The dying year

You salute the rising sun and the upcoming fates,

And dump the rest as mere names and dates.

But my burdened self on death bed (or in labour pain?) sighs,

'Dears, you forget those fallen promises amidst these hasty byes!'

Hope

 This foggy, cold midnight says,

The next sun will have fresh rays

that will warmly gloat over the wrong shades

bitingly, filthily draped around the 

beleaguered, beggared, deprived mass of flesh,

Tomorrow it just won't be mere trash!

A beginning it will be, all new and fresh!

The queen of a reverse world

 

I stand upright in my reverse world,

With my own shape uniquely curled

as per my own unchained ways,

Your nights are my days,

You are free to scorn or spurn

or even try to burn

my freedom wings,

O thou vain kings,

futile will be thy taming strings,

How can you tame someone whose soul sings

the songs of formless love,

Eagles you can't hunt this dove

because when you pursue me

you have your legs where

your head ought to be.

Lord's searchlight

 

It’s a rapidly greying, gloomy world

and the Lord has to hide and peep

through a hole

—a thin sunbeam through a hole in clouds—  

to spot any trace of

truth and honesty

that may be lying around.

Owning the entire self

 

Here I own my entire identity;

no need to just run after

fractions of myself that are

eulogized as pathways to the ultimate.

It might be that this ‘I’ in me

breeds my wickedness,

But doesn’t it sire

my art, writing, music and painting?

A little bit of goodness

 

Basically, the main recipe of the dish

involves dishonesty and fraud,

The so-called honesty

is just a tiny ingredient

used as a spice while frying.

But however bad the times are,

the table full of rogue, fake, swindled dishes

won’t be serviceable

if not for those tiny sprinklers of honesty,

That’s the power of honesty and goodness,

Its little molecule can carry

mountain loads of lies and deceit.

Big Brother

 

Big Brother,

O thou mighty cult leader,

I’m afraid you ‘rule’, not ‘serve’,

You majestically float

above the ground realities

and cast a shadow

which clouds our minds

with downsizing rhetoric, jingoism,

ideologies and vain principles,

No wonder, we turn blind followers

and lose ‘independence of thought

and spontaneity of action’,

Our collective mind gets primed

for a doctored reality

where you turn the ultimate savior.

I’m not surprised that

you have an inherent distaste

for free thinkers, intellectuals,

artists and philosophers,

You just hate anyone

who doesn’t fit in the

the mold of your doctored reality.

Monsoons

 

Amid the burning sands of June,

when a koel sings a sweet song,

it’s nothing but mother earth’s

pining melody to cajole father sky

into clouds of emotions and precipitation,

He then embraces her

with his showery arms.

And smoldering in this heat,

dear reader,

here we wait for the monsoons.  

Some soup of peace in a solitary bowl

 

Here I stand on the edge

of a stony ledge

and look into the calm vastness

filled in this small bowl

of a little valley,

There is guileless silence,

I look with enormous wonderment,

Here the knots and blots of

forbidden intimacies open up,

and twisted love becomes peace.

A little stream flows

with astounding fluidity,

The sun marveling at

its own exquisite, ripply reflection

in a little pool,

Silence and peace

hung between timidity and cordiality,

Languorous sky imbued with solemnity,

And a lone lark

keeping  a solitary vigilance

over this unruffled, calm and gentility

in a little corner

far away from all

noise, wars, tantrums and fights.

The cost of love

 

The foaming sea of memories

swashing on the

hot beach of my heart,

carrying infinite illusions

on the muleback,

Her beauty’s fireworks keeping alive

the youthful torrents of love

even in a greying head,

Caught in the throbs of love and longing,

Mired in endless suffocating tedium

following the ephemeral splendor,

sumptuous ceremonies

and celebrations of fresh love,

here I plod like a luckless ass

sinking into the quicksands of pain.

Aah, the barbarous vacillations of time!

My persona mined with pain

born of the love that was lost,

Misery pulling me with abominable longing,

I walk with faltering strides,

She is still there

as a mirage on the burning sands,

Smiling, drawing me further

into the barren innards of the desert,

where there is no water,

hope, flower or trees,

This is the cost

she still demands for our shared past.