Dead heads stare from the wall

one can't tell if their glassy eyes
hold the relics of past life
or the sadness of having lost it
to the fires of royal pastime

tiger eyes look pathetically pleading
for re-stitching the stripes on the bones
leopard head growls only in anguish
of his spots being soft spot for target
the open jaws of the croc
can't still swallow the stuck bullet
awed eyes of deer is yet to sense
the muzzle that ruptured its innocence
the jackals, birds, langurs, civets
all frozen in the suddenness of the ***** out.

The hunter's head peeps from a dusty frame
having got his place of pride
among his game.

Witty
Finds humor
In self-pity.

Deceived often in my trust,
Still trust you I must.

Guard it must,
For can’t mend
Broken trust!

when i see the youthful faces
i feel a bitter regret
curse how time crazily races
rue things for which i'm late.

my youth now seems wasn't there
or was just a fleeting span
fate dealt me a blow unfair
made me too fast old man.

if only the years did roll back
if time travel wasn't a fancy
if only was laid back the past track
i would've loved to be twenty.

why it's such i didn't care
let twenty fly too fast past me
why that year if was very much there
i didn't lock it to be forever twenty.

twenty at twenty seemed absurd an age
a fabulous but unreal mirage
it was the year i passed out college
twenty did i ever have that age.

twenty when came too fast it went
survives in the now twenty's face
for me no year an imagined moment
i curse how years quickly race.

When I return home
bird chirps nest breaks rest
smiles waft free windborne
air wears look of fest.

Babbles she how was day
if I had timely meal
or forgot in rhyme's play
doubt she always will.

Merrily she chats her mind
tidbit honest gossips
weariness recedes behind
break in smile my lips.

Betwixt I slowly undress
she wants not a word missed
I don't leave her place
sit in towel for twenty minutes.

Can't say when sweats dry up
spent is this sweet span
cold gets hand's teacup
by warmth of heart's woman.

trudging hooves throw up dust
crumbles day's hardened crust
crimson hues fade from sky
painful weighs mournful sigh!

The morn casts a shadow on my mind
this twilight day of dark clouds
I mourn everything lying dead behind.

Seems nothing was done right
what was for me missed my sight
built blindly castles of sand
dreamed harvest on fallow land.

When it came to paying a price
chose way out with compromise
not asking the purpose was made this soul
the intended task of its earthly role.

As I lament all the wasted years
clouds disperse the sky clears
whispers a voice from my inhaled breath
being alive is enough rest is myth.

A dog's life

On the dog the blazing sun pours
but closed are all the doors

hungry and thirsty and mad in heat
the asphalt burns his feet

Isn't there a kind heart
to see and feel his pain

to play God's part
as His will ordained?

Life without a roof

His bed is the pavement
roof the firmament

famished and sick
his pillow is a brick

people pass without a stare
if you're fine all else is fair

their sight is a shame
disreputes the city's fame

Where is God?

Full is His misery's cup
all muddled up
He has no clue

why nothing went fine
with his divine design
what to do!

Is all lost?*

Two gifts you still can feel
in your mind live their trace

to use them if you truly will
love and kindness*.

The teddy pair lies in the sun,
They scooped the dirt out
And abandoned them here.
Once hugged in the sweetest *****
Fondled by the cutest little hands
Taken to bed for happy dreams,
They seemed inseparables
And not just stuffed toys.
Made as inanimate,
By the magic touch of love,
They turned humans,
Yearning for love, company,
growing hearts in them.
Then as happens to all,
Their fluffs wore out
Colors faded
They were no more attractive.
Stale outdated outcast
To be thrown away out of sight.
As I passed by the garbage vat
For a moment it seemed
Their eyes were moist
With the pain of betrayal.
I prayed,
‘before they turn to cinder,
let them be picked up
by shabby little hands
of some child of lesser god
and given back the love they lost’.
I hope it will be answered.

Let’s be lovers again on the Belvedere
Hand in hand we would climb the stairs
Then fly to the past in our memories’ wings
To that timeless space where duelled Hastings!

Let’s be lovers again in that time spectral
On Victoria’s lawn her memorial
In the autumn’s white blue horizon
Under the bronzed face of Curzon!

Let’s be lovers again in our revived heart
In wind kissed skin on the Prinsep Ghat
See the sun go down on the west bank low
Coloring our eyes in the river’s glow!

Let’s be lovers again in the garden of Kyd
Where under the banyan love poems we read
Take a boat sail to the south upstream
Where the Hugli flows in the Bay’s dream!

Why can’t we be lovers like the olden time
Where landed Charnock in the humid clime
That grew to a city with three villages to start
And etched forever in two lovers’ hearts!

With them in his pocket he broke in swinging dance
But now nonentity two penny gets no chance

Two penny is so poor got no clue what to do
No fetcher it can’t bring him a slice of the blue

He wanders on the way on him was fifty buck
Spent them on tangibles soon ran out of luck

Two penny is so poor can’t bring his eyes a gleam
Can’t make him a winner can’t weave for him a dream

He sniffs the evening air smells palate tickling food
But what with that two penny that isn’t any good

Two penny in his pocket with a little try
Fetch him a little blue a piece of his sky
Where he can paint his wish find fulfilment
Fly in the happiness of two penny well spent.

I won't be your friend, the girl was crying
The sun mercilessly beat on her
Her opal tears glistened on her cheeks
My eyes no more a dry river.

I imagined lifting her up
Hold her close to my chest
Hug her through the mingling of rivers.

Her tears engraved a deep scar in me
I won't be your friend cut me like a knife
Oh little girl, how much you know about life
And the times when your eyes will be dry.

Through the haze, I whispered
Come child, we will be friends forever
I'll stoop down to your age
We'll be equal, a child and a man.

I take her hand in mine
Look into the teary reflections in her eyes
Read the pain.

Don't ever say, you won't be my friend
We'll be friends forever, two rivers
One dying, and the other coursing to the sea.

A stray cloud pours
in the sun.

Baked in the heat
on my window seat

I crave for more
of the fun.

The ones outdoor
for shelter run.

two sweet words and you take me to the sky
your two sweet words are for what I die
they tell me you mind me and me you care
I'm never without someone when you're there.

two sweet words and my heart you win
you truly mean them they're crystal genuine
they tell me you see me I'm stuck in your sight
when I travel the dark you'll hold me a candlelight.

two sweet words and on me you lay a claim
sweep aside my doubts turn cinders into flame
they tell me you're there whatever the cost
catch me when I'm sinking find me if I'm lost.

two sweet words with that you have me bought
set me think what I'm and forget what I'm not
they tell me there's you to brush away my pain
hold me in the sun lead me through the rain.

On the black canvas
Carve the thunders
Streaks of neon glow,
The drums the heaven beats
On their way to the earth
Rend the air apart,
The ground in ******* anticipation
Vibrates in a rediscovered titillation,
The soil waits holding its breath
In the last climactic lull
Before it’s released from the pain,
Unmindful, I open my umbrella
In the season’s first rain!

I don't remember a thing.

It's filth everywhere
and pollution the King.

Wait,
Cuckoos don't forget.

They sing in the joy of Spring!

Attired in their best
bloom amid the doom
the Flames of the Forest!

Uncle Benu preferred his evenings alone
When sun touched the western horizon
He would make himself a cup of tepid milk
And without showing a sign of worldly care
Would retire to his easy chair.

Then he was the most difficult man to approach
Occasionally swiping at the flying cockroach
And microbat intruding into the room
Accompanying him in that night-lamp gloom.

What he brooded was never known to me
To me he was a ghost and as scary
Quietly waiting in that darkened zone
If ever a living soul stepped in alone!

The only time I called him I would ever recall
As he moved his head towards me
And it still haunts me on lonely-bed nights
The eyes were all white!

Nobody believed me
None in my family
Not even mum

She only said

*Do you too like him take *****?

Don’t come to the cemetery at night* Peter Xalxo would say
If you are so inclined make your visits in the day
For often in the evening when exam worries were gone
I would go to the cemetery and sit on some tombstone.

I think boy the ones from the other world make visits at nights
And they would not love to find living souls upon their sights
Why intrude their peaceful home and not leave them there alone
When the time after the sunset they think to exclusively own!

Having said this with a grave face he would lower his voice still low
While on nightly posts at the graves I’ve seen in the dark some glow
And at moonlit nights on duty’s round heard footsteps around me
I would advise boy not to step into at night at the cemetery.

He used to tell more such tales to instill in the boy some fear
But come the next evening and at the cemetery I would reappear
For I loved the moon bathed solitude the trees’ darkened shed
The tranquility of the place in quiet company of the dead!

All said I wouldn’t leave out in this account one truthful fact
Uncle Peter’s stories had some effect some impact
They colored my times at the cemetery spent at nights alone
I seemed to feel they were moving the graves’ marble stone.

Then one night as I was coming out around nine o’clock
To my horror found the gate closed with an iron lock
Bewildered I stood there knowing no other ways to go
When there appeared a shadow heard the voice of Peter Xalxo.

I told you boy not to loiter here not disturb their peace of night
This ground here the dead walks now though beyond your sight
Run home and never come back his voice in whisper talked
Some more words he mumbled before got the gate unlocked.

That night at the dinner table my father told mom this
He was such a good man and a great friend to miss
But God only decides in his garden which flower to pluck
Peter Xalxo died this evening suffered a heart attack.

Don’t come to the cemetery at night Peter Xalxo would say
If you are so inclined make your visits in the day
For often in the evening when exam worries were gone
I would go to the cemetery and sit on some tombstone.

I think boy the ones from the other world make visits at nights
And they would not love to find living souls upon their sights
Why intrude their peaceful home and not leave them there alone
When the time after the sunset they think to exclusively own!

Having said this with a grave face he would lower his voice still low
While on nightly posts at the graves I’ve seen in the dark some glow
And at moonlit nights on duty’s round heard footsteps around me
I would advise boy not to step into at night at the cemetery.

He used to tell more such tales to instill in the boy some fear
But come the next evening and at the cemetery I would reappear
For I loved the moon bathed solitude the trees’ darkened shed
The tranquility of the place in quiet company of the dead!

All said I wouldn’t leave out in this account one truthful fact
Uncle Peter’s stories had some effect some impact
They colored my times at the cemetery spent at nights alone
I seemed to feel they were moving the graves’ marble stone.

Then one night as I was coming out around nine o’clock
To my horror found the gate closed with an iron lock
Bewildered I stood there knowing no other ways to go
When there appeared a shadow heard the voice of Peter Xalxo.

I told you boy not to loiter here not disturb their peace of night
This ground here the dead walks now though beyond your sight
Run home and never come back his voice in whisper talked
Some more words he mumbled before got the gate unlocked.

That night at the dinner table my father told mom this
He was such a good man and a great friend to miss
But God only decides in his garden which flower to pluck
Peter Xalxo died this evening suffered a heart attack.

Don’t come to the cemetery at night, Peter Xalxo would say
if you are so inclined, make your visits in the day
for often in the evening when exam worries were gone
I would go to the cemetery and sit on some tombstone.

I think boy the ones from the other world make visits at nights
and they would not love to find living souls upon their sights
why intrude their peaceful home and not leave them there alone
when the time after the sunset they think to exclusively own!

Having said this with a grave face he would lower his voice still low
While on nightly posts at the graves I’ve seen in the dark some glow
and at moonlit nights on duty’s round heard footsteps around me
I would advise boy not to step into at night at the cemetery.

He used to tell more such tales to instill in the boy some fear
but come the next evening and at the cemetery I would reappear
for I loved the moon bathed solitude the trees’ darkened shed
the tranquility of the place in quiet company of the dead!

All said I wouldn’t leave out in this account one truthful fact
Uncle Peter’s stories had some effect surely some impact
they colored my times at the cemetery spent at nights alone
I seemed to feel they were moving the graves’ marble stone.

Then one night as I was coming out around nine o’clock
to my horror found the gate closed with an iron lock
bewildered I stood there knowing no other ways to go
when there appeared a shadow heard the voice of Peter Xalxo.

I told you boy not to loiter here not disturb their peace of night
this ground here the dead walks now though beyond your sight
run home and never come back his voice in whisper talked
some more words he mumbled before got the gate unlocked.

That night at the dinner table my father told mom this
he was such a good man and a great friend to miss
but God only decides in his garden which flower to pluck
Peter Xalxo died this evening suffered a heart attack.

This silent question I asked
for answer endless explored
where’s love grains husked
beyond eyes quietly kept stored!

Is it on the bed we sleep
whose sheet bears marks of lust
or something that’s more deep
hidden neath her layer of crust!

What’s the place love she stores
ceaseless flowing from the start
veiled in her all daily chores
I erred to be the place called heart!

In the house it’s a small nook
here her love makes me dumb
standing mesmerized as she cooks
I wait from her hand love’s crumbs!

She isn't writing poetry anymore.

*nay, maybe she's writing
but hiding
them from the world
pouring inks all over them
when she finishes
in her agonized realization
there's no finish
and only beginning
each time starting all over again

her unfinished story

with each poetry!

In her love smitten
my home's youngest kitten
I stroke her silky fur
to hear her mew and purr!

As soon as I'm home
this beauty's epitome
raises fluffy tail
holds me in her spell!

Of gracious royal class
this gorgeous little lass
cuddles on my lap
for a warm blissful nap!

I pamper her too much
hanker for her touch
she in my heart dwells
in pride her heart swells!

Though my love she rules
she ain't an inch grateful
this tiny cute empress
leaves poops on floor mattress!

After playing lover to her
He left her for another woman
She was left with the wasted years
Couldn’t try another man.

She lives a petaled hope of summer’s bloom.

drinking droplets of dew
catching the wind in each breath
sunning by the window
holding in her eyes the sky
where clouds bring no rain
its blue no dream
yet she unaware of times passing by
exists in lifelong amnesia
without a why
where and when
but live and die
in her unmindful giving

and *unfathomed pain!

In the village haat
our hands collide
my left with her right

a moment’s flirt
she by my side
in the paraffin light!

Comes to close
she quickly goes
blushing shamed

how she knows
bloomed a rose
to be never named!

Dear, it breaks me as much to write this
as I know would do you when you read
but time has come to reveal the secret
to tell you, I love you still,
have loved you all this time
and I doubt if I can love her more
the woman I'm leaving you for
who right now seems to possess something
worth more than all you have given to me
and who the urges inside me tell
would make me happier more than you could
would find me another home different
better, brighter..
and my dream for the time to come is such strong
that I'm ready to commit anything for that
even parting from you seems not high a price
except that I can't imagine how you would look
when you read this and break down
with my hands not beside to hold in comfort
wipe away the torrents
when surrounds you a loneliness
you never knew existed all these years.

*The home is as yet unbroken.
He now loves her more than ever.

The letter was never posted.

She thought she had slept all along the night
When on her eyes fell the moonlight
She shivered to see the door was ajar
Sea wind blew in ruffled her hair.

The vacant bed yawned she was alone
At this hour where he could be gone
The night outside wore a thin starry gleam
She inhaled the air still smelling of him.

Then she smiled as she heard the distant roar
Of waves breaking upon the unrelenting shore
She turned aside in the fullness of a deep residing peace
Certain his retracing footsteps in her sleep she wouldn’t miss.

Unseasonal* harvest priced too high
Just the right time to tell her a lie
Not one in the market not even a seed
What she wanted I thought for her own need!

But plump and large they were on show
Their vigor luring me calling me their glow
Fresh from the soil glistening green and cute
Jeered me mockingly the unseasonal fruit!

What anguish breeds the unseasonal fruit
Its pompous arrogance uncivilly brute
You dream of its savor yearn for a slice
Wish could bargain its unreachable price!

It argues with you it’s only the poor’s reason
They don’t taste as good as they do in the season
The excuse for not having them when the price is high
Reason enough to move away in failure’s depressed sigh!

It’s not the right time of year in the market is not even a seed
Come season you would have them plentier than your need
I told her to see the radiance come back onto her face
As she found not in my carry bag her requisitioned fruit’s trace!

It’s not for me I want them the birds they love the seed
Oh dear after so many years my need you couldn’t read
Sorry dear* I hold her and as the clouds leave her face

See there the fruit and seed of her love **seasonless!

Didn’t I hear you say the lawn I would mow?
Sundays come and Sundays go.

Grasses are taller so are the ****
Season is going where’s the flower seed?

Words aren’t taxed you use them free
Said this Sunday you would clean the chimney.

Wash the toilet scrub clean the commode
Sundays come piles up workload.

Lot of things to mend lots to replace
Why Sundays trudge in leisurely pace?

Why the bed conspires the morn breathes chill
Why must I lie back to get the Sunday feel?

Why Sunday is one day and not a whole week
Comes up the Monday devilish and bleak!

Sundays will come and Sundays will go
*As for my work only a poem or two to show!

In painted moonlight of neon
her dart
pierced his heart

you are my good friend
but can't love you in that sense

and as the ground parted in his pain
he fell to where

he couldn't rise again.

He hasn't buried the baby within
but today he buried the ashes of his baby
crying like a baby
as the river devoured the bone dusts
and all the remnants
of the cuddles and kisses
hollowing him to remember
the guest of his blood
that would feed on his grief
for the rest of his life.

I haven't ever looked into the eyes of an animal or a bird

And seen sin there!

Words are now
as if
I never wrote

gather as an aching
lump in my throat.

They don't seek paper
only a river
to pour and mingle
in refrains of a dumb sadness
flow away
sunburned and tidewashed
to where the river is widest
deepest with sighs
of life not enough
in once only
and when just begun
ending broken on the shore.

Knocks on wall
Tugs to a veiled zone
Allures with unseen face
Invites to uncover
Drives a groper…

And then goes

Leaving the reek
Of lost way!

I put me up for sale

Counting on your help

Praying I don’t fail

To advertise myself!

Up for sale, advertising myself?

Yea, exactly what I do

Not for the gain of power or pelf

*For reaching the heart of you!

Why does it come to your head
To make your bed
One night alone

Upstairs!

Once behind the closed door
You aren’t with anyone anymore
Your fears mount
Till they surmount
All your courage
And in awakened daze
You only regret
That at the outset
Knowing the night is theirs
Shouldn’t have come

Upstairs!

To lie alone
But not be left alone
By the ones not your own
Faceless men women
Frighteningly alien
That at your intrusion rage
Mock your courage
And you find it too late
Beyond repair regret
That showing your fears no cares
You dared to come

*Upstairs!

A cruel reminder of the passage of time
Is the old utility bill.

This day last year
It arrived fresh
With an amount more than the previous year
But this year it looks cheaper.

Cost of my living rising
My utility diminishing
Except to her

*She needs me by the hour.

‘How much more can one bear?’
Her words almost emerged from the rain
And echoed in the droplets’ din on the soil,
‘How much and how much more?’
Her voice rose above the thunder.
She was looking weird in the lightning’s flash.
‘The first man in my life left before I was a woman,
Let woe befall him I don’t remember his face.
He left me for the feasting vultures and wolves
And the devourers spared nothing but my bones.
God, I’ve no faith in him, played a greater devil,
From that lust of rain, a drop planted in me a seed
That birthed in this debauched heart a seed of greed
Of hope, of life, of a love of my flesh and blood,
One that I could bring and nurture with pride.
But my womb infested with the rivers of poison
Couldn’t ripen it enough to drop on earth
And there I was alone on the rough wild sea
With no land on sight, no shore to anchor,
Floating aimlessly where no light would ever shine’.

‘You write so much about loneliness and suffering,
Make it up having seen so little of the real face of it.
But I’ve lived them, each day sinking evermore
Into pits from where my agony’s cry couldn’t be heard.
How much more can one bear, how much more I still have to?’
Her words fell like thunder as the rain lashed the earth.

I knew the vainness of all the pictures I painted!

Seated between the two boys
her ring of laughter rends the air.

She has heard all they had to say
and now left with no way to choose either!

The boys too engrossed in their trance
see them victors in this game
missing out the signs of lost chance
and her heart having shut for them.

In the gathering tears of her laughter
she wished they had soon
left her alone.

around the hut gathered a crowd
the Englishman had made them proud
by taking an Indian wife.

what kinda man he could be
a white skin yet unhesitatingly
embraced a native's life.

they viewed him with awe
to his kin a flaw
living and loving in a thatched house.

he was a bishop's son
that made an alien land his own
and Kosibai, a Gond woman, his spouse.

1965
she was 15
and I was 5

The reclining sun tanned her face
her eyes hidden in 60s goggles
and the vast wheat field behind
colored her brown.

Can't remember if it was Agfa or Orwo
the tint was of distant land
and Virginia came to mind.

It wasn't the girl
standing on a rice field
eyes lowered blushing
the colours of her glass bangles
irrecognizable in black and white
that I could easily fall in love with.

But I cried to be with the Virginia Girl
and I was only 5.

She is still 15 in the timeless print
and I'm 5.

The world for him is a chaos
No love no bond of dear ones
He seeks for actions no cause
It's only living this instance.
Dimly he sees things around
Can't make out what they're for
In the ocean's depth is no sound
He loves to live in stupor!
His eyes sometimes grow wet
Without his knowing why it's so
At times his smiles don't abate
From his lips they joyously flow.
His heart is free from torment
He's the one with least pain
For no sins he needs to repent
Most virtuous is he an insane!

Where are the ghosts, where do they hide?
Why don't I find them on my bedside?
The nights are long, worried sleepless
Still they don't come, don't show their face.
But there were nights, now a faded book
When spooks reigned, at every dark nook
With their creepy touch, whispers in my ears
How I was scared, yet how I loved those fears.
Now in the night's depth, as I toss on bed
No visitors of dark, caress my forehead
I wait for them, with love and no fright
But they aren't there, vanished out of sight.