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.
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 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.
O thou poor mankind,
A king in deluxe imprisonment,
Reveling in entanglements of prejudices,
Enjoying conventions and their privileges,
Illegalities creeping in the shadows
of name and fame,
While mother nature
watching with silent fury
the child’s twisted innocence
and dominant frivolities,
His soul rusting due to routine,
The material self moving
with a firm, commanding step,
The fat hominid arrogance
smirking with malicious fullness,
Surrendered to splendid helplessness
and puerile amusement,--
A king indeed
who learnt to rule hell
after destroying all that
which was once heaven.
Far away from
tiresome illusions;
the rancor and bitterness of
abundant moral rigidities;
where love’s crazy preambles
push one against the other
for mad passion leading to
loveless entanglements and relationships;
where the best plan can be
to gulp down humiliation
in a single swallow;
the dormant grief seeking exit
through illusionary pathways;
helpless, exhausted mind
ironing and re-ironing the past;
ensnared in custom’s captivity;
sickened souls infested with bugs of gloom;
ruled by the confidantes of whispering shadows;
the embittered paradise
with its wreckage of social weight;
where one ought to
learn to love practically and survive;
the ghosts of guilt
soaping and cleaning the dusted conscience;
where one’s always pursued
by an unknowable shadow
with its secret impulses of
tenacious longing,
catching one in a blinding flash of immaturity;
where what strikes as love
is usually an assemblage of conveniences—
name, fame, home, hearth, security and wealth;
where the mistress of fate
rules with fantasies of sin and whispers,
‘You can be happy in love many times’;
Where the custom of normal love
is simply for routine use;
where dreams are always shifting away
from the zone of possibility.
Away from all this
wreckage of social weight,
Away from the
cuffs and collars of pretensions,
Here in this restorative solitude,
The seed of joy sprouting
from the mystery-shrouded soil,
Here I feel love without lies,
Here fears reconcile to refreshed vitality
and the soul feels pure love,--
the one primary love
that is immune to all contagions.
She thought she’d found an exotic bird,
All past disappointments blurred,
Love adopted a new word,
Joyfully her female self stirred,
But alas he turned out to be a nerd
deeply absorbed in black and white;
carried just a quite light,
It was no rainbow bright,
The prince of her dreams out of sight,
Again a restless night
after that free float and frolicking flight,
Vanished that fresh delight
when arrived the repackaged love,
The bruised self coming to life with fresh shove,
It was but the same hand
in a different glove.
There she stood with her broken dreams,
Shorn of newfound themes,
Trashed were all schemes,
Dry went the ripply streams.
Back to the same self,
Again the same painful yelp.
But was it his fault
if her feminine fancy hit the vault
and soul absorbed in new exalt?
Fault wasn’t on his part,
Like hers it was similar heart
passionate about some art,
But looking for a new start
she assumed him to be high, apart
and extremely smart.
He was just the same,
Like anyone for blame
or simple, common acclaim,
But the unmet dreams in her eyes
filled up the colors of fame
in his empty and simple canvas.
He was just a creation of her own,
A normal man put on illustrious throne,
He was no king
to whom her creation could cling
and joyfully sing
the ever-fresh love song,
And before long
she realized something was wrong
because missing was heart’s gong,
She saw the reality with sad eyes
and read many lies
that her colorful dreams had told,--
As gold stones were sold.
Whose fault is this?
Whom to blame for the miss?
Who couldn’t sustain the bliss
of the fresh love’s kiss?
Is it the man for being the cast
spread where her dreams vast?
Is it the woman who cast colors her own
with her spirit all excitedly flown?
Such killer June heat,
Sun greedy for a new fiery feat,
The wind doth burn,
Almost melting the fern.
A little swab of cloud
pitied life caught in smoldering shroud,
Thundered and struck a lightning note,
With its little waters it fought
a small garden’s thirst and pain,
Aha, a brief spell of rain
on a sunlit noon,
An unexpected boon,
Godsent sprinkle of water on a face
withering without moisture’s brace.
The cloud is very small,
But showers its waters all
and wets a little garden and its sunburnt flowers,
Bathes them with blessing showers.
As a cloud tiny
it may not make it all rainy
for all the land
and salvage the burning sand,
But it knows its duty
to the sun-singed beauty
in the yard
of a small-time bard,
It’s beautiful to see
a little rain among noon’s full glee,
The little cloud knows
it can’t thwart the fiery blows
to kill the fire,
but it can sire
optimism and raise hope
with its brief watery mope,
It drops a little message
with its brief watery passage
that I’m here for you,
Good times will come with night’s dew,
And the soil
writhing with pain and on boil
dances with life
among the fiery onslaught and strife,
Comes it back to life,
Its joy one can smell
even in this burning hell.
A small journeyman cloud
makes the entire sky proud
with its brief downpour on a sunlit noon
when the heat is at its peak in June,
And a poet in his small wet garden,
Joyful over this tiny divine pardon,
Soaks in the beauty of raindrops
and forgets life’s flops.
Moved on the cloud small
after giving its waters all,
After a thundering greeting it left
with airy dives deft.
