MAL-LOVED

Where does a mal-loved go for nourishment?

For the hearth has no heat for her,

It’s colder than the whitest of white Christmases.

Where does a mal-loved go for hope?

For the heart has no song for her,

It’s drier than the ungiving wishing well.

Where does a mal-loved go for sustenance?

For the larder has no stock for her,

It’s emptier than a heart with no song in it.

Where does a mal-loved go?

For the home has no man for her,

It’s barer than a vacant womb.

THE FLOWER AND THE BEE

(One of my earliest pieces that has survived the ravages of time. Though I can't remember its origins, I do remember that I was in my final year of school and, at the time, was visiting Kolkata.)

You roam around
to settle down,
Get up, to
again sit down.
Impatience in you
seems a virtue.

Yesterday, you came so close to me
almost becoming a part of me.
You seemed to speak to me,
but my ears failed me.

Like a sunbeam,
you exposed me
in all my transparency.
Clearly you saw,
my nectar, your honey.
Slowly, you drained me,
setting me free.

But, addicted to you
I keep regenerating,
yielding mine through time
to you, as a summer offering.

A CONTINUING LOVE STORY

Her touch – my smile.
She frowns – I sweat.
Her eyes – my soul.
She cooks – I frown.
Her waist – my arms.
She talks – I look.
Her bite – my pleasure.
She shouts – I react.
Her call – my wait.
She loves – I evolve.

SIGNAL FAILURE

What has to be said, cannot be.
What is being said, is not heard.
What is being heard, has not been said.
Signal failure?

FEAR (Part 1)

Hoping not to fail before succeeding

Or is it succeed before failing.

Hoping to know -- what I am, should be.

Hoping for I don't know what.

An Exercise in Rhyming

(The following is an attempt to relive those days when I used to try and rhyme all the time. Because, to me, poetry was rhyming. I would try to rhyme everything even if it didn’t make sense. Hope this does though.)

I have no clue

on how to write something new.

Need some help from my muse

But unfortunately she’s a recluse.

Then what’s this that I brew?

A forced rhyme stew. 

Take a bite of this that I spew,

But don’t you chew.

Now I am beginning to feel blue

Maybe I will just bid everyone adieu

And start somewhere else anew

Maybe, in a room with a view.

These words are like dew

They appear when they are due.

They bind us like glue

But sometimes are so difficult to construe. 

Confessions of a Photographer

In a room, cordoned off from light 

I bring to life, captured moments, 

But they mean nothing to me, alive. 

But they lose meaning for me, alive.

The Search

A parched soul
Looking for a watering hole,
Cannot find a drop, dries out.

A tumbleweed
Running across the sand dunes,
Cannot find a resting hole, tires out.

A lamp
Looking for darkness
Cannot find the dark, lights out.

The past
Searching in the present,
Cannot find itself, dies out.

Inspiration

I look at the blank page with an even blanker stare.
All I can think of is ejaculating on it without a care.
The blank page is a challenge, a dare.
Its emptiness resembling the wastelands, oh so bare!

Words are the knife with which to I pare
myself, layer after layer – one a saint, the other a player.
Lonely despite my many selves, nothing can save me – not even a prayer.
I think it’s time someone comes and heals that tear.

Like a stallion on heat looking for a mare,
I search for that maiden, my muse, oh so fair!
But all I get to see is an empty rocking chair.
Oh, if only I had someone who would care.

That’s my life, summed up in a tear.

GRANDDAD

Sitting in the rocking chair
-toothless mouth,
sucking away at the morsel.
Staring at the shadows
of calloused palms,
with those lines etched on them,
Remembering the stories
ingrained within them.
You look a thousand and five wrinkles old,
And are, five grandchildren young.

FLASHLIGHTS

Flashlights hit me from all sides
Cannot breath- try to reach out,
Nobody to hold on to.
A sea of photographs shallow me
Scream out to the wide expanse of moving bodies
Nobody, they on the shore, remain dry.
Suddenly a lasso of perfume
Reaches out and holding on to
my last breath, pulls me out.

And I
saved
shiver,
For the flashlights are waiting on the shore.

INCOMPLETE HISTORY

The unquiet grows.

A neon sign
hides an antiquated long forgotten home.
But the residents of the home do not disappear
They exist
As an island
And can see the mainland, all the time

The bright lights from the mainland are blinding them
But slowly, their bespectacled eyes focus,
Awaken with new sight

They are starting to believe in the apparitions around them.
These phantoms are their new God
There to bring them out from behind the curtain.

And so,
they start out with knuckle-dusters
and mashaals ablaze,
to break down the sign.
This is their 'Rights of Passage'.

The flame reaches for the heaven,
Proudly proclaiming the start of a new war,
It will burn all believes
And die a clichéd death

TRAPPED

Leading a holstered life.

To go off means self-inflicted pain,
Not to – the same.
Imposed sado-mascohism.

Standing erect or on bended knees,
Just want to look straight in the eyes

But the fear persists,
Of living unholstered, of getting lost.
To go off unintended
or on the unintended.

Leading a life on leash.
To run off means a cage
Or even an injection
-- imposed domesticity.

But the fear remains,
Unleashed, running in circles.
May bite the buddy,
And lick the baddie.

GIMLETS

I
My manipulations fail as the
audience of negligent ears is
too busy visualizing the applause
at the end of their own games.

II
Reality is a vegetable wrap,
Or a chaat, enjoyable at its messiest.
Alluring colours and flavours abound,
In hidden corners trying to peek through,
Some familiar, some getting there,
And some never allowed to.

III
To be or not to be, that is the question,
Not really, for not knowing the question
would get you only a B or less.
The answer flows from the question,
For like a mother, the question hides its answer
First in its womb, then nestled in its arms.
It is for us to wean it away into reality.
And finally let it be.

IV
The screaming inside is voiceless
Its attempts to jump the fence
lead only to solitary confinement.
The highly-strung sinews can’t stretch, curl up.
Escape finally within six-strings.

V
Faith went for a walk
And came back to find its house in ruins.
Despondent, it wondered aloud,
“How could this be? I left it just for a while and
that too under lock, taking the key with me!”
The crumbling edifice replied,
“You forgot that you are my lock, my insurance, the keeper of my safety.”

The Gardener

(Dedicated to my professor of Shakespeare)
As you stand on the pedestal
and tell us about archetypes
I see your disappointment
When you see all the stereotypes
Sitting in the room,
You feel that we are all
“collectively unconscious”.
The gardener is earnest and enthusiastic,
and the fertilizer rich,
Yet the garden has a small yield,
No roses bloom, so you may feel gloom.
Despair not…
The land is not barren,
But has too many weeds
and pebbles in it,
maybe the previous gardeners
weren’t as enthusiastic at their work
Maybe they didn’t try new methods
But as it maybe
Remove these cloggings and you
Will have a rich and yielding land.