Iron Lady

It is noisy chaos,

Delhi at its best,

Impatient horns, smoky guffaws,

tired engines, shouts, dust,…

The lotus, but, shines in the mud.

Pulling the carrier rickshaw she is unfazed,

Two kids, a goat, a bundle of poor provisions

safely in tow,

Like a valiant captain at the best row.

Clad in a dirty saree

she shines like a queen,

I don’t think femininity had ever been

so illustrious in its sheen.

Meanwhile, madly mechanized world hisses,

But its lolloping tongue meekly kisses

the dirt on her hardened feet,

She pulls the rickshaw with pride

in full maternal heat,

Cramped for space she turns the tide,

The goat and the kids though panicked,

but the mother carries on the fight

in the traffic jam,

Fights for space with utmost grace,

and clears like a swiftest deer’s brace.

Old Bull and the Dead Wood

 I’m an old bull,

My rock-hard bones heave and pull

the rickety cart,

I’m skinny but perfect in my belief

that I’ve to justify my morsels before I depart.

I carry a dead body that once was

a robust attire for some sylvan soul,

It was an honest being;

this long, hard body,

It fulfilled all its duties without exception.

But then this is the age of vandals,

They can just vandalize only,

They axed it, chopped it.

I now carry the carcass

as the trophy of their triumphant glory,

I but silently mull over this murder story.

Delhi around me boasts of its mechanized colors;

cars, megamalls,  skyscrapers,

westernized guys and galls,

and thousands of glamorous pitfalls.

Haa..wonder they can’t do without me!

With salivated gusto

my labored breathing eggs me on,

while my victimized skeleton creaks and bemoan.

The flyover is the challenge,

My owner beats my back like an enemy,

It is a treacherous task,

But it is my duty to carry the body

for its final rites,

otherwise someone will miss

many a drawing room delights.

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.