dwindles with much unbought
Trudge back home in sweated daze
She checks items and fumes in rage!

Poetry starts and ends with me
it's as far as it should go
between me and me
unshackled free
tilling the mind
shoveling the dirt
all mine
each part of it
bitter sweet
poem's words
even if unlettered unstructured
lacking grace finesse
all mine
I own them
each line
to save me
my self
never writing with the worry
out there is a jury
reading analyzing
liking disliking
but me
and me
knowing that's the length it travels
between me and me
and that's enough of a journey
for my poetry.

Hidden in the pages of a dusty book
I found a note- ‘waiting for you'
Who wrote it? How did she look?
We never met, it's long overdue.
Beneath dust of time, my mind was a mess
I couldn't remember her or recollect the face
Is she still waiting or sailed elsewhere
She was waiting for me, why didn't I care?
Why didn't she call again, send a reminder?
She was waiting, I didn't go to her.
In life's passage, an event mundane
The note in the dusty book became heart's burden.

There're endless ways to write
give vent to a joy or to pain
heavy stuff or childly light
sunshine or broken sky's rain.

It depends on the day the mood
good times or bad on the way
shapes the words your attitude
color them the way you want to say.

Endless are the ways to fill the page
rhythm and structure and rhyme
clear as daylight or a maze
depends how you're treated by the time.

You choose from the collage endless
words that may sadden entertain
when broken you may choose to show a face
that by lighting smiles lessens your pain.

As I reach there my fingers itch for a click
The lens in hope zooms but soon turns sick
My disappointed mind depressingly broods
Where have gone Frost’s dark deep woods!
What my eyes see can be called at best
A skeletal green a parody of forest
Where my horse would shake head in doubt
Why I pause here it can’t make out!
I seriously wonder whose woods are these
For logs and timbers fell trees as they please
Not many are left in vision’s long range
No wonder my horse thinks it strange!
My heart shivers in the cold evening clime
In fear the forests would vanish in no time
There won’t be Frost’s woods dark and deep
For when they were going wisdom found us asleep!

The riddles inside me
Are set free
Through poems.
They go on a ride
In the world outside
Turn to frozen frames!

Full is my treasure trove,

I have but one love!

Her wails rent the air

O God how unfair you are
to have snatched him from me
the only man that truly cared
never treated me badly.

Without him is a life to grieve
empty meaningless
take me too O God relieve
this pain of no redress!

Shouldn't we bring a costly cot
of mahogany or such wood
asked the men what was her thought
about carrying her man so good.

Shouldn't the pyre be of sandalwood
the fuel a pure ghee
your husband ma'am was a man too good
to be burned ordinarily.

She paused a while frowning dark
a shadow passed her face
a hint of wince made its mark
a pall of uneasiness.

He's gone to never return
the onus is now on me
to run the days with meager earn
and not spend wastefully.

ordinary wood would burn as good
kerosene would do well
prudence demands not one should
be lavish in funeral.

Gadgets you buy
Tomorrow die,
Pity
So fast
Lose novelty.

The soldier was receiving the gallantry award.

In his mind was not

How many enemies he had killed
How bravely he had fought the war
How greatly he defended his country
The heaping praises
The glittering medal

But…

The reassuring happiness
Of having come out of it

**Alive!

Under the amber sky she flows as far as the sea
her bank on the other side is shrunk as eye can see
I have seen joys rise like tide tears mingle in hers
she is Ganga the one river mother of all rivers.

On her ceaseless journey from high up to the bay
melts snow in her flow springs life from her clay
worshiped as holy mother yet spoiled by her sons
she is ravaged time again slayed by evil demons.

For ages she has nurtured life tilled green her shore
around her have sown hopes its timeless folklore
her soils have sculpted cornfields and images of goddess
she is now an ebbing tide end's shadows on her face.

Hear once her moaning waves her ripples' silent sigh
from the silts clogging her breast her beds going dry
dying groans of the mother poisoned in effluent
choked by her people's waste killed without relent.

Open the door, gateman
Open the door for me
Break out of dream if you can
It’s long since you slept to lullaby.
I know you’re tired
Of counting each grass in the park
It’s not what you aspired
The drowsy trills of the lark.
You surely have no clue
Here amid the flowers
With so little to do
Why counting the weary hours.
In the summer’s burning glow
Your sweats bring dazed dreams
And knowing the winds won’t blow
Your surround in despair dims.
Open the door, gateman
Open the door for me
Get out of dream if you can
From the delirious lullaby.
For once show me your eyes
Where the dreamy slumbers loom
Amid flowers grown in sunrise
Seeding flowers that won’t bloom.

In the dying flickers of night
I lust for her touch on my forehead

Come before robs you the daylight
And scatter you in pieces in my head!

In daylight she’s real scattered pieces
Drawn in many faces missed in many kisses
A woman a wife remote in diverse role
Her fibers hidden like light in black hole
On the nights too she’s mystic moonbathed
A wispy fairy out of bound lying on my bed
I can’t but love her can’t her ever leave
Can’t put out the flame that rises to deceive

I crave her fullness in the dying flickers of night
And doomed to an eternal fate
I lie in wait

To see her core disrobed
*before robs her daylight!

Wrinkle our face
Twinkle weather
Quietly we embrace
Age together.

Each annular ring
Season’s turning breeze
In our ears sing
We are aging with ease.

What if she gets slow
My limbs are growing rust
Lacking youthful glow
We’re aging in good trust.

Her curves have lost the edge
My gait lacks olden spright
Yet nicely do we age
We’re aging without fright.

Have grown dim our eyes
Ears too often fail
There’s no disguise
We are aging well.

We are past that ride
Stuck on the surface
Reached that space inside
Where we can age in grace.

In the barren landscape with little to show
The wintry day was about to bow
When with a tingling fear and a little grouse
I stood alone before the haunted house.
It loomed ominously its spires high
That seemed to pierce the evening sky
Its cobwebbed door and dusty panes
Reeked of evil and bode ill omens.
The chilly wind blew down my spine
Trying to stop me with howling whine
‘Don’t step on this long untrodden track,
Before they find you, better go back’.
For a moment I felt like running away
Not stopping there for the nocturnal stay
But my heavy laden feet dragged me on
There was no going back till came dawn.
Soon I was past the evening’s first star
To enter the doorway that was slightly ajar
The darkness inside was so maliciously thick
It would hardly melt with just one matchstick.
As I lit the candle I cried in utter fright
I was knocked down by a dark whirling night
It was sometime before I regained my compose
It was bats on their flight as from slumber they arose.
The place closely resembled my nightmare’s hell
With silence of the grave and a rotten stinking smell
It seemed to say ‘the alive is debarred here,
When you turn to them, you’ll have no fear’!
I tried not to be unnerved and lit up my torch
To see what lay beyond the long dusty porch
Finding the staircase I tried to gather my poise
But it was soon gone at the ghastly creaking noise.
I heard someone above speaking in muffled voice
‘We had to come here, there was no choice,
But I’m sure something is down there,
A ghost must be moving, I heard sounds down stair’!

you never see a ghost
except inside your fear
what you see at most
is an apparition unclear.

flickering lantern lights
casting shadows on the wall
were your childhood frights
in the half lit nightly lull.

you couldn't tell them lies
tales that grandma spun
glowworms were ghosts' eyes
that closed with morning sun.

they made a place in your head
broke all your resolves weak
eerie patterns moonlight made
wind's howls in bamboo's creak.

when the nights came
clock ticks gave a scare
you had to believe in them
you knew they were there.

are they now all dead
fantasy of child's mind
monsters below bed
footsteps heard behind?

some fears you still own
strangely hold them firm
and when you are alone
seek grandma's safety arm!

The thing I hate most
is when I have to switch off the light
paving way for ghosts
to rule my night!

When moonbeam peeped through window
night revealed her in the most beauteous glory
I would not fall asleep in that half-lit glow
till ma told me the eeriest ghost story!

She would tell me about imps and ghouls
the ones that roam to find if a child is sleepless
of spirits no more bound by earthly rules
moving in the hollows in faceless face!

There were ghosts good and crooks
souls that died in unfulfilled lust
their shadows crept in the dark nooks
their sighs echoed with the wind's gust!

I could feel their breath catch their whiff
the lurking bones lying for me in wait
that would not spare me even in my sleep
till they turned me their netherworld's mate!

To this day I feel a deadly gloom
pause before I put out the light
what if finding me alone in a room
visit me the fears of the night!

If you have in mind to give someone a gift
Love or just anything to bring a cheer’s lift
Don’t defer do it now before it’s too late
A time may come bitter to leave you in regret!

Don’t keep deferring a gift by pondering over it
Or thinking it can further wait in time’s endless pit
Tomorrow it may so happen that the one in mind is gone
Without ever having your gift leaving that work undone!

If you have in mind to gift someone a thing or two
Keep it not in abeyance make the now its time to do
Next time is a long time so it may never leave your heart
You delayed the gift too long and chance was swift to depart!

Once the wish grows in mind to give someone a gift
Hurry for tides may change sands may go for a shift
Do it now get it done and treasure the receiver’s smile
So you don’t have to regret the rest of your walking mile!

Don't regret, never mind
The day you have left behind
A beautiful night is in wait for you
For dreaming again hoping anew!
Feel blessed that you got to stay
To live and love for another day
To rise again and see the sun
Get to do what's still undone.
Know it is from god a gift
To renew your spirit and give it a lift!

Her hairs bereft of oil
Unkempt with dirt
The girl of the soil
I can’t reach her heart.
I can’t reach her heart
The girl wears no rouge
Like arrow she darts
She can’t be my muse.
Her teeth aren’t pearls
She hasn’t a smooth skin
On her no beauty curls
Her heart I can’t win.
Whole day she toils
She wears no cute dress
The girl of the soil
I can’t kiss her face.
She isn’t to any school
The girl knows no tune
Her heart I can’t rule
From me she’s immune.
Her words pour out pure
In her way she is smart
But she makes it sure
I can never reach her heart.

The girl with the blue umbrella
Caught my look,
For a moment I loved her
Then she was gone far.
I drank her eyes a sparkling wine
Forbidden she couldn’t be mine
In my heart she left a scar
In my eyes a remote star!

Do you remember last cascades of laughter
Till your breath couldn’t take it anymore
Your seams almost opened belly ruptured
From standing you came down to floor!

You laughed first once and then couldn’t hold
Their peals kept gushing like a flood
Mouth hole bared from eyes tears rolled
Laughter invaded your blood!

People wouldn’t know if you laughed or wept
As tears flowed down your cheeks
Such was the fun it did you suffocate
Seemed wouldn’t stop for weeks!

If you remember please pass onto me
I’ll preserve in a bottle that stuff
Only to uncork when it needs be
In the days that I find pretty tough!

In her eyes the starkness of might
in her outstretched arms a call
to the ones challenging her
to surrender to her power
and the ones worshipping her
to find in her might what’s hidden,
an invitation to the worshipper and the challenger
to submit, to see, beyond her wrathful might
not a goddess
but a woman, a mortal lover,
infinitely lovable!