lashes kissing, i dissolve
            into these crumpled sheets
     which smell all too much
like your winter touch
           carved into my body
      sprinkled with sea salt and
minutes turn into falling petals
   now quick sips of burning scotch
are flames licking at my throat
                        a ceaseless dream

Quiet, the bamboo grove—
from each drooping leaf-tip hangs
a drooping dewdrop...

The same footprints,
coming and going, coming and going,
along the long trek path,
changing shape,
uniformly...

Naked feet tapping down the steps,
I halt—the pond in dawn-chill haze...

Mynahs a dozen—
hop, hop, hop, pick...hop, hop, pick—
dewdrops on wet grass...

And in the visitor’s room,
the chair tilted at this angle,
I see,
reflected on the window pane,
the entire stretch of an empty corridor—

Surely, a great omen!

I have my eyes closed

I find it dim right way
Here, for you I may pray
Or at least, I try to say
I try to find place to lay

I have my eyes closed

I solemnly choose good words,
Sentences and proper phrases
To poetically picture the aches
That fade me to ashes

I have my eyes closed

My mouth keeps murmuring
And the mind can't stop arguing
What if it might be nothing
Nothing helps to keep believing


Jan, 20 2016

My eyes are closed still.

After good twenty two years
I lay suspended, almost a S shape
In that easy chair, back home in Kerala
The cloth that holds, reminds
The swings I had in the cradle
With each move; people, events and situations
Came alive as if in a motion picture,
In that space within my heart

The contours of that easy chair
Rested myself into an eternal ease
Sitting there with my cup of coffee
I felt my life jumping on to my lap, in indulgence!
My life giggled, cried, laughed loudly
Sang occasional lullabies, kissed me deeply, and at times
Darted right into my heart
Filling all voids, in that space within…

My life held a mirror straight on to my face
Took me through the life I sailed
Pains, pleasures, pauses and prices I paid
Fights, flights and the final freeze, I chose
That easy chair on which I sat
Brought me close to my Self

In that trance, I asked
"Where were you all these while, my life?"
"You never find any time to sit for me to come to you" my life said
I realized, I was sitting, all the while, in innate forms,  
But not as a listener to my own life.
That easy chair back home
Showed me what and how, I were
That easy chair back home
Made me live again...

Baffled I am all of a sudden—
Why I am I and not you?
Have you ever wondered, dear,
why you are you and not me?

I feel your fingers twined around mine,
your pulse throbbing on mine;
but I can’t say which is which—
beats diffuse as mist into mist.

You open the window and look outside—
I see through your eyes a solitary crow
high on the swaying sparkle of a tree,
preening its feathers warm in the sun. 
Its feathers all damp from last night’s rain,
it shakes its fluff in shuddering bouts—
oh how it itches, itches, beneath the wings!
How nice the sharp beak combing, scratching!

Baffled I am all of a sudden—
why I am I and not the crow?
Have you ever wondered, dear,
why you are you and not the crow?

I ventured deep in to the mysteries of mother forest alone,
when I was free from fears of every kind and sweet delusions,
ancient trees recognized me instantly, from some other life past,
and sung me songs when I sat exhausted,their fruits tasted sweet
made me realize how aftermath of every karma returns to one
at a time unexpected; fruits either sweet or bitter they bring.

Under the shades, of trees,hearing the  lullabies they sung
I slept forgetting the wars won or lost in the past, immaterial
all that now seemed
                                Those trees in their love reminded my mother.
I didn't care when I lost the path,in fact, is there a path in the forest?
All paths lead to one destination, there isn't any other,nothing to worry.

Forest with her thousand hands embraced me and said:
"Every king one day, has to take his heavy crown from his head
put down and walk this path wearing dress made of leaves"

There weren't any footsteps fallowing me here, I didn't expect any.