A Pity ...

When the fresh morning dew drops shine on the moist moss-green leaves,

you open your eyes like a saint's prayer and at that moment, you wish

to push away the lose tendril from my forehead,hold my face in your palm

and plant a morning kiss.

you want me to sit beside you sipping my early cup of tea as you would

browse through the news paper.

I know, you fancy seeing me moving like a vibrant butterfly, doing my chores,

as you would watch the television, leisurely.

You want me to open the door and smile when you come home, at end of the day,

fatigued, keeping up with the pace of the world.

But I sit here, at a far away distance, heaving sighs of romance and writing love notes for you;

when you long to be with me, all I could do is pledging eternal love, through my verses;

as you get more and more tired, caught up in an endless wait, craving for a change in permanence,

a long time ago, or this morning, as I sit in silence, trying to hold onto you,

all I could do is write an epic, talking about an undying abstract love,

a promise of a theoretical, intangible bonding.

a pity, indeed!

A Promise ....

I would let this poem
be yours,
engulfing the space
that separates us.
My words, now,
have no ego,
no stubbornness,
no bird, no sky,
without the color of music
sans the sound of rain;
beyond the limitation
of the real and
above the vastness
of the virtual.

This poem
would be yours
If you marry me;
I will give you this poem
in which
the Sun soothes and the rain boils,
in which
my breathing snaps, my arms ache,
in which
we two are twined unending, undeviating.
This poem has drifted in my breath for ages;
I have held it in my bosom and nurtured, for long.
This poem would be yours forever and always.
I will give you this poem
If you marry me!

A love, far beyond and much deeper ....

When I am away from you
I remember …
those moments

that fall like an enormous rain,
unstoppable, flooding my thoughts.
I have met you when my soul
leaned on,

as light on a floor,
where the sky and sea were tilted.
My days, now, are dressed in white,
a color that speaks of innocence
and a woman’s sorrow;

now, my days speak
but they speak only about you.
The miles that are stretched between us
resonate the rhythm of my sitar
and sing the songs of love;
My poetry, and those meanings in-between,
re-lives the moment of our first kiss,
that split second,

when I have lost my ways
in the depth of your ocean eyes.
When I hold you in my arms
I hold everything, the universe and time.
Your eyes convey the absolute meaning of life,
your smile signify the fresh morning’s temple bells.
we are one soul, one being,
beyond and above this endless waiting;
in a way
that is much more tangible
than this fondly crafted love note!

Companion...

I am never alone;
for loneliness is my companion.
Like a little bird he perches on my soul
holding me in his embrace,
devouring my day and night.
During day when I walk in a crowd
he is there in my shadow;
in the night when I lay awake,
he is there in my sleepless hours.
Sometimes he drops in for a chat
and at times, he would just sit beside
quiet and courteous.
he drapes the silence on my walls,
he adorns the voices that hold me captive.
when my hope is frightened,
my desire is smothered,
my longing is slaughtered,
and my dreams are bruised,
my soul screams and flutter in a frantic
caged panic.
But
Loneliness,
my true companion, never leaves me alone,
he never leaves my side.
Now I wake up wearing the lenses
borrowed from him
and look at the world,
tried and tested, loved and hated
the sounds, smells and reflexes
oddly accepted in a strange resignation
as he keeps holding my hand
forever and always.

gray ...

It is the gray portions
that choke me,
suffocating me often.
Relationships are never
just black and white.
They are multilayer ed
having many shades
and several facets.
Time and again,
it would reveal new contours
and alien countenances
making me wonder.
Now I know
why I can't breathe at times.
It is these in between phases
that strangulate me,
smothering my life breath.
It has been a long time
since I lost my way
in these shades of gray
where the meaning
of love and faith
quietly grope to find a place,
a meaning, to survive.

Pain ....

Last night
when the silence fell softly
as a mountain mist,
my eyes traveled a distance,
searching for you.
When I saw you,
my dreams were bruised
as your face had
already become a stranger.

Last night
the wind blew
without any rustle or a ruffle.
My sorrow shimmered like fireflies,
a pain that melted drop by drop
like a candle gathering in a mound
underneath my heart.

Last night
the princess was
nowhere to be found
and my fairy tale died
as reality lashed onto it
strangulating its innocence,
chocking it in the fluid darkness.

Last night
I wanted to escape
the four walls of my room;
I pushed and pummeled
at those white washed walls,
groping and searching for an exit;
my nails scraped and scratched
against the paints, frantic;
but there were no doors,
the doors had vanished!

Dialling Love ....

The ringing, the buzzing, the vibration
are her life line now.
She flies like a ballet dancer
across the room and
reaches for it like a graceful stork.
Loneliness has become a myth!
His vibrating soft voice reaches
her like a liquid bliss,
transporting her in a Utopian existence.
She laughs like wild water,
shaking her curls loose,
the resonating voice is her support,
her strength.
It reverberates and trickles
down like molten lava
making her feel like a precious princess.
It wakes her up to a bright sunny morning
untangling her sleep trodden limbs
with patience,
echoing hope and a pious pledge.
At the time of setting Sun,
when the golden hue makes her
stare at a far away horizon absentmindedly,
his voice whispers love and
she quietly let it seep within
filling her heart with a gentle warm wax
of passion and promise.
At times the voice will talk up a storm
in his candid expressions and
she keeps hearing, amused.
Often her listening gets
transported into an emotion;
a strange sensation of a tingling joy,
raising goose bumps in her each pore.
At night the soft murmur
becomes more yielding like a sedative,
almost a feather touch,
so fleeting and delicate that
even the dust particles in the air
might have failed to get stirred!
Then it will sing her a lullaby,
his whispering breath tenderly moving aside
the tired tendrils from her forehead,
singing her eyelids to a soothing rest.
She looks longingly, touching it affectionately
as it rings,
muttering and mumbling warmth,
destroying distance,
putting her soul in a beautiful flower-alley.
His voice, like a tranquil lake
wipes out the fence amid reality and dream.
She soars higher, connected to the air,
her being into a bright weightless orbit,
reaching for him.

Best friend

He is my best friend;
most trustworthy of all!
He is always there,
holding my psyche
in his tight clasp.
If I need him, if I do not,
If I want him, if I do not,
he is just there,
ever present
with his growing naked roots
and entangling secret branches
hovering and collecting
loose ends of my thoughts,
half silhouette, half seen,
knotting up the layers and
cervices of my soul.
When everyone leaves me, he stays,
my most faithful of all,
my best friend,
omnipresent like a prophecy
weaving my day and night,
throbbing and hammering,
HEADACHE,
he is my best friend,
most reliable of all!

Moment ....

I tried to

coax and cajole
that moment;
toiled to nurture

and nourish it;
begged it to stay,
soothed it

with poetry;
strove to sing it a lullaby,
lured it with love;
attempted to

make it blind
with passion,
held it in my arms,

caressed its forehead

with warmth and
kissed its eyelids ….

Yet the moment
like every other ones
went away,
without pausing
without looking back.

Efforts ....

Again,
one more day has passed by,
noiselessly, wordlessly,
without any incident,
dragging its usual chores
in a monotonous effort
staring aimlessly at life
that walks exhausted and
with a droning sound.

Again,
another colossal night has come,
A huge monstrous darkness
pressing against,
counting of those endless hours,
those incessant ticking
of the table clock
tearing apart the silence
that feels as cold as death,
and those ceaseless efforts
to stitch one piece to the other,
to knit one corner with another,
to fit the blocks of the puzzle
in vain.

Childhood ...

Childhood is an innocent little girl!
Little girl Childhood
laughs aloud
like a crinkling jingling passionate
mountain brook.
She splashes and splurges
at every wonder of nature.
She is more fearless than the Himalaya,
she is buoyant like a passionate rainfall !
Her eyes shine twinkling sparkling stars,
she has dew drops on her smiling lips,
and jasmine flowers caught
in her unruly hair.
She plucks purity and
wears it on her ears
as shining ear-rings,
honesty is her bangles
that caress her soft hands.

I wanted to hold her
and cajole her to stay forever.
I did not notice time piling up!
Her hand slipped from my clasp.
May be I couldn’t hold her
as warm and as tight as I should have!
That moment,
on a gloomy monotonous morning,
with a nagging sound of rainfall
in the background,
I lost that innocent little girl
named Childhood!
Since then my eyes keep searching
among faces, among names
beyond the never ending ticking
of hours,
to have just one glimpse of
that little girl named Childhood.

self - identity ...

The morning had a bad start. Everything around was bearing a gloomy upsetting tinge like small tragedies in life or those hair line cracks in a relationship. Even the weather matched my mood. As I looked at the overcast sulking sky I could feel the plight of the staggering Sun peeping now and then through broken clouds. I clasped the coffee mug even tighter in my palm as if to feel that I did have someone as my own in this world. Even my facial muscles started hurting with loneliness. My mind whipped about in a mad spinning, fluctuating from fantasy to reality.

At times like this I start visualizing myself as a beautiful princess who lived in the palace of snakes. This is the way I love to see myself; a woman radiant with laughter, with her burnished curls creating a halo around her face, waiting for a promising future, too excited and eager to start afresh. Perhaps, this is how I should have looked if the world had been more kind! And then I remember those stray grey strands that started showing up for the past few months and I smile. I realize, this is the time when you begin to think of lying about something very basic as your age, this is the time when you keep thanking God profusely for giving you a satin smooth skin and a vibrant infectious smile even if you so much as dream of starting afresh! My smile broadens into a grin. Forty long years on this Earth; forty long years of compromises, adjustments, bargain and survival! Each single moment is bathed and nurtured by tears, patience, sweat and persistence. Each pulsating second is myself! I glance back and stay mesmerized and amazed at my own strength and power! I understand how I wouldn't let go of any minute tick of the past, beacuse that's who I am! Suddenly, I see myself in an existence honest, iridescent and shimmering as my frosted white nail polish. My chin goes up automatically. There is a tindery smell of stubbornness around me. A parrot green and purple mixed obstinacy and doggedness begin to run firm in my veins. I look up. it has started raining!

Cooking ...

uploading for jingle poetry potluck - if I take 'food' in its immediate literal sense then I am reminded of my never ending endeavors in my kitchen.

The splitter splutter of cumin, mustard,

spilled butter with fenugreek and fennel,

an amazing vista of red hot chicken, clustered;

like the promise of a new poem brewing

like the rhythmic swirl and sway of dancing!

Broccoli and cabbage hopping with corn flour,

creamy onion paste crooning in the middle,

a milky white curd mix, the right one to devour;

charming smells of ginger and olive oil

creating a mellow hue, just a bit if you toil.

The slicing, chopping; the clicking and clanking,

turmeric, chilly whispering promise in a ladle,

a bubbly batter steaming and simmering;

the gentle stir and the spongy whip

soft seasoning with salty dash and a floury dip.

A whole new world of spiraling, coiling dreams and desire,

spreading an aroma making me the queen of my magical empire.

Strength ...

Do not accept my silence as my weakness!
Sitting quiet amongst screaming waves
I listen, I grow ….

Among a swarm of masks,
some ice cold and some smoldering,
mine gets disheveled and entangled, yet
I survive ….
I collect the strewn ashes of the canvas
that you burnt last night,
in my palm, nurturing them with my tear drop.
They become a colorful vibrant kaleidoscope and
I continue ….
I have worn a soothing drizzle
and a torrential bout of rain.
I have withered a desolate noon
and a fire tongued summer,
I await the wild storm of tomorrow, and
I hold on ….
The yesterday that troubled,
my book of errors that tortured,
are all my mentors now, lessons that I nurture.
They made the person behind this smile,
building every layer and texture of my psyche and
I learn ….
The pain that once scorched and burnt
is now a glowing amber.
The sand particle that entered
in between my oyster shell and
tormented my soul once
is now a precious pearl.
Among the inevitable and the constant, I change,
moving far ahead and likewise
I expand ….

I flow like a wild river and
blow like a passionate storm
accepting life on stride,
peeling off the sweaty and the clammy,
tiptoeing away from every greedy iron clasp,
forcing the scorching Sun to step over,
making room for a beautiful soothing azure dome,
my heart, a magenta balloon,
thrown up into the sky
away from the stench of civilization,
I will, I rise, I defeat.

A kiss

A kiss
that stopped the planets
in their orbits,
made the Moon come down
at your garden
to kiss the green leaves,
cajoled the Sun to yield
sunflower,
nourished a rainbow
hidden among
the broken clouds
and pacified the fatigued
forlorn Earth,
bringing down
a soothing carefree raindrop.

Jealosy ....

I wanted to be the pure one
with a mind sans any stain
or a wrinkle.
Then, one day,
beneath the peel
of the mind,
under the layers
of the soul It rises!
It rouses its tentacles,
all consuming, fretting and fuming,
sometimes a fiery volcano,
sometimes an acid rain,
stinging at times and hissing at other.
It has frightening molten lava eyes,
pale ugly grinding teeth,
eyes narrowed, head hammering,
nostrils burning, mouth clenching,
JEALOUSY!
you entered Into my life and
earlier, I was the wealthiest of all
but now a reduced beggar.

Negativities .....

Doubt, fear,
insecurities are like cockroaches.
The moment you open the lid,

they will scurry and scamper out

into the open like some long-hidden
filthy secrets.
They have the same
scaly flaking
appearance with a shrunken
withered skin, as they remain
hidden in the layers
of the mind for ages.
When you are cautious
and controlled,
they hide yet will linger
in every nook and corner
and browse each
cranny and crevice
of the mind, waiting,
moving their
antennae whisk stealthily.
And the moment
you are weary or rest your guard,
those negativities,
they will scuttle out
from every hidden space,
and each concealed crack,
like nasty smelly
and dark cockroaches
squirming, multiplying
and
invading your mind;

bringing forth death,

without the trouble of burial.

Self - esteem .....

Creeping, crawling, clumsy, caterpillar,
do never be sad or aching.
Let the world find you repulsive or revolting,
soon they will mend their ways,
for what you think an end,is in reality,
a colorful promise, a new beginning,
taking the wretched world
under your colorful wings!

Brown and furry, you hustle and hurry,
you are hairy and you walk helter-skelter.
Fuzzy and woozy, muzzy and sleazy,
sighing and sobbing, you brood and you ponder.
Away from the world you hide to bury yourself
far from human cruelty,
in a green mausoleum, spinning and yarning
in your lonely dejected corner.

Caterpillar! Be proud; a new day will soon dawn.
When life seems troubled and the night is too long,
when alone in your cocoon
you become abandoned and forlorn;
barely having a room to wag and wiggle,
none around to support if you wobble,
on that day be cheerful
at your excellent craftsmanship,
for you have churned and whirled such rich silk
that the humans are envious of your hardship.

And soon humankind that looked at you in distaste
will stare and adore your vibrant
embroidered flitter-flutter.
So, creeping crawling clumsy caterpillar,
store every heart-ache and save every tear,
there would be a rainbow
after the rain, do not fear.

What a caterpillar could do,
one day, I can achieve that too!
Someday, I would make the world
wonder at my skill and love me anew.
So what if I can't run fastest or swim the sea?
So what if I can't kick a ball or climb a tree?
Let me be myself, just let me be me.
So what if others want to criticize or disagree?
They don’t know what it takes to really be me!

My uninvited guest.

On a glowing sunny morning
in the after math
of a fresh bout of rain,
when the sunbeams fell like
jingling sequins
on the quivering
immaculate leaves,
he came and sat in my veranda,
mesmerizing me
with thrilling maneuvers.
With a sharp pointed beak
longer than his body,
a lemon yellow and
brown embroidered
fluffy cotton ball,
he transferred me
into a world of bliss
away from the
dull
drab
drudgery.
He played along,
rolling and unrolling,
hanging like a yo-yo,
tumbling and toppling,
rising and mounting,
managing a twig
in his pointed beak and
twittering with zest,
bringing forth a fist full of joy
all around,
enough to shake me off
from melancholy;
muttering soft soliloquies,
chattering and squealing,
oblivious to the
manipulation, vices of the humans.
On that glowing sunlit morning
he put back
the lost stars in my eyes
and the missing dew drop
in my smile.

Rain ...

When the falling rain
tiptoes on earth and
the drizzle cautiously
embraces the breeze and
kisses my lips mischievously;
when a sudden gust of wind
tosses my stubborn tendril
driving away the ringlets
away from my forehead,
I raise my face
toward the falling rain
I lose myself.

I smile at your query -
“Why are you women so obsessed with rain?”
I tenderly keep my poesy
beside your pillow
and let them whisper into your ears.
They tell you,
It’s not just the rain
but the fragrance of you!

You had worn this rainfall
and left it in my courtyard.
Its folds and fabric caressed you,
its creases
held you close,
cuddled you.
Its color still reflects your essence,
the imprint of your love
is still visible on its sleeves.
That’s why I wear it too;
to feel it all over me and
hear the resonance of your voice
in its melodious humming.
At times, it feels
a little tight near my chest
when I feel the tug of your hand
groping for me unconsciously in sleep.
The way you will rest your head
on my bosom, your eyes closed
in heavenly peace,
merges with the drops of the drizzle
that hover on my face,
taking me to eternal bliss.
The rainfall you wore
and left on my courtyard
is still vibrant and warm as life.

I do not know about other women
But for me, my love,
the rain is you
and I hear your melody
in its falling tune;
as if it is played by you
on your love – flute.

Now I wait alone for another rain to come
so that we can wear it together.