For one who died last night …

I think I know how you felt
at that time.
Wasn’t it a pale green hallway,
where windows offer no reflection
and the door doesn’t promise life beyond?

I think I know it all.

looking at the photo of a dead stranger

I feel I have known it all.

You could not chase
the elephant away,
It was probably eavesdropping.

but pretending might have had helped for a while

 until you remembered

 that elephant has big ears.

Until you were married,
you never bothered about the plural space. And then
the birds in the binoculars settled in a cage.

You got your marriage certificate photocopied.
The marriage became a metropolis –
you and him its anonymous citizens.

After you left
for the land where no one dances in the rain,

He must have found worlds

full of memories

long after you’ve lost it.

You lie in bed,

A strange sickness in your bones

pinning you

eyelid to toe nail.

As I share a heartbroken

cup of coffee with the man I have fallen in love with

holding hands yet realizing the ocean
between us,

I feel I have known what you felt then.

I sent you all my prayers,

you returned half,
attaching a note:  You need these too.

He asks if I need to be held.

 I am not sure. Not anymore.

If comfort is disloyal

can a roomful of grief

ever have happiness?

I know how you felt at that point of time.

Like I often do,

You too must have stepped out of yourself

and wanted to observe her,

She,

Who has perpetually walked,

casting and recasting herself

to be with people, who

had accepted and rejected her

at convenience,

As you sang with her

cried with her

standing there, observing,

It became too late stepping back into yourself again!

And I sit still

by the side of the television news

looking at your dead photograph

I more dead than you

I think I have known how you felt.

living ...

 Parsley, spinach, celery or lettuce;

get those green leafy ones;

they are good for health.

If you can’t buy, just pluck them

 from here and there.

Soak for a while in hot water

drain and dry

and you would be able to smell the

apple-green freshness.

Tear off the part that disturbs.

Sit gingerly,

 segregate the good and the rotten ones

with deft fingers dancing in a mysterious grace.

Snip off the blackened part

Split the spoilt edge

Slash away the bitter stem

And slit the thickened chunk.

Just a dash of salt n pepper

and sprinkling of sauce n oil;

Celebrate the union

and it’s magnetism in a bowl.

Eat them with rice or bread

Or even raw if you fancy.

Or else, feed them to a cow;
it will bring a li'l change
in the whisper of a breath,
in the echo of a smile
take a chance and just see.

Find a place in the soil and plant your destiny.

Water it with your own hands and

let a creeper of hope grow.

Pluck and fold the dreams neatly

clean it

clear it

and keep them fresh.

Find the corner under its shade and

 scream if the pain does not heal, and then

dump the rotten part

drown the noisy drum

straighten the uneasy bend

smoothen the roughened bounce.

Remember to eat well your leafy green vegetables.

My predestined lover ...

 I could only see the jaded green frame of the window.

Dust has settled along the pane.

Once upon a time, there used to be a face of a beautiful woman

whose eyes were hungry with hopes of tomorrow.

But now

There is a strange eerie silence in the darkness behind.

And then, suddenly, on that day as I looked up,

hoping to see the same uncanny blackness,

 I saw Death; his shadow

perched on the windowsill.

Death had dropped in for a chat, on that day.

He wore the same rugged look and

 was dangerously handsome with his locks

 that were as tangled as my existence.

When I told him that he is Emily’s lover and

it would be a sin for me to come close to him

He laughed in his usual baritone voice

 that was irresistible and

 I found a thrill in this adultery!

He wanted to know, why I keep resisting him.

Why I fight the battle that eventually would be lost?

He smiled, and I knew at that moment

he would come to meet me now and then

till I surrender. And eventually we would be together

and it is going to be an insane love affair.

Death, my predestined lover,

I knew at that instant

 I would throw away morality and caution like shabby old clothes

 to live those dizzying moments with you.

Clasping concern with one hand

gagging conscience with the other

I will come to your arms with a readiness of a rain drop

that rushes to kiss the Earth.

But

Till then let me breathe the splendour of an airborne acrobat.

Till then let me kiss the roasted golden Sun. 

Let me whirl and pirouette in a tango

with my brittle thoughts and unborn hope.

Let me be the lover of rain and bear him a child.

Till then let me try remaking life

with swatches of stolen memories.

 

that obstinate headstrong life-force ...

 I wonder how I

constantly tread this hyphenated zone!

If I turn off the light the moths will die

and so will the bats if I turn it on.

Should I spend life searching for an anchor

or shouldn't I just tear off the sails

and let it be?

How good is living

on a handful of yesterday,

an existence

neither real, nor fantasy,

like the alluring horizon

between the Earth and the Sky,

at an arm’s length away,

but ever distant?

Why do I fill my book of poems

with haphazard listless things?

A mail box with drafts, remotes, phones,

a crossword page of an old newspaper,

five odd books, a gift that you had refused to take,

some songs that I listen to endlessly,

a few old snapshots;

all flung heedlessly, uncaring,

here and there;

Just about anything to fill the void

that once has been your side of the story.

YET

even now,

 between the breaths

lurks a stubborn dream

defying all other doubts;

A dream that often morphs into a bird

and take colourful wings

preparing itself for an ambitious flight

to soar higher and paint the sky.

And I throw away my existential despair

like a pair of old, worn out shoes

and I remember to plant a seed, all over again,

and wait for the moss green sapling

to raise its obstinate head!

happiness ...

‘I will call you for sure;

We shall meet again’ he promised...

 

In between the velvety folds

of those promises she built a house, long cherished.

And to live in an imaginary house is the best,

her house, built from the grit of memory

has no trial and no test. 

good to have a fantasy house with hopes and dreams so little,

as the walls of which bear no rhyme and not another riddle.

no expectations, nor fear in the mesh of other allusions,

longing neither to belong nor to search for meaning in this illusion. 

Resting under the painted ceiling out of which Images grow,

she feels happy as the walls cannot anymore smell of sorrow.

Not aching to make sense of the day or the night,

she doesnt weep any more, try as she might.

For she knows this is all there is, and this is so,

there’s no panic of an end, and no one to leave and go!

 

 

a few remedies ...

If you feel lonely
read a book
or watch an ant,
stand at the balcony
and observe
millions of same story
in different clothes,
you can even think of that person
whom you carry in your brain
like a nagging dripping rain,
listen to the footfall of the day
that had already receded; or
stare at your sorrow.
Your sorrow is a tree that was pulled out
but whose roots had spread all across,
your sorrow is an old photo on the wall
that was removed long ago
but the square imprint remained,
Your sadness is a blood red hibiscus
with a red bud and a red corpse.

And then, suddenly, ... perhaps ...
in the smell of a dovetail autumn wind
or in between your shadow and the soul
you may find peace.

Envy ...

Envy - the illogical emotion ... 
written for - http://poetryjaam.blogspot.in/

I swallowed down 

the jaded green colored envy 

that was tossed from under my door

like a love letter, 

and I wondered what’s so green about it!

A dark dismal disturbing jealousy

screamed out from a

 bleeding red and orange flame of pain 

and I struggled to simmer it down

swallow it down

grin it down …

if only I could have forgotten you,

and if only love hadn't been a  fragile origami dragonfly,

I would have heard the sober olive green whispers  

I would have heard the enchanting secret of the magnificent forest green!

If only … 

Wait …. Wait ….

Re read my lines …;

Before you read

feel the space in between...

they are filled with the depth of a river…

Let your eyes listen to those prayers

that reverberates with the birth of each word.

Close your eyes and repeat after me …

Begin slowly …  

And then let me know

if you have liked it …

the river and I ...

http://magpietales.blogspot.in/2012/05/mag-116.html

I go to the river everyday
to steal a little bit from her;
so that I can take a pinch of peace.

Daily I come to her
trying to measure her
feeling her through my fingers.
Every day I pilfer a little river
with a swiftness to be coveted,
to steal a little peace and
a palmful of serenity.

And yet I fail.
For she changes too!
From a straight line to a curved one,
now still and the next moment swirling,
greyish blue under the bright Sun and then
at dusk a  moss green,
now crystal clear and the next hour
 pretentious, draped in those silhouettes
just like me;
 as I am happy now
and miserable the next hour;
cheerful on Monday
but the whole Tuesday I am pensive.
In the morning we all sit together and I laugh
and then I cry the whole night.

She is no different
but like me.
So I come home, late night,
tired and disillusioned.
                       ***

and I realise I am the river ... and peace is not to be sought outside but within myself ...

The Tamarind Tree

At that corner of a street stands a rugged tamarind tree

He can never be happy; he is always angry. 

He's growing old, his joints, knobs hard and stiff

In protest he shakes his head, his leaves drying as constantly miffed. 

They scale out his skin engraving names and embossing love

He looks ugly with scars and wounds from within and from above.

They would come to take rest under his shade for a while

and spit betel nut and tobacco leaf on him with a callous smile.

As if all those spitting sputtering stain on him isn’t enough

Casually throwing a banana peel at him, they would go away in a huff.

In a sleepy afternoon those naughty children would come

And throw stones aiming his tamarinds just to stay out of boredom.

On a busy morning in a hurry and flurry they would pass

 flinging those cigarette stubs on him, to catch the bus they would rush.

That is why the rugged tamarind tree is never happy

He is always dismayed, and he is ever angry!

the strange things about love ...

Whatever it was it wasn't love!

It was about getting even.

I hurt you because you hurt me

I lied to you as you lied to me

I deceived for you cheated too;

and both wondered -

why couldnt you love as I do! ...

And this skin communicated thing,

whatever it was, it wasn't love.

and now after so many years ...
when I have held you in my poems

and your smiling face and twinkling eyes 

 come alive from the pages with words not spoken,

 I feel happy that you are here for me.

Now you are always there, waiting,

in the alleyways of my poetry,

a little silent perhaps

and may be a bit foggy

but letting me feel that

I am not alone,

not entirely, that is!

and the war continues ...

She braved it all;

dead bodies and arms strewn around,

the burnt flesh, the scattered heart, the smell of blood,

she braved it all

fighting the war.

In the slithering darkness of the night

she stood firm

her long limbs glistening with sweat and scream,

stiff back and upright shoulders

withstanding,

sometimes taking shelter in a trench,
warm like a mother’s lap that she long forgot

sometimes hiding underneath the bushes

 safe as in the arms of a lover that she never had;

valour hissing in her breath

gallantry flying in her hair.

The war is over.

The male soldiers of her group enter her tent

in celebration;

they come upon her

one by one and all together

in a masculine excitement

screaming victory,

"the war has ended" - they shout in triumph.

She is not part of the war anymore,

 the war lives in her now;

And for her the war continues.

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2012/01/mag-102.html

for the honour of a novice poem ...

Poems are piled up on the table

they want to die but are unable.

 Stubborn un caged words soar and rise

wonder wings filling the days with surprise.

Yet a perennial demise is what they deserve

as they have neither patronage nor any subsidy in reserve.

They have donned aesthetic ecstasy using metaphors of worth

April is crueller for them too and they also are poems of the earth.

They too have played with epigram and clever beats’ rise and fall

and painted the azure sky, nature, ache, humanity and all.

So they begin to peep into magazines and various literary journals

attending workshops, meeting veterans hoping for a smile or some laurels.

But, alas! Only dead poets sell well, famous poets sell well

and profiles with heavy degrees and awards alone, excel.

Striving for a niche for all that beginners stuff

those poems stagger and stumble in an unpublished huff.

They forget the beauty and the fresh sensibility in order to hound

all they could concentrate is how to find cousins of Ezra Pound.

Disillusioned, fatigued and scared they fall on the ground

they sleep for a while and the sleep is sound.

In their dream they get an insight with tears

that life is fragile and only for a few years.

To love, live and be at peace is the best

let’s rest within, there is no quarrel and there is no test.

Let’s not in darkness grope;
for we’ll do what lies in our scope

We will admire the bee poised on a lotus without any qualm
and keep perceiving the rainbow bridge with hope and with calm.