In love with your place

 

One should know

how to fall in love with one’s place,

It’s an art, or rather craft

how to stamp and seal

the significance of little things,

little corners, tiny moments and

common people around you,

We just need an eyes for them

and an open heart

to see, smell, touch, taste and hear

these soft, welcoming murmurs:

your very own neighborhood park,

local market street, corner shops,

the familiar people, the usual trees,

hoardings, banners, street dogs,

cats, cars, bikes, beggars, carts, vendors,

Everything that strikes you

with familiarity and recognition,

Some bench in a solitudional corner

in the nearby park,

Some trees that look happy and healthy,

So also the ones sad, weak and brooding,

Some bird that you can recognize

among the rest of birds,

Some sound that you like—

be it a bird or human,

Some hawkers that shout in your street,

The usual beggar that you see usually,

The brightest and naughtiest kids around,

Some beautiful smile on a lovely face

that makes you feel good,

Few people who wish you well on the way,

The old people going on their walks,

Someone’s pet that fills you

with a good feeling,

The parked car that you would love to have,

The house that you like,

The paint the you like the most,

The dress on someone

that gives you positive vibes,

Someone’s voice that is full of sweetness,

The chatty neighborhood grocer,

The busiest ones always hurrying,

The laziest feasting upon free time,

The oldest one going slow on the path of life,

The latest born with its rising sunrays,

The tree that looks sad and you empathize with,

The joyful tree,

The little backstreet lane

where you can walk,

The door that makes you feel curious,

The familiar and unknown faces.

 

Dear, your very own little place

has it all

that any other place possesses,

It’s there,

Spot its pulse,

Accept its invitation,

Be its visiting guest

and go around like a tourist,

And then it will spring so many surprises

to keep you entertained and relaxed.

The naked hole

 

There is a hole in my heart

hanging like an ornate amulet,

And when sadness is groping

along the deepening twilight shadows,

it gets transfigured into a hook,

It sadistically pierces and

dredges the mud of memories,--

a perpetrator of pain,

It opens a gateway for

blatant intrusion of grief.

 

There is a craft of living,

To live is to look

hodge-podge normal on the surface,

So I express my grief and pain

through a laugh,

a casual remark and silly talk,

a smile, a joke,

a set of plain mundanities

which help those around

in holding onto their concept of life.

 

The seasons change

But the springs and summers fail

to melt and thaw

the frozen heart

with its icy hole

leading to a cave

emanates from which a silent scream.

 

I know that

one has to learn

to forget to live

and engage with petty, chattering festivities

that sum up as

individual and collective life,

But the hole’s hook is anchored deep

to keep the ship of my life

stranded in the betraying bay,

while the open seas beckon

with its waves and tides of freedom.

 

Look at love!

Its circuitous, meticulous forays,

It loops, tangles, untangles,

unites, breaks and finally shatters

the stones that were once pearls,

It has its gifts and allowances for the kids

playing to its script and direction:

some trace of truth in a lie;

some grain of lie in truth.

 

Slowly you get attuned to

this hole in you,

Still seeking love

you fall in love

with this missing chunk in you,

You hold the memories in the pit of your soul

and with the fire of your agony

and pressure of your grief

you crystallize them to diamonds,

Then you hold your self-mined treasure

and sadly muse over it as the mystical emblem

of all that you missed, lost and grieve over,

You give it a precious title;

like we did with the golden earth

and named it as gold.

 

You get satiated,

You gloat and float

with air in you

that rushes through your hole,

You bob on the chance waves,

Your emptiness feeling like fullness,

You feel it has been worth it,

You stand like a gentleman

and proudly brace the left pocket on your chest,

You put your hand on it,

You think you are looking decorated, victorious,

praiseworthy and well clad,

But in reality

you are simply

covering that naked hole in you.

Twilight

The celestial lovemaking 

of light and dark 

as the twilights hark,

'Stop, pause and rest

after the day's busy fest.

Love

Sometimes you dump a person 
even though she/he still has a bright smile, 
twinkle in eyes and lovely fragrant words on lips. 
Well, that's simply the sunset of love.
Sometimes you lovingly embrace a person 
despite the frown, caustic remarks 
and tightly pursed lips shut over bad odor even. 
Well, that's simply the sunrise of love.
Love is simply a day 
-- or usually days at random -- 
in people's lives.
And that makes it so ordinary, so natural, so normal.
Let it remain such.
Why make it otherworldly?

The creator

 At a given moment, 
there is no absolute reality 
or truth or existence 
beyond one's set of beliefs, knowledge, 
information, set of conventions and collective mindset, 
and the respective set of contradictions of all the previous categories. 
In our endeavours to find the absolute, 
we simply shift to a different set of all these categories. 
We simply create a new plain of reality. 
We keep pushing our truth 
to cover more space 
and adjust our ever-expanding desires and fears. 
There is nothing to discover, 
There is everything to create--
first in ideas, imagination, emotions, insecurity, expectations and fears; 
secondly, its manifestation in physical reality 
in the domains of art, science, social conventions, economic models, 
everything.

The teachers

Sometimes the things 
that would have come naturally to you 
as a human being 
acquire a difficult shape 
because they try 
to make you learn these by force, 
fearing you won't be of any use without them. 
In your natural state you could have been useful, 
at least like a plant that just grows, 
giving its little share of oxygen, 
shade and a little starter to some hungry goat. 
But the attempt surely leaves you useless -- 
to them at least. 

The door divine

 

Thus speaks the river with its windy roar
and its ripply divinity all pure:

There is a hole in my heart 
that I offer you 
as a passage 
to move on your journey!

The Chief Butler

Caught in our kisses and love-loops,
The ecstatic time pays salutes!

Holy passage

 There is a hole in my heart 
that I offer you as a passage
to move on your journey!

Lotus

 

A discards and junk pile,--

a heap of things having run their last mile;

lying at home,

Rust and dust winning over chrome,

I take it to a dump site,

Fly there scavenging black kite,

A foul-smelling hill

giving a repulsive, obnoxious chill;

strikes you with a stunning sense shrill,

A reverse pit

for our consumerist soul’s shit,

Hanky on the nose

avoid we hellish dose,

The stinking heap,--

excreta born of our growth and leap,

My junk I throw

with breath paused and tensioned brow,

Then I see him work

amid all this squalor and murk,

He works with poise and ease,

Scavenging consumer shit for meager lease,

This is the junk worker’s

office, factory, firm and field

welcoming him with its tiny yield,

He looks at me with a smile,

A flower in odor vile,

He isn’t ashamed or apologetic about his job

where scavenging rodents throb,

He sorts the squalor with ease

unbothered about the dirty, repugnant squeeze,

This is the dirty pit of his karma holy,

Absorbed he is without complex and folly,

His gentle toil

in the mucking soil,

He squeezes the muck

for some survival buck,

His bearing shows he honors it,

Doesn’t cringe and complain a bit

unconcerned about all this shit,

As I dump the waste,

He welcomes me with a smile chaste,

I forget my running haste,

Looking at his smile and honor to his task

without any frowning mask,

I feel at ease

and make him tease,

‘My junk won’t have much,

it's worthless such,’

No problem, he says

with a smile as if he prays,

From my pile takes a little cardboard box,

smiles like a pleased clever fox

and says thank you

with a bright, clear, clean soul’s hue.