you blessed me with eternity

you never let me go
out of the nails
even your body was brought down
and laid rest on her lap
and was born, Michelangelo.

no crying mothers
no laughing soldiers
no jeering crowed ….

my life
a silent celebration
on the cross…
at the altar of wedlock….

and, not even from a far-off land
i could hear him, to create another masterpiece

in a mindless city of mouse games
you blessed me with eternity
you blessed me with eternity, of loneliness....

words

words, as termites on decaying wood
blankets my days & nights…

black, white, and multi-coloured
systematically woven texts….

rape, communal violence
ethnic cleansing & murder & farmer suicides
nuclear bombs, political encounters
all reduced to lines & columns
neatly arranged amidst pics of bulging boobs
threatening six packs ....

the whole country feeds on it
as pigs on shit, knowing not
just to be another ‘quality feed’
on the fascist’s table

oh mother,
termites, black & white
and multi-coloured
eat into my brain…

my life

my life, a candle without flame
melting into shapeless waste
on a deserted tomb, unnoticed

wasted passions
iced dreams, undelivered

dear father,
can my life be recycled?
can you breathe some shape into the waste,
so my dreams may flame again?

Buddha smiles*

the dark and desolate corners of the mind
frightens me like the sight of a dog
devilishly mourning at the full moon

the horror…the horror**
snaking down my bones
like blood from a fresh deep wound

they say
Buddha smiles in the wound of the desert
and proudly exhibit the jewel, Kargil; and boasts
it brings unity ….

in the night
i dreamt of mushrooms
and bubbling human skin…

mother,
are they going to drop the bomb?***


* written after india tested nuclear bomb which was shockingly given the code name, 'Buddha smiles'.

** Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness.

*** Pink Floyd

words slither

words slither
down the curves of my body
like a snake on grass

the hushed motion
slanting into the abyss of silence
like a lightening across the sky

tongues unsheathed
voyaging past the seen
into the not-seen

the waters
silently conceived a pebble….

the hour

in the balcony
watching the sun sink,
sorrow, leaning on my breast
as if sunflowers to the sun, whispered
and i could feel the whisper,
even amidst the honking traffic…

i stared at the hour
coming closer and closer
which i can never sail past

calm rose precariously
to great heights, like waves
splashing my soul often, foretelling
the impending gloom – ineluctable

silently i trained myself
to laugh at the void
the still wall that stops everything
was always laughing at me

more silence, more agonies
i could not find the line
that separated laughter and silence
the more i tried, the more it receded
like waves, from Prometheus bound on the rock.

time

time -
it slants, forks & loops
zigzags and suddenly straighten up
i try hard to keep the balance….

some say,
there is light at the end of the tunnel.
might be, my friend –
it’s just the faith in it
or the fate of it,
that makes me trudge all alone

the colourful wings of butterflies, spread
but glued on the wall.