Destinies in Drunken Laps

 

Like a drunken old man,

The tree sways to the December breeze,

Intoxication of age, alcohol in one,

The other with the spirit of the air,

A boozy synchronism!

The old man and the tree,

Winy hearts and the swings.

 

Legs unsteady; walked too much,

The tree too, does it

sillily in the syrupy cold,

Veins and vegetations drunk!

Synchronicity involves two more elements:

A caterpillar among the leaves,

Clutching like the grandson

in the grandpa’s fragile, shaky arms,

And so the swaying moments go on,

The tree and the old man gyrate,

The infant, the caterpillar hold.

 

Really gentle is the breeze,

Makes not noise among the leaves,

Soufflés inside the body old,

Gentle and feeble same,

Very calm and noiseless!

Some leaves now and then

break off and fall serenely;

A sylvan goddess plucking them,

Similarly, the likes of the old man,

Full with age, go heavenwards,

The leaves around the caterpillar’s,

The old men around the boy’s,

Calmly fall one by one,

But they hold on,

The caterpillar and the child.

An Atom Leaps, Snakes Hiss Around

 

Purple clouds, fires ablaze,

The atom danced profusely,

The soil around its feet got burnt,

The choreographer talked peace in future,

Peace! In invisible poisoned wombs,

Not in the beak of the pigeon white,

The reactor fumes coloured it black,

The black messenger flew around for fifty years,

Talking of peace with its

tearing talons ready to prey upon

anyone who won’t believe in manufactured peace.

 

Death centred on missiles privileged

blackened earth dark without peace,

A trauma of half century,

When thousand Buddhas smiled and feigned peace,

A peaceful country now becomes

more so with another noise underground,

And lo an earthquake endangers all

who had been made too safe by

the numerous stockpiles around;

The nuclear snakes,

which can bite for once and all,

Point now poison in an earthworm,

Why not? A few furrows by the latter

lay bare the hollowness beneath.

 

The nation that never hissed,

Only jumped like a rabbit under attack,

Now takes shelter in the steely womb,

which the python cannot digest,

Nor can play the cat and mouse;

And the mighty keepers of peace

go making floods of tears around.

Beloved, Thou art Life’s Sestet

 

Your love became soul’s food,

O my lyrical lyre special;

Intoxicated was every pore and cell,

Mind lost its relevance,

Only heart ruled over the show.

 

Body vibrated with thy name,

Love-blinded, the eyes saw only your dreams,

Thy voice drummed on the plane of my being,

Millions of nerves sensed only you.

 

Time and this world sped off for me,

I got time-frozen for the eyes deep and brown;

Red, curvy lips eager for a smile,

That moony face bewitched me.

 

Path’s prickles smiled like you,

I stepped over, where was the pain!

The mind didn’t reason with heart anymore,

Even in sadness I glowed with visions thine.

 

Now, away you are; ever to be seen?

The soul cries, lynches each second passing by,

But, thou are my last lines,

And will remain so, till I die.

Fenced Jaunties

 

Billions jangle, survive, obey

the instructions of a single urge;

Of infinity,

finites which itself

by kraaling simpletons in a common craze,

It lounges to exist forever,

And the night-walkers sleep-walking,

Moving in the shadows

and believing it to be a bright sunny day.

 

The ever prudent God, the shrewd muleteer!

Measures His fathomless depths

with puppets playing on strings of ecstasy and tragedy;

The luminary lights a bit of the stage,

Death and darkness but circle around,

where the light of reason and faith

escapes with the escaping soul.

 

The five senses slipping over the oily scalp;

Tongues turned steely by quoting borrowed words,

Nostrils get clogged with the smell of decay,

Eyes take the last shot of the puzzles around,

Ears drum for the last to the eternity’s beat,

The touch of mystery leaves more clueless,

And all it turns out is a

journey from nowhere to nowhere.

 

Sheep peeping across the fences barbed,

Hoy! Bleating jargon longing to voice the truth last;

The final mystery meanwhile

buried underwater like the lotus roots,

Above, a water lily blooms under the owl light,

Excitedly flickering to pamper

the Himalayan vanities scattered around.

To Talk Small; To Talk to Earth

 

Hiccups come whooshing like arrows,

Bowed backs, tension-stringed souls,

The tension stored from the time immemorial,

And the sobs go squelching.

 

Ye squeak only, bad marksmen!

Your shots just firecrackers

around the towers of the exploiters,

The towers hanging sprucely, with talons.

 

Tag-rags! Thou from yore,

From womb to the grave,

Cry just one by one;

Individually and separately,

Pouring saline anguish on wasted cheeks.

 

Ever eager to attack

the heavenly vaults for the evils all;

Hands ready to break His head,

Never but the real cause lying nearest.

 

You murder prophets easily,

Never but support the champion of liberty,

So you remain as ever,

Ugh, historically the same beaten class!

 

Yoke fellows! Please let Him rest,

If eager to weep yet,

Then cry ghoulishly in a chorus,

Like Shiva’s drumbeats.

 

Or waste not anguish in tears,

And noises that fall on ears deaf,

Shout Tally Ho! For history’s sake,

Let it progress by a different type of change.

Jailed by Destiny

 

With every sinew losing out,

There lies the nest of my hopes,

Scattered like dying, gasping fishes,

Destiny chuckles over the vaporizing,

fading signs of its opposition.

 

Why not? Sinners are those

who toil against the lines of fate

drawn on our palms;

The web of destiny

that limits and chains ventures all,

And the puppets merely dancing to its tune.

Every pulse, dying or born,

Here in this world, or the other;

From the first cry to the last in an abyss,

We are just tools in the great reaper’s hands,

The cruel General leads an army

comprising we the puny foot-soldiers,

Fighting against each other;

Instruments and weapons in millions of hands,

The leader uses one to cut, thrash and mow the other.

 

Each hope and cause great

turn the sins bigger for the mighty ringleader,

And I am the biggest sinner,

With my misplaced ideals and misfitted compassion;

Now I stand amidst my garbage,

Unworthy, hopeless and thoroughly beaten.

Escapades from the Pyre

 

Hot ash of the cremated,

There lies the voice of the Himalayas,

Stood which rock firm,

Now turned into grains few

by the holy flames,

Fire ate the fire—

an elaborate oasis

combusted to a desert small.

 

Hot air rising upwards

with liberating soul

and mourners’ tears,

To make rain of it,

which will shower upon a flower

manured by the cemetery’s ashes;

‘Will’ dies never,

The passion of a life whole

now forms the flower of a single day!