In the sheets of drizzle below the autumn cloud
eyes beaming with the glow of love
wave at the receding figure
to the farthest visibility.

The man leashed to the cubicle with the screen
would think of those faces
when the day is at its broadest invitation
and light like the luminous ether
fills every dark pocket of the land
listening to the rhyme of the clock
from his abyss of ratios and rates
while the vagabond clouds come together
and break apart in the game of revealing blue
painting new faces and waving hands
on the landscape of the gate
up to the farthest turn
in the sheets of drizzle
beneath the autumn clouds.

I was seeing many girls
when she stormed into my life
broke my run with her resolve
to find her place as wife.

I was seeing many girls
when she came reined me in
halted me with all her force
determined to win.

I was seeing many girls
my dream was up to stars
when she arrived fully knowing
this man was soon to be hers.

I was seeing many girls
none of them could be wife
she knew it when she came
I would stick on her for life.

She leaves a scent for me when away.

On those lonely nights I take her to bed
Taste the nectars of her womanhood
Till I’m all over her vermillioned head!

Hear her heartbeat in sleepless night’s crumpled sheet
Re-spinning fantasies of wild dances long forgotten
And I gasp in that ecstatic rise and fall in unbearable pain
Melting me into her onto her inescapably besotten!

She leaves a scent for me when away.

She takes me to the bed with her
On her forehead a moonbeamed star
Burning me like newly wed!

*A woman never fades even on the empty bed.

On the table is all quiet
it's the **** shellphone
everyone is fond of that
and all I feel is alone.

Nobody converses anymore
eyes riveted on the toy
I dunno what's in store
hooked is the girl and boy.

I must draw them to talk
for long there isn't a word
eyes just don't take stock
of the sky or a flying bird.

All islands in the ocean
I distract if I speak
only fingers are in motion
relations are falling weak.

The table is a silent scene
what should I say about
I speak to myself unseen
the wall is stubbornly stout.

Taking Devil's help
I lock my self
in the shelf

Sweet voice faceless
Nice words she tells
But she means business
She needs to raise her sales!

Her sweetness may be fake
But little is her choice
Sales she needs to make
With her sugary voice!

A voice on the line
Begging you a minute
She has target to meet
You can tick her off any time!

She’s keen you lend her ear
At end of deal say yes
Wants you for a minute to bear
So she can do the sales!

She's a beautiful woman.

When age left her side
she grew a bed of marigold
blooming yellow and red
catching sunshine in winter
and as the years tiptoed to her
a fresh bed of love she made
and lay thereupon newly wed.

she flirts with all,
knowing her beauty's alluring wine
none can decline.

each one feels she's on his side.
her love is too wide
to be confined to one mind
so they all find in her
their lover!

and when above the highway
she shines
each one thinks

she's mine!

Where sways in the wind the eucalyptus
with chiming bells rolls the bullock cart
lies the hut of my dream sown in wild grass
lives the girl I have loved and given my heart!

She is the girl not been ever to a city
she isn’t the girl can call clever and witty
a girl without a mirror she’s the most pretty
and I have loved her and given all my heart!

Her skin is dark cloud her lips river’s flow
her eyes are sky deep tinged with rainbow
she isn’t the girl skilled in love’s fine art
she is the girl I have loved and given my heart!

Her hair rusty black makes the winds insane
her smiles streaming brook no artist can paint
a girl without polish yet a beauty on the earth
and I have loved her and given all of my heart!

She shrinks running on the beach
winds reach her hairs dancing free
smaller she grows far out of reach
around her prance the waves wildly.

Her limps all gone, gone is her ache
she’s now again a pristine child
with sandy footprints skin sunbaked
she catches me in her love beguiled.

In the saline wind her coppered face
stoops for treasure of wave washed pearl
in enslaving thrall of love’s wellness
years wind her back a little girl.

Soon she will be back with worn out shells
boast of her finds from the seashore
never knowing in those moments’ windy sails
she unlocked in me a long locked door.

The moment her lips open
I start talking nonsense
I know how the women
Can’t bear men’s silence.
Her face in anger white
Mind benumbed of sense
She would sorely miss the fight
If I stubbornly hold patience.
I know what she craves for
Her eyes so clearly foretell
Something I deeply abhor
Pairing up with her in quarrel.
But she won’t bear with silence
Wants the heat to be on
If I keep quiet as defense
She can't fight it alone.

His eyes meet
The passing feet,
They watch.
If from gallops
One stops,
A prized catch!

Why I walk the street in a cobbler’s shoe?
What’s new, you may ask, that we all do!
But nay, this one, I had to borrow from him
Still one furlong my shoes ran out of steam!

The cobbler was visibly aghast
Doubtful looks on me he cast
Then he said in a garbled groan
I sell shoes not give on loan!

I cursed myself and the shoes I wore
Brought months back from a big shoe store
Price was high for the branded trust
A mere few months and the pair went bust!

So here I’m at the cobbler’s door
Walk I must a furlong more
Begging for an old worn shoe
My humble feet with that can do!

The guy though felt ill at ease
Seeing the misery bowed to my wish
Brought out for me a dirt stained one
Going barefoot could not be fun!

I tell you friends a story that’s true
The cobbler loaned me a pair of shoe
I could only give him good wish
Before I hurried on my way to office!

If you ever beg love of her
This small story you must remember
She hasn’t a way but make you her own
Can either sale love or give it on loan!

The wares the shop sells are all worn and fade
Cashbox is empty business is in the red
The man behind the counter couldn’t care less
Happy to be there at the forgotten address!
Cobwebs gaily growing no footsteps on its floor
A wonder the shop keeps open its door
For long no buyer not one item is sold
The shop stands there timelessly old!
Not any knows it, not one comes to buy
The shopkeeper waits, not asks himself why
His wares spread amid the gathering dust
No money in cashbox, in his heart undying trust,
Someday someone would walk in from some corner of earth
Value his wares on display, pay the price they’re worth!

Hurry dear it’s fast darkening
We must be home before evening
So saying she looked at her
The walk was long home was far.

She glanced at her daughter’s face
Then held her tight in sweet embrace
Knowing the child’s little feet
Couldn't do much to achieve the feat.

When she started she thought it best
To take the shortcut through the forest
But shadows here quickly descend
Daylight fades with each bend.

She quickened pace strained her ears
The silence spoke in many whispers
She heard something that scared her wit
Sound behind her of some dragging feet.

Someone was following her in that wild
She heard its footsteps didn’t tell her child
Paused awhile and picked up her daughter
Kissed her soft cheek put her on shoulder.

Mummy there’s someone coming behind
When I look for it none I find
Don’t be scared dear just the birds' wings
I can see it clear behind us is nothing.

She kept walking as fast she could
To escape the something lurking in the wood
The footsteps behind seemed to keep them in watch
Quickened its pace any moment could catch.

The forest thinned out their home came to sight
The small white cottage shone in moonlight
At the gate was her husband waiting in worried face
She told him we're safely back by kind God's grace.

The little child was still scared she too had heard the sound
Of someone coming behind footsteps on the ground
Though wearied out by the travel it kept haunting her head
After end of dinner when mummy put her on bed.

When the house fell quiet she heard her mother say
Darling I'm terribly scared I had a horrible day
In the forest was someone behind us it did follow

*I saw a figure with no head but a hollow!

the few days it lived
it clung to my feet

it grew fond of me
and i fond of it.

weakly and frail
only skin and bone

in its dying eyes
love brightly shone.

its raised broken tail
faintly soft mew

conveyed to tell
i simply love you.

then it lay wide eyed
from pain peacefully
saying silently

*won't you touch me?

Deep in the forest
Fed by the soil
Nourished by the sun and rain
It etched itself onto the sky.
As it receded from the ground
Its wings mourning the upward drift
Retained the earthbound bond
Passed the sky’s nectar into the soil,
Showering gratitude by casting its shadow
For all down below to soothe their weary frames,
Sheltering the potent ones from ravages up
So they like it one day grow into a behemoth.
Once clothed mankind’s nudeness
Now remorselessly denuded by the axe of progress
Twisted gnarled deformed at man’s pleasure,
Wizened mummy, in our room a showpiece furniture!

you say put on your specs papa
you don't see the screen
you don't see the page
don't seem to see anything these days

come boy when you are my age
you don't need to see the screen
you don't need to see the page
for they're by now all
tilled
filled
spilled
and you say to yourself
son I don't need no spec
for them now I can make remake
after countless read countless write
this mind tell me
I need no sight
for outside it's all empty
and inside
they deeply hide!

son when you tell me
I don't mind
for surely the times
would make you find
with all planted within
you wouldn't need to see the screen
see the page
*when a father of my age!

Around him surrounds noise of motion
He suffers silence of the depth of ocean
Drowned in himself far removed from din
He lives closeted in his world within.

Words reach him in wind’s disguise
Mean nothing he must read the eyes
For ripples emitting when lips do part
Can’t travel the distance to touch his heart.

The storms that rage he cannot convey
Absorbs all not a thing can say
Mocks him his vision in the blasted light
He wished he could cry out with all his might.

His thoughts unsaid debar tales of rejoice
Fate was too blind to leave him a choice
Other than to imprint his mind on his face
If you care to read there his woes and happiness.

Winter sun mellowing on him
Drowned in his newspaper
I caught him on film.
He never knew
I did never show him
The silken moment
That now shows like a dream.
Will I ever be caught,
Same way by my son
Frozen for him to see alone
With a happiness his own and no regret,
His father’s portrait from a silken moment!

When I find a seat in the bus
thoughts throng me words rush
when I stand in the jostle I regret
how rhymes are frittered go a-waste!

But in standing there's a silver lining
I care to see the visages around me
darkly grim or happily shining
the many faces of moving poetry!

Life becomes more enduring when simple.

Simple needs
Simple wants
Simple ways
Simple pleasures
Simple measures…

Attaining this though not simple

Is worth trying

Amid the challenging realization

It’s simply impossible!

Tell me words simple
that on my heart
when softly land
I understand,
and when they depart
leave me a smile's dimple.

bitterly i remember
in my first simplification class
i forgot BODMAS.

boys around me
solved gleefully
while my pencil
showed no will
to budge with the clock
bent on making me a laughing stock
before my peers.

it's such times in life
when devils raid
to come to your aid.

i gave a furtive look
to the notebook
of the boy next to me
put an equal to sign
and to the sum's next line
wrote nine.

what followed i would keep to mine.

He dipped in holy water
As a penance
For all the sin done.

His sins swam ashore
To the dry comfort of land

For they hadn’t a doubt

Once he got out

*He would hold their hands.

Serpentine corpuscles trickle to his chin
as they batter him in incensed anger's blow
but couldn't they break the broken man within
the sinner long used to seeing own blood's flow!

**** him the frenzied crowd storms over him
ceaseless punches fall like moribund rain
insane monsters' boiling wrath's steam
would stop only when is numbed all his pain!

His meek hands vainly struggle to defend
cracked bones clang like splintered glass
head bows then curves in crumbled bend
till his frame yields to the merciless mass!

Be scared not he has died thus in the past
repaired revived and released from cell
every time coming back in renewed lust
to walk once again through the fire of hell!

You know my maths teacher
He was my greatest torment
Though I had to address him sir
Would rather have called him sirpent!

Easier sums he solved for us
The hardest he left for me
While I was made a fool in the class
He would watch and smile in glee!

I found him always scheming
To prove I was one big *******
Who couldn’t solve the easiest thing
And deserved on the back a bash!

I still shudder at the thought of him
My time with him was worst spent
He comes back to haunt me in dream
Not for nothing I call him sirpent!

Price rises in spate
So is not earned buck
Hits me hard market
I fall like sitting duck.

Home’s need for grocery
Rises so too price
My call for austerity
She finds not at all nice.

Goes up quickly tariff
Not my meager earn
Life is pretty stiff
With bump and ugly turn.

Still I breathe carefree
Though my poems don’t pay
With her as company
Look to another day.

Don't know where she is on this day
the world though small she's too far
years have traveled a long way
and she was sixteen when I last saw her!

Can't imagine her a grown woman
with shades of grey wrinkled skin
my time with her so fast ran
and I had seen her last at sixteen!

Does she sing a line of the love song
in a forlorn night remember
a boy lost to her for too long
and she was sixteen when I last saw her!

Can't imagine any older she could be
the girl a lover could have been
but the winds blew her too quickly
and I had seen her last at sixteen!

a small man dies somewhere
he doesn't make news
they are no news
herds of small men dying everyday.

big men only capture the headlines
big politicians big deceivers
no petty thieves or pickpockets
but swindlers of nations

you are awed by the headlines
the big bold letters
big disasters mishaps
genocide mass extinction

and may miss in one corner
a news of a man of no imprint
a small man's death in small print

an ill-paid half starved courier
his head crushed by a brick somewhere
not a thief nor a beggar
but looking forever
an address to deliver
going from door to door
with his back breaking loads
on alien bylanes and roads
where someone suspecting him a thief
broke his head with a brick

the small man in his death
made it to the news
only if you noticed it
from under big prints.

She stands where the river blows her hair wild

no youth and no favor for her
no hands to clean the salt licks on her skin
her palms are dreams wrinkled dry
yet craving an offer.

You come from a distant land, she says,
heavens bless you.

I got no small change, I respond,
my mind drifts to ponder,

a small change, I need that too,
always hungered for
and faltered through
like I missed the vessel narrowly
to be on the river's other side.

Maybe when I come back,
I turn toward her.

She was gone.

Smell of last rain still not dried on their bark
They stand skyward taller somber and dark
I part the sodden grass to see if there’s a mark
Of the autumn’s trail when I last walked the park!

Does it still survive there the hushed canopied shade
Where sweet nothings were whispered commitments made
Dreams grew like wild grass and then in despair bled
As time ripped the woven words made them a barren glade!

Do they still come there in two lover’s timeless face
Sit on the wooden bench embraced in sculpted grace
For in those summer noons they hadn’t an address
Except in the labyrinth of heart a misty priceless place!

Can I still find them the two heads drawing close
Looking bonded for eternity breathing from one nose
Never making it but never timeworn forever new
In the pursuit of autumn’s trail the duo of me and you!

Smell of last rain still not dried on their bark
They bough over the couples in foliage green dark
For years will breeze past but they’ll make their mark
When they choose to hold hand and walk into the park!

the bride and the groom
everyone's eyes they catch.

what a match
they gush!

you are on which side
the beauteous bride
or the groom
all elegance and class!

if you stray a little from their grace
to look at the painted face
standing at the gate
receiving each guest with a smile
seemingly having fun
bowing to everyone
his smile's labor
paid in hour,

you feel a gloom
shadowing over the bride and the groom!

Keep distance, the Snail said,
I don't feel safe with humans around
and my pace makes me so vulnerable.

He took a deep breath and added,
do you ever feel my toil
to move from place to place
while the winds blow in gusts
and the world passes by like a storm?

My minutes tick like your hours
and hours days
as I climb the mountains of walls
cover furlongs of ground
rest and restart
never really knowing
where the path ends.

And you only add to my woes.

Your prank of a kick
rolls me back and down
all the way
to beyond from where I began.

A teardrop gathered in his opal eyes.

But it really doesn't matter,
a smile broke through the tears,

I see with all your pace
you're so far from happiness.

Now he was standing on the border.

He heard his own voice say

this deadly option reconsider

also heard it say

your hunch can betray

so can your sense

pause man before you travel the distance.

No, he wouldn’t listen to that voice

having made the choice

not anymore to defer

what deserved the woman that wronged her.

She was giggling and saw no harms
when he picked her up in his arms.

The rock python smelled flesh falling from the sky.

You have to die he whispered you have to die.

The gateman was dozing and no eyes had watched him.

*He must now run away from this bad dream!

Two buds of garlic
Ginger in tea
Can't do the trick
Can't produce poetry.

Can spare you a sneeze
I'm done with too many
When blows the breeze
When it's rainy.

Where springs the fountain
Flowing ceaseless thru nose
Once sneeze sneeze again
Don't feel so morose.

It's the day to be dumb
Better if you resign
When nose is red numb
Can't pen a one line.

Through sun and the rain
It's time tested old
Once sneeze sneeze again
Lo no remedy for cold.

Gingered tea cup
Can't **** the enemy
It's time to wrap up
Close the shop for poetry.

Chirping beauties in rainbow plume, pick them as you please
But what drew her was the one pair on sale for forty rupees.
Surely an offer not to drain her coffer, she quickly grabbed the two
Proudly flaunted her prized catch, with them she could do.
On reaching home as she watched close, she couldn’t hold her rage
One was lame the other blind, a duo crippled with age.
Then she cooled and uttered after a contemplative pause
‘it’s god’s will and be sure his will, is never without cause.
‘They were not cared for nor loved, nursed and properly fed
Had I not made them my own, they would soon have been dead.
So it is god wanted me to go and hunt them out
On his wish I brought them home, his wills are served no doubt.

She was my good lover

Thought she would make me
A good wife

But

She carved me the fate

Of being

A poet for life!

often we love them more
after we give them up.

Prosaic
Finds solace
In poetry’s grace.

Not all the nights were moonlit bright
the darker ones fed upon our fright
buried in depth lay the lonely souls
bones still alive eyes burning coals.

Nights on which moon dimly shone
feebly glowed those marble stones
with names etched of young and old
songs lost forever stories never told.

We talked in whispers lest the dead awoke
soldiers' graveyard life snuffed in smoke
buried in uniform now one with the soil
past all glories win's reward loss's toil.

Night lengthened wind's moan arose
the watchman called it's time to close
the living must go awaits their home
tombstones part for the dead to roam.

When I run on the road of potholes
Beat the signal to go to other side
I feel the worth of my tattered soles
Thank good luck for being on my side.

You needn’t shed a tear
You needn’t mind it dear
Though came the new year
Didn’t buy a new pair.

I tell you through my tears
I’m not a miser
But through all my years
Have grown wiser!

It has run all concrete length
Sun’s heat and soaking rain
But still is left with strength
To sprint on all terrain!

You needn’t tell me dear
It brings me lump of tear
That its death is overdue
It’s time to get a new!

I tell you a fact of truth
My holed mate looks uncouth
Looks wretched in broken sole
But it's a living faithful soul.

She wore below a knee length skirt
reaching neck above cleavage
love at those times was quite an art
for romance was the golden age!

Little was revealed of her tender skin
closed knees she sat pulling frock
what mystery was it that lay within
that tempted teen heart to unlock!

Most revealed was her dark bare feet
her ribboned hair oiled crow black
when she walked stopped heartbeat
knees grew weak and slack!

She was the girl the most beautiful
the girl that bared not much
a girl to be sought breaking all the rule
I could die for her just one touch!

Our maths teacher wasn’t amused.

He solved hard problems for us
taught sincerely in the class
but the moment he held the pen
sweats would flood his palm
like a nagging rain
that his army of handkerchief
couldn’t bring any relief
with the dripping moisture
like a school of sharks
devoured our paper’s ink marks
and from the workouts already done
steps were wiped out one by one.

At those times he wouldn’t speak
only looked at us apologetic
burdened as if with guilt’s weight
for the treachery of his ceaseless sweat
that forced him to desist from anymore writing
close his pen and start dictating.

Then one day we saw him bring out a cream
his agony had reached such an extreme
with that he rubbed his palms with glee
looked he had solved a great mystery
said now this would lock all the doors
stop sweat’s pour through skin’s pores.