Nine is divine
One is one
Humbled in collective pain
We stand in silence
while the world calls 911

The sound keep melting in me
The sound of silence
The sound of conch
The sound of devotees
Dancing in circle
Till I was no longer me


I swirled with my hand outstretched
Like the old mystic's and Sufi's
Floated in the group
Went high and higher in thoughts
and then merged
In the overall consciousness
Of you and of me
In the Universe
That got small enough to be with in me
And the circle of dance.

She took me in her arms
and went away to the stars
A long silver thread followed
From the manifestations
Of Her
Which was still dancing down in the circular group
Singers still singing your songs


I woke up in the dew
That was hanging at the grass blade
Till sun knocked
With morning rays
And I woke in your love
Lying still among the chants.
________
@Shashi 2005
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

Life's magical moments
Lets you play with the fire again
And singe
Again and again
And let's you... Ask
Why?

Maybe
To let you know
That there is no way
If one leaves an empty space
That can not be filled
Drop by drop
Moment by moment
Something will....
Some one will....
May be on a different plane?

And some emotions gets stretched
Taut strings
Across the lonely guitar
Tighter
To play the life's note
As
One by one
Each string breaks
Raising a melodious song
To reverbrate in the future
Thrashing on some threshold

May be there will not be any more notes left
To play any more
May be
The notes will play
Alone again
Naturally.

A bell tolls
Friends join in to walk
With me to the end of the path
Carrying on heavy shoulders,
All that last journey, and
All that was not said
And all that silences
Which will echo forever in our hearts.

Some where
Silence waits for the desert spaces
To speak up
And break our lives
Into small grains of sand
Which pours within the Hour Glass
Of our togetherness

Some where - a blast-off to distant stars
In the cloud of dust
In the drum beats of
Shiva's Tandav* dance.

Some where, Love alone
Worships the intensity of the togetherness
Or
Truthfulness of belongingness.
Or
Remains
A mute spectator to the Tandav* of emotions

Silence some time does sound
In, Our lives
And
A bell tolls forever
Calling in lost soul
Or soul mates
To be in the valley of lost flower stars.
_________
Tandav is the eternal dance of Lord Shiva, a dance of destruction as well as creation...

She walked out
In her small tottering steps
From behind the wall
Looked at me and smiled
She actually remembered me, my darling
Even after so many months,
After so many miles away from her thoughts.

Her hug is like a long lost love
Her smile is as fresh as dew drops
And she hangs on to me like the early morning rays
From the rain drenched tree tops
And I could not hold her attention any longer
And she moves on to her
New plays and new sights and sounds.

Her eyes catch up suddenly
The pen in my pocket
The twinkle in her eyes
Also catch up the mouth freshener
That I got in the aircraft.
Another play in the making
And she just wraps me around her fingers
And I get lost in her love
And her hugs
Again and again
___
Anumeha is my younger brothers 1 year old daughter, who I met her after many months, that day.

Between my mind and heart...
______

The tremors that my hand felt

From her fingers
Travelled to the heart
Within my smile
Holding her silence within
My lips
I felt my love
Flutter in her Arms

"Wait - hold me before you leave"
Hung somewhere between my mind
And  her Heart
___

The blanket I wear on all occasions
Is gathering patches of pain by day
And every night when I throw it off
It moves on from the night sky to dawn
Gathering more patches of pain.

Some times stars
Sprinkle their desires on the rough pattern
That my blanket carries
Some times
Dawn, leave traces of dew drops
In the wild passionate love
That the night makes in the cosmic fabric.

Some times, the Sun disowns the love
It has for night and its stars
Some times, love does not even know
when its lost in the passions of physical pounding,
Loving, cries being merged on a negative staff.
Some times loving, the being
Does not know whether its an insect
Or a butterfly, thats lost among the lotus pond.

How it feels
When each strands that held us together
Starts breaking.
One by one
With every twang, another strand looses
Its bonding with the rest of us

One by one
Each one breaks away
From the memories
The touch
And the belongingness
Like some one plucking
Petal by petal
Loves me, Loves me not
While the flower, in the process
Dies a slow death.

Wish you were here
Holding unto my arms
A promise of loved future
and a dying breath
How it feels to lie down slowly
In the loneliness
Of timeless
Fading depths.

Sands of times run out, grain by grain

From our clasped fingers and shaking hands.

It feels so lonely - The softness of dying breath.

You focus on intense words
And me, on the silence within
You shackle your thoughts
With your language
And I free them,
With my need for space within

But you know
I will and you may not
Walk all the way along

As you, my love, will
Fall out, out of rhythm
And a total burn out
Chained to the memories of past

The stars are coming closer
Over the sea
And I find you walking down the waves
Waving to me
How the stars have fenced the sea

Come sit next to me
I remove the space between
“Come walk with me
These moments”
So that they leave foot prints in me

No man has said this before
No one has
Fluttered your heart
No one has loved so much
Yes no had asked me before
How I love

What do I do
Sleep is playing tricks with me
I am dead now
Now I am dreaming
That you love
Now you are leaving

Throw a little dirt
Cover it with your laughs
I am lying awake
In my piece of space
Six feet deep in earth

Death is acceptable
But what do I do
Its not coming
Before that
Your pain happened

Holding your thoughts in my heart
Emotions flutter like the butterflies
Moving from one feeling to another
I feel your electric surge in my soul

Like a exploding warmth
Like an enlightenment exprienced
Like the skipped beating of heart
Your smile makes me smile, sadly

I move away from you
Begin to walk - to the raging sea
Fenced by the lonely stars
Moon envelops the darkness of the night


You are looking so lovely
As you drift apart
That I could not feel, how painful it would be
To continously hold you in my heart

After you have gone.

I slept, dreaming of animal cries
Seeds engaged in birthing
Woke up with a cosmic tree growing all over belly

The overcast sky hung over

Opperessing my soul

I walked across raging sea

To reach out

And shake the rains free

The sound reaching out to me from the sea
Is not what I desire
Or even want to hear
But still it reaches out to me
Through the open window
Of the high rise building, where I am enclosed in
And trying to live and close
But still the Window remains
A window out to the sea
That I can not close.

Even if I try hard or desire harder
As
The window glass that I broke
The other night
In frenzy of what remains of my desires
Unbroken, unfulfilled.
In the stupor of alcohol induced passion
And the call of the stormy night

The window remains just a window
Nothing more and a lot less
Glassless, desire less and view less
To the open world.

Still I didn't hear the cry
Or the sound of waves
Pounding on the beach, few hundred yards away
Still I let my heart break into pieces
On the breakwater
That walks out
Few hundred yards deeper into the deep sea
And I see
The waves breaking against it
A break out from the prisons of earth
Out to the sea
Try as hard as waves might
Could not stop breakwater from moving in depth
And deeper still

Then Why still
All the time the Sea calls me?

Is it free from stopping, bonding and holding

The Breakwater free from breaking me?
Does it want me to come
Merge in her depths
Just like the path that sinks in her
After few meters of walking along, with me.

Or is it just a sign - an omen
Of my solitude
All alone
Like the sea
Even though Rivers, clouds and the horizon
Sink into her depths and be within.


Why? Why?
She is not with me, now
When she was with me
Long lives ago
("Long time" if you will!)
And she is not coming back to sink
Into my depths of desires, needs
Or in my intense pleasure
Or, my darling,
My watery grave with me.
_____

Die another Death
____
Inside you
I die thousand deaths
Every time I don’t find you in my thoughts.
My love,
I spread myself in whole of the sky
Stake me with tall deodar trees
And I die thousand deaths

Inside me, there is a person
Willing to lie
To let you know that I am what I am
But not what I can be
And cry.
And you know my love
That person is not me
But I suspect its you
In my heart who is willing to die

To let me live
A thousand lives
Alone and hurt
Bleeding and blunt
No emotions and no feelings
Just a stone statue,
Where we loved
That we loved
That first day
And that we hugged
  
Why?
Why it has to be spread so thin
Thick in our love
That it has become so transparent
It hides nothing
It holds nothing
It does not even promise an eternity
But just our hurt feeling
And missed chances to be one

Why my love
You are so far away
To be loved
Even when you are just sleeping next to me
Why….?

_______

The sand slipped out of my hands
Bit by bit
Holding on to you
Feels like
A heart in closed fist
It’s paining
More, if I let it go…


Dreams came crashing down
On all sides
While silence prevailed
In the shatters
I grew weak
Bit by bit
In my love

Woke up in the morning
Got ready to dress
Put on the shoes that you loved
Got out the shirt you liked
Went on hanging around the eating place
That holds your memories
Bit by bit

And I lost my appetite
And you
Just empty spaces
Drained, Bit by memory bit
And I lost my self too

I lie on the stones
Dying
The eagles circle around in the cloudless sky
With stones in their claws
Ready to drop
On my soul
Crunching my senses with the final blow
I wait for death

A traveler passes by
And I request him
To stop me
From drying up
I have lost my love
My will to fight
The overhead circling death and harsh sun

And...
“how can he stop me from drying up"
In this harsh heat of hate and lost love
Even the cold earth is no longer cold
Baked up sand, and wilted love
Form the fabric of my deathbed

The stone leaves the claw
Rushing down to the heart
I raise myself a little more
Trying to meet half way
The Hell of pain
To liberating soul
And it missed
And in the mist of drummed up sadness
And of churned up dust
A voice reverberates
“Take the drop of water to the sea
To keep it from ever drying up"

The eternal
Is in sea of love
In the arms of lover
In the heat of love
Love survives
In the hearts of soul
Who belongs to one

The sound of Bells
Echoes on and on
And
Spaces closes in
On me
I feel far
Far away
The sea crashes
On empty beach

The sound of a crash
Lives on and on
The door still bears
Some angry steps
Every day
A seat
Lives on emptily
Enclosed in walls
Empty like me

How to go about
Living on and on
Submerged
In a sleepless dream
How long can one
Hold on to
A touch
A Smile
And
A moment of bliss

Where is my
Time
In space
Or
Where is my
Space
In time

I am still
Waiting
On and on
On empty dreams

It pained to know
That I am dead
I searched within
For the prana and pulse
It was dead too.


But why did it pain?
When senses were dead too
And who is this talking about it now?
Me?
Who is dead!


Or is it me
The unknown
The unraveled
The one that can never be dead
Unattached, untouched and unscathed

Moment by moment
Life drips out
And empties the soul
Of living

Full and contented
Living is not meant to be
Each moment passes by
Bringing its own emptying-ness
Scouring another few bits of happiness
To dump it in the trash of memories
And experiences
To live on

While life is being wasted
On living
In and out of belongingness

How lonely
Every moment
Can be

When the silence
Is stalked
By pain

Veiled behind the night
The trees are dancing
In the winter mist

Just away...
Far away from pain
In rain

One by one
All desires
Are stripped
Plucked one by one
From the roots to the sprouting leaves
And leave the imposter hope
naked.
Where are you, I am lost in wishes
Soft, and neutral self.

There is a very thin line
Between love and lust
Between sea and sky
Between me and you

Such a fine line
That I can see
Touch it from
Here
Enclosed in the high rise monster
(That mostly dot the sea face, all around the sea in Mumbai)
reaching out to be.

From here
-Where silence is whispering to the sea
Waves percolating through my window
Where darkness of my ****** thoughts
Seep in through the night's gateway
A window with three glass frames
Barred, framed and up-curtained
Unveiled and naked.
From here I see it all bared


I can actually reach out
And separate them
The love and the lust
The entangled Sea with the sky
Create a divide between them
With my desire
To BE

Some times I just want to BE
Some times Sea in all its thrashing about
With waves and tsunami's just want to BE too
Some times the sky
With its dark cloud and their silver linings
Just wanna BE, you see?

Some times all of us want to
Reach out
Separate love from lust
And desire just to BE
Just to BE in love
Pure, undiluted, undefined, unnamed
Unbinding, untagged
Just Love,
LOVE,
I Love to BE

The moments between the blink of eyes
The moments between the thoughts
And memories
The moments between
The hug and warmth of care

Are the moments
When love says I am here.

Love me when I am around
Love me when I am not
Love me when I lost my self in your love
Love, love me

When i am not in love

So the Sun moved on beyond horizon
But the bright shadow of Love
Still clings on to me
Long after the setting Sun


Yes, I agree
The light moved on
From Sun Rise to Sun Set
Bound by desires and duties to perform
Some times to the birth of a life
Some times
End of another


But Some times ....
Some desires remains
Attached to you
Like a Shadow
Not willing to cast you away
Tattoed to your soul
Like a bright sun spot
Willing to move on with your soul
Till the end of the life...
Willing to move on ... with you

Some times, love remains eternal within you
Even when the life moves on.

Two small verses about nature.
_
Sunset
Sets the day
And rest
_

Between me and sky
Sea sets its foot down
In rain

Its sad
To know that some one is burning bridges
Even before my heart could smell
The acrid smoke of neglect
The bridge is already burnt down
While the water passes under it.

Heart tries hard to keep
The fire going on in heart
Seeing her face, turned away
In the flicker of light
In the bits of food, that one feeds to
One's dying love, but fails at last.

Made of blood, as foolish as it sounds;
Letters Drop, oozing out from a squeezed heart
Her name is cast again and again
On the sands of time
And waves upon waves
Sea wipes the effort, in vain, again and again

Why do I write
Why do I write on the sands
As I know it will be wiped out
In no time, but still I do
As I know she is oriented
Towards Sea - the sea of humanity and of love

I still have not burned my bridges...

Waiting for the sun to move up more
Lights to fall in full force
On the day
I take my few steps
On worn out path of office goers.

As the life moves on
In the rustle of traffic Jams
Honking of cars
The roads have grown roots
Along with tree lined path

A bright smile
Stretches across in yellow line
A line of school kids
Walk the Zebra cross
in front of my large smile

A new day
Flowering
Traffic Light by traffic lights
As the office blocks looms large
My thoughts reach out to hold hands

When memories die out...
When passions run dry

When the dreams lay shattered on the sands of time

When the Hope
Becomes nothing but
An Imposter

Then my dear, old is
Time to lay down your arms
Bury yourself
Under 6 feet of earth
And lie down and die

A warmness
Thats spread on the bed
A passion that is fully cupped in
Palms
A hot liquid flows in the hug
And bit by bit
You are spooned in love
_____
@Shashi 27th April, 2010

The roughness etched on the waves
Like scratches of nails on my Face
The drops leave the foaming sea
Like the sweat drops from my body

To merge in your passion
And in rhythmic creation
Your sighs
And cries, meet
The lashings of the waves
on the beach, like me

And
then the cloudburst
and I am still wet

Rain, Rain
Rain lust again
Brings out the desires
Of wet drops
Slithering down the spine
Touching the crevices
Of passion

Easing out the worst
From the ***** shell
Digging out the best
Of tarnished soul

Touch me with drops
Of your love
In mouth full of salivating lust
A touch that desires
The shortest distance
Betwen my soul to yours
Lips to lips
While tongue of sinful pleasures
Gropes in the darkness of enclosed mouth
Blindness of our souls

Rain Rain
Wash out the lust in me
And cleanse my soul
With desireless
Wetness
Between entwined legs
Between writhing souls
Fighting for a space
In the chaos
That is mind, my soul mate.

Sitting by the river
Having a chat
While I draw out one of my dreams
From my thoughts
She gave me some drops of water
And I went about brushing off my dreams
Stroke by stroke
From the plains of my heart


Spread all over the sky
With many dark clouds
- Floating like doubts
My memories stretch
My imagination
To the last life line of strand
Before it breaks with a twang
She looks up
Did you say something
I said
No! I just broke another dream
Shattered another past.


And she flowed silently away
Looking back till her last bend
Around the corner
Where the tree
Leaned over to hug her
Kiss her
How I wish
I could have been that tree again
Rooted to the spot
In her embrace
While she said her goodbye
And my dreams trace
Another break from Past
How I wish I should have not been that tree
Rooted to the spot.


How I wish
Cut myself in pieces of logs
Thrown in the river
To float silently
In her self
Till she ends it
By jumpingIn the sea
And I hang around
Eternally
Searching for her
In that universal consciousness
That I am lost.

I FEEL FAR

Far away
The sea crashes
On empty beach

THE LAST SUPPER

Between bites
Her eyes find me
I reach out to remove a crumb from her lips

SHE SLEEPS

She throws her leg over
Unwrapping
My dreams

LIFE'S TOUCH

Sweet chocolate
Melts
Life seeps in birthdays

THE MIST

White shroud Covers
What leaves, leave behind
Naked

THE FALL SEASON
The tree strechted to scour the sky
Entiwined within your arms
The love snowed warmth in my heart

LIFE GONE BY
Small brush with feelings
Takes a long time to fade,
On the lips or on the memories of life

The touch that lingers
Like phantoms in my mind
The feelings
Sieves out of passionate warmth
Hold me closer
Than your body scent
That lives within my thoughts

The more passionate - thoughts
Coils my mind all around
The more pain,
Breaks out in my heart
Like the grip of your slender legs
Squeezes out pleasure
Till
My last drops

How can I hold you more firmly?
In my thoughts
When your passions
Flutter with winds
A storm that comes along,
Leaving behind
Just some shattered dreams

Life in little steps of love
Falling, leaving, goodbyes and then denial
Happiness bleeds in little steps

You really know what love is
When you loose her
In few words

She was half playing
The game of love
But I lost completely

Too intense
Too insufficient
Loving has been painful to me

Her voice over phone
Simple, sweet and friendly
Isolates my love

The thin line of longing
That ties us
Cut me apart

Some words are so effective
Before you realise
They **** the happiness out of life

Your burden of being the only thing
That makes me happy
Is killing me softly

Broken heart beats silently
Fears to wake up mind
See, I told you so!

Can not say, what is harder
Breaking Heart or
Heart Break
__
@Shashi
25th Oct - 31st Oct 2010

Pain is
When you feel like
Stopping the sunrise

Words were timed perfectly
I was in pain
Primed to bleed

Your parting words are like meditation
I keep chanting them
To numb my pain

Sunset is clouded by pain
Hides behind
Lost happiness

The loneliness of beauty
Lies in the pain
It gives her love

Those fleeting nights
Swiftly passing days
Now stand still in my tearing pain

Our difference in feelings
So different
Pain and Happiness looks same
__
@Shashi 25th Oct - 31st Oct 2010

Pond is agitated
Lost its calm
My thoughts are no skipping stone

Pond waits for ripples to calm down
Before reflecting the dark clouds of pain
Back to the bleeding sky

Sitting by the river
Drawing dreams with bleeding fingers
Memories escape riding those ripples

Your thoughts transform
From heart to eyes
Pearls in my lap

The least you can do
Is to let my existence fade peacefully
Soul mate, everything else is already dead

Each day brings me
Hope
Always an imposter
________
@Shashi 25th Oct - 31st Oct, 2010

Anchored in Karma,
Chained to the past
Life tries to break free
From darkness that is lost

Among memories that were forgotten
Among things that were not done
Among friends that were not made
Among roads that were not ...taken
Among choices that were made
And choices that were not.