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.