Tuesday, November 30, 2010

time to turn back

it’s time to turn back
not just to clear the rack
but to make a new pack
filled with joy & peace.

filled with joy & peace
a life for, i race
in the maze
only to realise that I am in chain

only to realise that I am in chain
as my anger adds the pain
I long for a life, sane
but never willing to drop the ‘I’

but never willing to drop the ‘I’
I end up in hell,
as the centre is just ‘my’
sans ‘thy’
I wait for Shanti, on me, it turns its back.

it’s time to turn back
to be considerate on others’ joy & peace
so in my life joy & peace rain
as i seek the kingdom of ‘thy’
and paradise, in my life, comes back.

Monday, November 29, 2010

i took the same old path

i took the same old path
trod by millions
knowing well that it will be secure
and the most trouble-free.

but lo, i find myself
bored to death
my each breath wasted to make myself free
out of the clutches of the silly demands
that bricked the house intact…

had i taken the less traveled
i wondered –
may be i would have fallen prey to a tiger
while venturing the forests
or could have got drowned in the current
trying to un-ocean a treasure
or worse, i might have added the number HIV positives
being myself the one..

still that would have been better
than sitting heavily webbed
and shuddering at each drop of demand and accusation
falling on my being, like hammer blows…
that drops on the forehead of a war prisoner
in an unknown cell…

i took the same old path
traveled by multitudes
and pay the price with my life..

Sunday, November 28, 2010

what's in a name

like a magnet, certain names,
all of a sudden attract bullets,
out of nowhere…
or the silent touch of a knife that slice open the veins
in the midst of a prayer…

certain names, they say
like a sacrificial lamb, may
always be destined to the butcher’s knife.
oh mother, will my name attract his knife?

‘what’s in a name’ so
sung the bard, long ago

perhaps
just because of a certain name
you may disappear, without a trace, in no time.
statistics may tell your name was latif
muhamad, ansari, or hanif

thousands of such names
with a TAG attached
been knifed or pierced
on the wayside of listless encounters.

oh mother, what is that TAG
they are going to attach to my name?
a terrorist, a dalit, anti-indian, or anti-social, or a christian ….
is that certain?

in those streets
that hold the night like secrets
scores of names are even burnt alive
so the sun will never, ever thrive
on those names.

and when the secret crumbles
like the citadels that kids make on the sand, tumbles
what you unearth, if chance permits
is a piece of nameless bone
that failed to record the pain
or a piece of frock, torn
that resisted the decay, in vain.

oh mother,
why did you give me this name?
- there is something in this name
there is something in this name
that attracts a knife
when time is rife
or a bullet, or worms in a gutter

Saturday, November 27, 2010

an ocean of love

you sent me an ocean of love
softly encased in a tiny raindrop
delicately gift-wrapped
with a tender shoot of sunbeam….

i hid it in my red red heart
lest someone would steal it.

but lo! i started blushing
like a glowworm
and the whole world now knows
that i am in love with you.

Friday, November 26, 2010

your eyes told me

your eyes told me
what oceanic depth be
lighter in shades near the shores
as merry laughter from its banks soars.

tell me my friend -
did you drink the night
full, with all its pain,
to spread smiles on the shore in the light
as pain and sorrow, in you rain….

tell me my friend –
from what deep sorrow
that beaming star that your eyes borrow
and from what deep dolor
that you brushed the life with so much colour…

tell me my friend –
what mischievous glee
made that crescent upwards climb, as if to flee
from the shadow of the overlooking bridge, standing still
and slanting into the eye-browed sky, rays of hope did fill….

tell me my friend –
and what gloom made you groom
wings of sorrow to fly over life’s throe
soaring high over, in life so to bloom…..
and your eyes did tell me
what life’s depth be
so in rapt joy, the life-boat, alone, i too may, row…….

Thursday, November 25, 2010

a big lie

my beloved,
it’s the limitations of our eyes
that created the horizon, seamless.

for ages,
words
and dreams made of words
have been cheating us.

freedom & eternity
love & equality
are all big lies.

born out of lies,
and being prisoners of these lies –
of caste and creed,
of religion and of profession
we divide and rule.

with misplaced passion
we kill and get killed
cheat and get cheated
for the very permanence of these lies -

until we fall prey to
the biggest of all lies
called death...

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

when words fail me

when even words fail me, in every turn
where do, and who to, in life, i turn
someone hoist me out of this wordless well
dry and abandoned, that did once swell….

did not we swam merrily, when it was full
drank enough of its sweetness, mouthful

life, baked and bare, like a desert, barren
a wordless pit where conflicts do deepen
and sans rainy words, love too have failed us.

the Word failed us, miserably, or rather
we failed the Word, isn’t it a state of bother
in an emptied sky, we play with mushroom clouds

where shall we take shelter, when hatred reigns
from skies – left or right, Islam, Christian or Hindu
and what difference it makes, whether the marking
on the bomb, is a crescent, or stripes, or stars,
or Ashok Chakra; total annihilation,
that we bring, in the name of peace & conciliation

*‘how shall we fill, this empty spaces
where we used to talk’ in merry faces


* Pink Floyd

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

a portrait

once i sketched a Gulmohar in full bloom
standing tall amidst its fallen embers
as an invocation to you, to flare my life.

but all of a sudden, you left me
like the sun, breathing its fragrance
into the clouds.

a seamless portrait is born-

life flowing and moving,
connecting, and changing continuously.

but mind framed it,
life frozen.
as the landscape of memories faded
i was left with just the frames –
monotonous rectangles and squares.

machines invaded my life
bull dozers, loaders, dumpers, cranes, excavators,
crushers, and what not…

suddenly, i smell the portrait once again
and feel it throbs in me
as i watch my son sketching a Gulmohar in full bloom
amidst the green, with crayons, invoking the sun
from behind the mountains...

a seamless portrait is born, again...

Monday, November 22, 2010

a peg of time

‘a peg of time
on a sea-shore’
just to feel life in its free rhyme,
that's all i asked for.

from the frothy milk on the stove
to see surfers on curved froth, row

from seamless irritation of detergent foam
to the magic freshness of the blue
waves, laughing merrily, roam
the spoilt chances, i never had a clue

from the suffocating humidness of the four walls
to the cool nakedness of the moon on waves, that rolls

from the intimidating arrogance of pots' rattle
to the lullabying waves’ sweet prattle

a peg of time
on a sea-shore
to transform life into a hymn
that's all i craved for.

poetic landscape

The poetic landscape

i hid my woes
like that tiny fish mouths its roes
starves for days,
and finally, spits the young ones
in to the vast ocean, safe and sound.

but i writhe in pain
as on the hook, in vain
as my wounds rebels into a new form
a new being, heavily celled with words,
and knocks on the shell, to get out in the sun.

…..like a grain of sand
trapped in an oysters heart
transforming into a pearl.

i lay relaxed, like a mother,
half conscious and half-dead, contentedly dreaming.
people on the shore, screaming and shouting
at each find the ocean throws at them.

will some one find the oyster
that my failing heart waved on the shore
and break open its shell
to find the pearl intact?
picks it up, as a kid
gleefully palms it

….his lips suddenly lighting into a crescent
as the cool silver drop
all of a sudden transforming the shore
to a poetic landscape….

Friday, November 19, 2010

on love

love is like that ‘widening gyre’
from a pressure cooker nose,
when it whistles..

not seen, when it begins
it burns you, but cleanses;
and as it widens, collapses
and get frozen on the walls
to be moped away by the maid.