A deal

Why do most of the
relationships fall apart?

Because a fake buyer

met a simple but eager seller.

When two people meet,

a man and a woman,

and woo each other 

to win their respective favours,--

Some body's delight,

Some balm for the heart in plight.

They tease and bait

testing their fate,

To catch the coveted fish of pleasure,

or gems from heart's hidden treasure,

But baiting naturally involves attraction,

A cute hypnotism and some innocent distraction,

The hook needs a tasty worm,

It's a claw disguised as food

waiting in the stream of varying mood.

It's a sweet tussle of flesh and spirit,

One catches

and the other gets caught

after a nice extravagantly battle fought,

It's a complete play

involving dialogues, drama and plot,

The pursuit should be hot.

For her, the ignition of initial chemistry needs 

a handsome knight in shiny armour

capable of carrying all the colors of her dreams,

While she has to be a beautiful princess

full of promises 

carrying fidelity, pleasure, care and share,

The expectations are high

as both vie 

to fit in the other's eye,

So both adorn a nice costume

befitting the other's brightest dreams.

The man comes with more fakery

than the woman

because he has to catch the huge whale 

of her expectations of a complete man,

He thus dons a glittering costume

to match the stars in her eyes,

While a woman need not fake at all

beyond faint brushing of her physical charms,

as that is all that swarms

the infatuated man's brain and brawn,

Her beauty is all that is there to see,

The man is eying only that with a glee.

Thus a fake customer meets

a simple, coquettish seller,

Promising to buy the entirety of her dream,

Leaves that her in an ecstatic stream,

The deal thus gets done,

Proceeds then all fun,

Sadly, after the pleasure-run

his costumes come off gradually,

She is now surrounded by her broken dreams,

The naked stranger stands affront,

Now she can hardly recognise 

the purchaser of her dreams,

Her soul screams

as she realises that

she'd sold herself on fake promissory notes.

The strangers then fight,

The love-flower bugged with blight,

Darkness where it was all bright,

Hopes now out of sight,

They now bargain a separation,

Guilt, anger, accusations, justifications fly

not leaving any space even for a smiling bye. 

The broken boulder

The promises were all rosy
to make my dreamy world all cosy,

And I believed you,

Believed the blushing hue

on your face

whispered as 'love you' in my embrace.

Believed the honesty of light

in those eyes, big, dark and deep,

They looked a clam, balmy sea

for me

to swim, sunbathe and reach home

to that island bearing the love-dome.

Believed the purity of that kiss

purred with a seductive soft hiss

on my lips

with ecstatic coquettish drips.

Promises are made to be broken,

I should have known,

You think you just broke a little vow,

A tiny promise,

A dewy fragile word,

Or just the brittle assurance of a kiss,

Or a few stars in the eyes,

You think these are small cuts,

not amounting to a big sin or murder,

Dear let me tell you,

These are the major cleavages

in the dam,

Every stone has a brittle seam,

Hit it there with the tiny chisels of

unkept promises, fake stars in the eyes,

lying kisses and feigned whispers

caressing the earlobes,

Hit the mightiest stone with them,

And its stoniness lays bare,

There it lies broken,

It'll withstand a strike

by the head-on strike of a bull,

But it will fall apart 

by the strike of a tiny chisel

that knows where to strike the softest spot.

Clever are the feminine strikes,

They hit deep,

The masculine blind force hits

just the surface to give a skin-bruise,

But yours lays bare the entire structure loose.

All done 

and moving ahead for more fun, 

And clever enough to put all blame on me,

Using the male's kitty of stereotyped blames,

Judged yourself to be the victim

and me the culprit 

in your own court

using your own laws

your own arguments

shouted by your own lawyers 

and the smart verdict by your own judge.

Confidently you broke the stone

and left it scattered with its painful moan. 

A new day

Masculine dark with its handsome, callused charms
melting in the arms

of soft, gauzy traces of feminine light,

to conceive a morning twilight,

Give they birth then to a day bright,

Warm sunrays for

the leaves suffering frostbite,

The soft petals that

stood against the icy might

during the night,

The stars all out of sight,

Now the morning sun arrives 

for a dewy delight.

I also come down from some lonely height

and open my senses

to what is their natural right.

It's lovely to see

and just be

with all that was lost

when darkness was the host,

It's an assurance to find

the same world behind

the night's curtain blind,

Walk, hop, jog and run,

Fatherly smiles the sun,

Dance on the stage till you're done,

Draw all the sweet pun

and ensure grudges are left none. 

The mighty puppeteer

Love makes
then breaks,

From the pleasure pool

goes into a teary sea the fool,

Love, the tireless fiction writer seeking glory,

Writes it then another story,

The stage shifts,

The protagonists drift,

The characters move

in full groove

with the new stage,

And pain in hearts rage

of those who are left out,

Give they nostalgic shout.

It's now a new drama and fresh game,

But the story's moral stays the same,

Love is the puppeteer,

Juggles and shuffles

various characters from different stories,

Old ones pushed away,

New dreams hold sway

for the fresh arrivals,

They excitedly brush against each other,

Spins it out more stories,

They look all different and fresh,

But are essentially the same

boosted by the new crush.

All this while,

love shapes

then reshapes

the same clay 

for its titillating play,

Some tears of pain

to pay for someone's pleasure and gain,

A teary rain

goes in vain

in the eyes now turned a stranger's,

A sad, resigned smile

to pay for someone's new guile,

A cry

for someone's heart gone dry,

Some pieces broken

for someone's completion.

Love, the master, is never short of carriers,--

the vast effulgent sea of emotions

seething, boiling in many a heart,

So many volunteers to bear the burden

on their shoulders with glory and glee,

It's a sadistic delight to be its prisoner,

Privileged feels the carrier,

the poor bearer

of the royal palanquin.

And the show goes on

amidst joyful shouts and many a painful moan,

Some eyes lose their stars

that shoot off and find new

fresh dew

on the flowers in fresher eyes,

The old one just sadly sighs,

Thus, the show of love goes on,

The same old story

but the characters heartlessly ruffled 

and mindlessly shuffled. 

 

A full moon night in a forest

The full moon
smiles through a canopied, leafy screen
of the chir-pine forest

to light a tiny lamp

for some soul caught in depressing swamp,

To light a heart gone all dark and damp.

The crickets jingle

to mingle

with a broken dream's notes stale,

And compose songs to fill up the little dale.

The mountain wind drums,

Silence hums

a song using hardly pine needles,

An owl mischievously twiddles

the brooding shadows with its hoot,

Unconcerned the wind plays its song,

Unbothered of the mysterious shadows

that throng

the looming swabs of darkness

around the moony raylets

filtering through the canopy,

It's a tune of mother nature's

unbound hilarity

unmatched in parity.

The dew-crowned wilderness,

The music fragrant,

Intoxicating,

A natural brew against dark fate's bite,

A soft, fragrant heart's culinary delight,

The bushy growths looking up at the trees' height

to become a stalwart tree

and kiss someday the air all free.

There are corners where 

no sunrays come kissing earth,

They miss the morning mists of the valley,

Life and living longing to bloom up

with joy and energetic girth,

The secluded corners look at the moon

for some solace and soul's boon,

The sun is too shiny and still shuns them,

The moon they can cajole and caress.

The peaks around

looming with a pride unbound,

Then the moony beauty caresses

their hard edges,

They melt and abandon their arrogance's badges,

The highest of the high

surrender their arrogance 

with a palpable sigh.

The play of the moon on the darkness,

A mystical combo of white and dark,

Light gently creeps into

the folds of darkness,

Not trying to annihilate it,

Just zestfully temper with it a bit,

So that it melts somewhat

to pleasant shades of gray.

A lovely transformation in a mountain forest

on this full moon night,

There are hearts that can delight

in these subtle shades,

The day hides so many things

which now come out for freedom and liberation,

Free from all prying eyes

and dry, dreadful sighs. 

  

Ode to an autumnal full moon

A full moon,
shining like the sun on a joyful noon,
on this autumnal night,

What a wonderous sight!

The milky rays,

Whispers through them divinity and says,

'Sleep thou my child

after the daylong hankering wild!'

The darkness is lit,

The milky rays even sneak a bit

into my tired, resting heart,

and stroke to life some sleeping art,

creating a smile on my dreamy face,

A glow, a hope, a new dream's trace,

Its lovey, soft fingers brace

with a caring lover's grace,

The pain gone,

after a soft mumbling and sleepy moan,

The full moon just for me shone.

The milky, translucent nectar

filtering through a veil of dewy mist,

It assuages, alleviates the pain

born of dreams broken

still tightly held in my fist, 

The shattered love pieces

held in my grasp like gems,

The glassy shattered pieces

still cut the flesh on my grasping palm,

and the heart finding this sweet pain a balm.

The night jasmine is all abloom,

all fragrant with a seductive smile,

And darkness hiding in little corners

with a predatory guile,

All and everything relaxed

after crossing another mile,

With dreams of repeating the same

with the coming new sun's fame.

Some lone lark,

fighting its sorrowful dark,

lets loose a pining song

finding its loneliness too long,

The sadly sweet notes awaken me

and ask me to be

a witness of their melodious litigation

in the final court for some mitigation.

The full moon on a misty night,

and the lark's song of sorrowful delight. 

Shy, scared verses

Where does my poetry surface the best?

Where do my emotions aren't shy to come out?

Where does my poetry feel safest?
It seeks disposable scraps of paper,

Ruffled, frayed, crumpled chits of paper,--

An old bill of no use now;

some shopkeeper's calculating scrawl;

some time-worn receipts;

some redundant acknowledgments,

Anything that has no value anymore

to lay claim to something higher 

than some defeated verses.

My poems, my emotions' offsprings

seek these dustbinned items

and cling to them 

like autumnal dew clings to fresh roses,

Both are unrequired expressions

beyond monetary valuation,--

One of a petty task done,

The other just lost pieces 

of a necklace broken by time and people,

Both are floating around to cling 

to some similar worthless fragments.

The scraps and chits of paper look

eager to voluntarily enter their grave,

The verses avoid shiny, sleek pages

and well-bound diaries,

or a flower-bordered, fragrant paper,

or the shiny screen of a notepad,

or costly computer,

or a precious smartphone,

They are afraid of them, these verses mine,

Like a beggar scared of a palatial bungalow,

They seek poor quarters,

where they won't feel 

the shame of their nakedness,

where they can merge 

with the filth, squalor and misery,

They just need a poor quarter 

to hide and feel safe and alive,

They just need poor, soiled clothes

to hide their poor, pathetic body,

They merely seek something

that's of no use to humans,

Maybe they want to hide

even from their own self,

They are looking for things

that are even more valueless 

than the paper scraps in a dustbin.