With softly pining majesty, silence sings a song,
Shadows grow long,
Her soft fingers brace my face
and go along a tears trace.
Delicate tip of her finger bears the jewel,
The tear the would have been lost as salt on my face.
Sandeep Dahiya

Love Bites

 The poisonous black coils hiss

and entangled in fanged loops go for a kiss.

Two glossy-black slithery bodies

lost in the fearsome quagmire of poisoned passion

eat each other’s identity in some unheard fashion.

The venomous fangs,

Lay bare their monstrosity,

making the moments vicious, stealthy, dangerous.

The tongues of death

nastily sway to a mysterious song,

It is like brutal soldiers of death

marching on a bloody path endlessly long.

It is like death dancing:

Its poisoned lips heaving, pushing its mighty pout

against the innocent, pure face of mortality.

Pitted against the cataclysmic forces of death,

the lovely pink sheen on the pristine face prevails.

Its softest brace breaks the hardest stones.

The fierce aura suddenly bids time to stay still,

to extinguish its fire at the acme:

the pleasure-topped hill.

The love prevails,

The horrible storm loses its restless travails

in the hazily lit mellowness of ecstatic surrender:

Defanged, depoisoned.

They are now just two beautiful creatures.

Some lines for some time in future

When thy eyes begin to glow dimly

And walk form not a rhyme with body;

Flowers when gone for a single lily

And world's eyes see not once fair lady;

When even cup loaths thy shaky pout

And time engrave its loath on thy rosy cheeks;

Eyelids drop when for vision out

And life only but leaks;

When thy grey hair die day by day

And all crests shrink to troughs;

See thou not when a single ray

And violently shake thee those coughs.

Then dear, pick my book up,–

Where thy youth shines immortally,

Untampered by the time's hand rough

Tryst with Destiny   

To be popular and great

is the biggest bait,

So many of us miss the charming date

to get a favorable alliance

between hard work and fate,

Alas but its always too late

by the time journey comes to a sudden halt,

The bubble then bursts,

Names and dates turn to ashes,

Unconcerned world goes on

as usual with pompous dashes,

As soon as you become past,

Redundant thy memories turn really fast,

Still we surrender to the bait,

May be its just our inevitable, humble fate.

Betrayal

Life! You are plainly a treacherous friend,

He loved you more than himself,

Nurtured you with the most potent,

pious and vigorous juices of innocent childhood;

Fattened thy fibers

with the impassioned heartbeats of youth;

Increased the aura around your hallowed head

through graceful wisdom and talks of ripening age.

He made you the charming queen of his dreams,

With decades of love and toil,

he prepared a glittering palace for you,

And then you eloped,

Eloped with dark-winged shadows of death,

You crazy one!

Right from the start you were in

blind love with the angels of death.

Yet all he did was to love you,

Love you from the core of his soul.

Blossomed he a flower

that was always love-lorn for the

ghastly clutch  from the other world,

Now, here lies your lover’s corpse

and you make merry with your evil playmate,

hidden in the darkest chambers.

Spring Rose

Spring rose!

Pampered by nights’ dewy dose

your full-lipped pout

invites stingy, sucking bites

from black bee, the lout!

You but mind it not

and give fresh flashes and fragrant shot,

Your lover’s impassioned gasps hot,

shake you up like a storm tossing a boat,

You but still smile,

Pure, unstinted, without any guile!

You have the softest, petalous lips,

And like a rapist he just sips

the feminine juices of your blood,

You rosy red and he black,

His crazy, blind passion lets loose a flood,

His darkish, sweating, contorted face,

How murderously he responds

to your innocent, breezy grace!

Greedily he goes on,

Those fiery grunts, subduing your softest moan,

And reaching the dangerous peaks

where his unquenchable thirst shrieks,

The plunderer flies away!

Away! Where more fresh faces sway,

You but still smile,

His love bites prominent on your lovely face,

Aha, undefeatable is this grace!

Vandalized Rose

Full moon night and this pond!

The sky flaunts its full-faced beauty,

The pond too kisses

the mirage, the reflection!

Love-lorn, the gentlest waves

caress the lovely, tricky mirage,

Ducks quack!

From the shore-side bushes

a bird suddenly goes for a night song,

With expert ease

and like nimblest breeze

suddenly a pack of night-fliers arrives,

And the hawks go for a hearty feast,

for every hungry belly is a beast,

Sharp talons, strong beaks, sturdy wings,

The air with pugnacity sings,

They swoop down on the soft delicacies

enjoying the soft bedspread  on ripply waves,

That lotus too bears a talon scar,

The birds of prey swoop down for one-sided war,

Soft flesh; rock hard claws,

How easily soft life’s skin saws!

There is blood, noise and shrieks,

This softest of solitude creaks

And breaks down  in the tight, lusty embrace of the storm,

A piece of black cloud  takes the milky full-face

in its dark, mating brace,

There is darkness, blood, bites and noise,

Those dreamful moments lost of their poise!

Now, the oblivious cloud,

free of its impassioned hinges,

flies away, surrendered to the winds,

The sad beauty smiles again,

And throws its tired, tamed milkiness

on this torn serenity and pause,

lying here like a vandalized rose!

Illustrious Sun

He was great in his own ways,

A small but substantial sun

brilliantly scattering its rays

across his being’s orbit,

We the planets majestically circling,

Sourced by him and always in debit,

He was fiery

and spun on his axis with copious fury,

His eyes had dreams,

Dreams of all of us becoming stars,

But fate was always at wars,

In the infinite and mysterious cosmic gloom

disposals were always in full bloom,

He and the family spun,

The supreme intelligence had pun for a fun.

We had our fire storms

and titillating, exciting bumps and smooth rides

in our small cozy orbits,

The burning core of his being

sucked fuel from the happiness born of

big dreams of his planets becoming stars,

But dreams are what?

May be they are the pyres in disguise!

In his own fire he collapsed,

From a distance the chunks of his own body

saw him being consumed by the same fiery tongues

that had zealously chorused his dreams,

There was an explosion,

His pieces were blown into

the depthless void of eternity,

And we the plants,

Shook, sobbed, stopped;

fatherless in our cradling orbits,

With horror and sorrow

we watched the cataclysmic fire,

Then helplessly driven by cosmic forces,

we were carried ahead by time’s horses.

A Moment Lives, Dies, Becomes Immortal

A dead mouse lies,

Forlornly the April air sighs,

Water in a nearby puddle dries,

A dung-beetle hurriedly tries

to roll its trophy; take home as pies.

There on the infinite, blue calm of the skies,

an eagle air-dives for ecstatic highs,

With death, decay and destruction,

its hunter instinct vies,

From the faded, sunburnt petals of that flower,

the short spring says byes.

Lower and lower the hunter comes,

It eyes the humble measles

a former life has still to offer,

Driven by the expert dynamics of its airy skill,

It goes for the carcass’ kill,

Triumphantly it ascends,

The trophy held in its talons,

A sparrow chirps as if crying of murder,

Another bird sounds applauding,

A curious mix:

The nature in qualityless, impersonal fluid.

Unseenly a chapter is closed,

The slumberous panorama, meanwhile, dozed

1412^TH Toy

So they are clapping for their achievement!

They are celebrating the 1412^th tiger in this land

where my forefather roamed to make legends.

But before they take all the credit

for saving my species,

Let me—a mere skinny kitten—clarify:

A tiger born in a zoo is no tiger!

An animal opening its eyes for the first time

among self-vaunting humans is no animal,

It’s a mere flesh and blood toy

conceived by semi-dark conscience

and mechanical techniques.

No man! No I’m no tiger!

I’m just a tiny means to allow you mighty

people to get some solace,

The genes in me have been broken

through your rampages across my lands,

You people know me as a mighty

hunter galloping after my prey,

And here in the confines of this cage

My parents forgot that they were tigers,

Your cages just define we poor animals

Just as poor dependents,

The showcase items for your kids,

To be hooted at,

To be laughed at,

To be mocked at,

No man no! I am no tiger!

I’m just a proof of your outgrowing

your shoes,

What tiger is a tiger that is tame,

It hangs down its tail in shame,

Yes man, you win!

And I bear the burden of being a tiger,

even though my genes have been changed!

Kiss of Death

Life! My purest kisses on your lips

were the honest stamps of

genuine love and loyalty,

I was in supremely pure love,

Even though my delicate, soft smooches

were returned by you as bleeding bites,

I always smiled,

ascending higher and higher to loftiest  delights.

Each moment found me unprecedently crazy,

infatuated and caught in the sweet

tentacles  of unreined, unrestrained love,

You but always bit back more viciously,

Oh thou heartless seductress!

Taking the poison as sweetest honey,

with bleeding lips I always smiled,

Cuts after cuts you gave,

even before the previous blood dried.

You only sucked,

I just gave rosy hues to you,

and you returned deadly blue,

Still smile and sweetness never

left my bloody lips,

How crazily I shed those lifeful drips!

Blindly I surrendered my being before you,

And you tricked me,

for I always saw life in that deadly hue.

Greedily gasping with venomous sighs and winner’s hiss,

You now approach with that final kiss

to deprive me of final breaths,

Life! Aren’t you ashamed of cheating someone

who perhaps loved you the most?

Flying Kiss

  In these slumberous vales

and shy, silent dales,

My spirit escapes the clutch-hold

of my confined being,

And ecstatically saunters away

to those snow-melting peaks,

where the March sun breastfeeds

many a tiny rivulets,

Like a helpless, rooted palm,

I assuage myself and put balm

on my constricted conscience,

Cold sighs I vent out,

 as the pinnacled majesty winks

from far with a seductive pout,

And my forlorn spirit runs amuck

and flies to kiss those

coyly surrendering, shining crystals,--

Away, away where rock’s snobby

ego melts maternally!

A Plump Hatch, and Tiny Catch

The day rose

after that stand-still, dark pause,

Like an infant’s mysterious muse,

pinkish horizon took shape

with dreams huge.

Warmth and light fastly spread,

Light prevailed and darkness retreated

with an uncharacteristic dread,

Shadows first lengthened

and then shrank to become bold;

clung firmly to get noontime foothold.

With crowning majesty,

the moments moved towards the zenith,

Everything warmed for brightest glory,

With a firmly straight venture

written was that glorious story,

Roses, roses all the way,

Endless seemed that ray,

Meanwhile the pendulum

swung the other way,

During the lazy afternoon’s lugubrious sway,

shadows silently crept away,

In that slumberous silence,

many a leaves gave away

to the titillating pulls of

mother earth’s gravity song,

Shadows panicked and slowly-slowly

ebbed away to become long,

The other horizon now crimson and red,

It sprayed colors sad,

Lolloping tongues of its funeral fury,

firmed up like death sentencing jury,

Tired voices, slow steps, ebbing strength:

The day that had risen

with such pomp and show,

It was wiped away after that

feeble twilighty ‘no’ .

Criminal Moment

There were times

and there would be times,

But endless is the moment

that still chimes

with the evil song and music of a crime,

A crime when it plucked a life

like a thief sneaking away with last breath

amidst heartbeats missing their mark

imperiled by that chaos and strife.

I bear witness against that murderous moment,

when I was left fatherless and

put on an unprotected plane like never before,

Like a boatman cast away

countless treacherous miles from the shore;

Like a pariah face

Bumping against a slammed, shut door.

No a fatherless being can’t be

the same anymore,

Moments will come

and moments will go,

But the steely vessel of my being                                   

is almost cut to depth by that perilous hoe.