Crushed Crayons
Strewn pastel shades
Origami boats
Report Cards
Algebra
Geometry
Detentions
D+
D+
Hoots
Shrieking
Mocking

­*********

MAMA – YOU CRYING ?
No-just a little chalk dust…
MAMA – WHERE IS DADDY ?
Close your eyes
Place your hand
On your heart
There’s Daddy …
MAMA – YOU CRYING ?
No- just a little star dust …

MAMA – WHATS THAT ….?
Twinkle..
Twinkle…

Tara is a little girl…she does pinwheels and cartwheels on crowded  traffic signals and yeah …she has a small baby monkey who helps her…*


Tara
Little Tara
Tonight I leave my
Pen to sniff
hunger ghosts
Rumbling in your belly…


Yes..
sniff from
Miles and miles apart
From your own
Ragged world
Of pin wheels
And cartwheels
Emaciated monkey babes


Ah ! In this hollow
Poetic world
Is it only rhythm
I seek …

Even as cold winds
Enter those  gaps
Expanding forever
In your innocent
malnourished psyche…


Tara..
little Tara
tell me ..
how to give
a closure
to this verse…


Do I ask
You how
Your new year
Had been

Or..

Do I
Fish that
Rusted coin
From the bottom
Of my purse and
Toss it on
To your eager
Waiting palm


Tara..
Little Tara
Tell me


Helpless as I am  
Shrouded
In my opulent hypocracy
…

As you are

…shivering
In your humble poverty

Traitor
collect these
impoverished energy vibes
vibrating in your
endless orbits
of your
hollowed spring time woods


While I…
in these freezing
December dusks
gather fragments
from my shadows
(expanding or shortening
I am past caring )


Come Summer
and I will trample
those verbs
which you penned
with your malignant ink
on my vulnerable soils


But I just wonder…

Can the shimmering Sun
really dry the solitary tear
resting on the skin
of the denuded Autumn tree…?

In this freezing winter chill

Once more I implore my quill
To trace those paths in my silences
Where your words lingered
(albeit for a little while)

Strangely though the ink chooses…

..To follow those lines
In my solitude
Where your touch lingered…
(Was it just an eternity ago?)


Strange are the destinations
Chosen by ink and the quill…

Stranger are the tales
Woven by destiny

Closing the lid softly…
…I can only conclude …

Thief…
eternally raiding my soul
you PLAGIARIZED my dreams
ad verbatim
leaving me to
navigate these
dreamless turbulent seas
on my own


In vain…
did I try
to un-learn
and un-dream
realizing only too late

It was in your thievery
that I glowed
like the sweat drop on


…Venus’s brow…

25th December 1999:My elder one Pradyumna  entered into this world.That was the day I was born …I call him my first Christmas gift and tell him I found him in a stocking (of course he no longer believes it )

Pradyu…I love you …and to all the readers out here…”Wish you all a Merry and joyous Christmas ..and great fun filled days ahead ”*



As those ***** cries
Pierced the late afternoon chill
I was born…


I was unsure
… hesitant..
Always needed to be reassured
I was growing up fine


I crawled
Stumbled
Fell…


With your
Drooling
Dribbling smile
You gently lifted me up
And guided me
To my first steps


I had nightmares…
You nestled me in your
Warm pink breaths
Till I would nod off
No longer afraid


Now I can safely say
I have learnt to walk
(with my head held high)
I no longer wake up
With nightmares.

But all the same
I need to be reassured…
...I am doing just fine…


So…
… come …just hug me…

You whispered darkness
In my ear
In quick urging tones
And swore me to secrecy.


I craved for lights..


No…
…Not the gaudy ocher lamps
Flickering on the walls
Of Your spring,
Sawan
Or hail


…But the
Hesitant greys
That lurk somewhere
In …
twilights
Deceptively eternalized by you
Yet…
…untouched by me

You swore me to secrecy…
You always did
Now you know

Why I never did... obey