You woo me deep
into the ecstasy of your pristine chasteness...

where dry leaves of Aspen and Beech and Birch
sussurate to the music of a lazy breeze,

where Hummingbirds
**** in frenzy
nectar from the orange glees
of the flame-of-the-forest trees,

where Hawthorns
lure the breeze
to weave its vibrance
in their domes of green glory,

where shrunken streams
bask in their white pebbly flourish.

Like an enchantress,
you lure me to the depth of your
rapturous bliss!

To say farewell, my heart pains.
I leave a beat of my heart
to ramble with the roving breeze
perennially in your alluring meadows!

Flowing from a mesmeric flute,
soothing chimes of celestial stillness
stroke every grain of my being to a lullaby.

Like a gentle mist
illuminating a willing landscape to esoteric radiance,
every cell glows to a call from the depth of stillness.

Dust returning to dust
to free the spirit from the hold of mortality
diffusing it to a galactic wonder of thoughtful mystery,
with new wings to migrate to a land
shut to mortals blinded by illusions.

On the wings of the mystical whirlwind
I dance to the call of bliss
that escort me to the heart of its radiance.

You always transcend my sadness
with your hypnotic stillness,
your entrancing symphonies.

My thoughts go back to the banks of Langat*,
where one day a little boy sat alone,
just only five,
bewildered, in a canoe.

From the sea,
from the streams,
from the rain,
you chanted a calming mantra to soothe him,
calling him to dissolve
in your awe-inspiring presence.

Your aquamarine sheen paints
the intricacies of all that I'm.
In the cool blue depth of your stillness,
I long to create the tabernacle of my being.

Never I thought
your melodies could become
the war cry of a devilish psyche!

Today I'm perplexed,
when I hear the anguished human cries
from the twirls of your turbid anger.

I realise
you’ve become an enigma
that pulls me to the depths of a
crazy conundrum.

How many more shades of anger you hide
in the burning red heart of the mantra you chant
to give me a heavenly bliss, Oh Water?

A single flower I asked for -
a keepsake of your mesmeric beauty.
But you gave bunches of bliss
in myriad hues of yellows,
every bough beaming with heaven’s majestic smiles!

How many Springs have visited
this wintery desolation,
painting it gorgeous with its enchanting glory!

How many Spring flowers have mesmerised
this arid wasteland
with its ethereal beauty!

Tell me, why the Spring has not visited me,
why has it not mixed its soothing colours in my dreary dreams?
Why has it not left its splendour
on my parched longings?

A garden I didn’t ask for,
but only a slice of its colour.
A garden I didn’t ask for,
but only a single flower –
to treasure in my mourning soul
the life that Spring brings to
the winter of my frozen dreams.

Lightning
with fiery shades of wrath
woven into its shards
ripped the horizon,
dived into the ocean
to its depths of sedimented pretensions,
baptised it with drops of sulphurous fire,
to a cleansed conscience.

The ocean rose up in a high tide of exuberance,
escorted me to its depths
for the drop of sulphurous fire to baptise me,
to give my yearnings the shape of a flame
that puts my soul on fire.

Primordial chants
YAH VEH
YAH VEH
YAH VEH
meditating in the soul of the black onyx beads.

Frozen drops of bliss nestling in the sinews,
soaking me in its sublime stillness,
leading me to its philharmonic depth,
yoking me to its cosmic vibes.

I sublimate
to become the chants
that pulsate in the soul
of the black onyx beads...

Golden speckles that capture Sun’s graceful face;
autumnal blue, like mist settled on soft silk -
a mystic painter’s mixed colour palette!

Colourful dream floating on the breeze,
dancing as it flits through the flowers,
cosmic rhythm in every flutter,
the Universe in a butterfly.

Is it real, or
is it a delicate dream flowing to me
from a mysterious planet?

A tiny seed once tarried in stoic stillness
treasuring in its womb
an embryo with cosmic imprint on its soul...
and the tiny seed hibernated to a mystical trail!

Frosty squalls, summer torments, marauding insects –
all came in a cavalcade!

It dreamt the mighty tree
slumbering in the core of its being,
arching over the earth,
spreading its majesty for every eye to behold!

It yearned for the calming lullaby of the rain,
for the burning kiss of the raindrops
to fire its soul,
to caress to fullness the dormant life in its gravid womb.

In silence, it gazed heavenward –
and lo, an intense raindrop tugged its heartstrings
to a melodic ecstasy
releasing the music of the seedling
from its womblike soul!

Hurricane is insane!
Sailing on a black wave of deception,
it's quagmire of lies
**** me into the vortex of its absurdities,
make a mockery of my sensibilities.

But, in the heart of its insanity
the hurricane nurses a sanctuary of sensibility.

Is it a mirage to lure me deeper into its deceptions, who knows!

Divine hands
with the dexterity
to disperse a flurry of ethereal fragrances
in one’s soul
take me on a pilgrimage
to the depths of the soul
where I touch the core of my consciousness.

Soul-stirring fragrance of Sandalwood
wafting into my cells
takes me to the depth of
stillness to free my spirit
from the hold of mortality!

Countless generations walked here
ever since humanity dawned on this planet.
Some honoured, but many obscure –
like flowers that bloom in the wilderness
without an eye to adore their beauty!

On the sands of time,
they all left their footprints… but
with their swift sweeps, the sea waves
wiped them to oblivion.

But the grains of sand revere
all the feet that ever kissed them.
With great awe, they treasure in their souls
their footprints, celebrate
humanity’s sojourn on this planet!

Dark mysterious clouds
climbed sky’s majestic vault
to create a lustrous charcoal painting.
Black monochrome,
myriad shades of black,
varied ashen hues,
subtle shades only an ingenious artist can create.

A stroke here,
a stroke there,
magic spread across the sky.

Fluffy clouds in flux,
exotic forms,
grandeur unfolding in the sky.

Like strobe lights,
sun’s golden rays peek through the dark clouds -
a psychedelic light show of a grand scale!

The silhouetted tree watched
this splendid spectacle
in awe and in wonder!

With its parched dreams,
beneath the zizzing sands,
the river waits for a surging swell
to take it to the labyrinths of a
new consciousness.

You choose your own course
when you crash into the
chasms of meaninglessness.

You hibernate to the still zone
trancing between words
when words fail to contain you.

As you flow through me,
you become the sacrarium
in the labyrinths of my consciousness
for me to diffuse in your soul’s stillness.

When you glaze
this wooded trails
with your gossamer spell,
paint frosted-glass abstracts
in green undertones...

when you caress
the blooming buds of Morning Glory
to purple nymphs,
snug in your silky, satin blanket...

when you perch on this valley,
permeate its soul,
wrap it in your frosty artistry...

when heaven’s ingenuity
weaves splendour
through your sylphlike fingers,
O morning mist,
wrap me up in your silver haze,
seep into my soul,
infuse in me
the mysterious awe
of your ethereal magic.

Words have a strange way of ignoring me
when I need them most.
They fade into the folds of blankness
blaspheming the truth of my reality.

Sheepishly I stare at the laptop screen,
hoping it would crack open
to gift me the word
that decodes the dilemma of my existence.

Freeing from the shackles of the past
trickling down to a catharsis
at the slender neck of the hourglass,
the golden grains of sand
dribble down
to create my reality.

Unhurriedly they flow,
with me they flow
into the forgottenness of the past  they flow,
to rise like a Phoenix
clothed in the newness
of the present
to create a new me!

You baffle me with your many moods,
your stormy tempers,
your quirky outbursts,
your melancholic whining,
your calming melodies,
your soothing caresses,
the white turbulence that froths at your flustered soul!

Sensual colours of creation shimmer in your depth,
every drop carries the colours of your depth,
in the depth of your soul, you trance in stillness!

Your mystic charm mesmerises me,
I become a vestal drop that celebrates the mystery
that unfolds in your soul’s stillness!

Raindrops have long returned to their nests of ethereal clouds.
Few stayed here,
diamond drops scattered on
the white pearly glow of my bougainvillaeas,
immortalising the beauty of a mystic's smiles.

Raindrops...
benign sky showering splendid pearls
on an earth lost to a dreary dryness!

Raindrops...
soothing pats of the pristine heavens
to transform a barren earth.

Flowers dancing in bliss –
birds singing in ecstasy -
trees swaying hilariously –
parched earth soaked in wintry contentment -
my heart going back to a childhood
when raindrops pattering on my icy cheeks
brought the realisation that
I live in the flowers, the birds, the breeze, and the trees, and they in me, to make us a Cosmic whole!

A peg was once sad, for
it was square, and
found itself in a round hole.

A misfit, it thought - a square peg in a round hole, so to speak.

Its search for a square hole went on till
one day the Master said:
“Many pegs are that way – square.
They find themselves placed in round holes
and hammer themselves in, only to break.

Success lies in reshaping your edges
to the shape of the hole
for a perfect fit”.

When the Flamingos return home
with their pink flourish flaring up the horizon,
my shadow grows taller, stranger.

At an untidy pace, it grows,
swifter than my feet,
outsmarting my sanity.

With contours blurred to a hazy oblivion,
a stranger to me I become. I search me
hiding in the shadow of a Chimeric illusion.

My impish shadow plays hide and seek -
long in the morning,
weeny at noon,
weird again in the evening, but
never it leaves me!

When Flamingos return home,
it cruises with the setting sun
across the mystical waters
beneath the earth
to return to me
with the blissful colours
of a new dawn!

Shooting stars bloom in the womb of infinity,
**** on the wings of the Thunderbirds,
a trail of fairy dust gracing their fiery tracks
as they sear through the gloom of the night skies.
I amble through the folds of the sullen clouds,
collecting the stars
as they wrap me in their cherubic dazzle.
The champagne flourish
of a Pink Diamond Star
flares up in my soul
livening me like the fireflies
that carry me on their blushing wings
as I saunter through the dusky skies
collecting the falling stars
to brighten up my dreary horizon!

I was alone on this journey, I thought
till I realised the road was all along with me
hugging my feet to ease my steps
as I strode homeward.

We travelled together
like two lonely souls who met to become soulmates.

Me and the mystical road, we
kept travelling,
I, oblivious to the home I already reached!

Dry grass smouldering,
smoke spiralling up the sky,
nostalgia solidifying in the heart
like rocks of scoria from boiling lava.

An eerie feeling oozing through the pores
forming drops of cool soothing light
holding me in its albino hands.

The colour of light –
is it phantom white, or
a potpourri of sensations?

I remember,
in my tender days
all colours were red.
An effervescent cherry-red radiance
coloured the passions of my heart.

Seven Seas confluencing in the soul,
water throbbing in the expanse of the sea,
sky emptying its azure desires in the sea,
stillness at the heart of the sea –
a placid cauldron of pure life!

That day I met myself -
the mystic in red radiance!

Like a hapless fly
trapped in a spider’s tricky web,
I struggle.

A vicious web,
a thousand hairy hands,
crooked as they are,
they descended on me
to squeeze my sensibilities
in their roguish grip.

A hapless fly
trapped in a spider’s tricky web,
I struggle.