The moorhen

 

The day coming to an end,

The sun with its consolatory light on the sand,

A moorhen cackles and croaks

as if mired in the swamps of pain,

And I stand there

vulnerable and taciturn,

The shadows of grief on my face,

The moth-eaten memories

searing the soul,

Was it just flaming desire

coming as real or unreal love?

Bathed in pain and grief,

In confusion and boundless need of love,

in clamor and dissonance

I create the mists of enchantment,

And in appeasement of unworthy memories,

I try to inhale smell from paper flowers.

 

The moorhen cackles as if

with vilest insults and provocations,

I know there is silence

Hidden in its noise,—

the maternal poise

to protect its nest,

Then it stops and comes at rest,

Maybe it feels that

it's someone drenched in the rain

of pain,

With compassion and self-assurance in its eyes

it gives a last cackle and sighs.

The pilgrim

 

How to ease the conscience

off the burden of love?

The seductive, sweet meandering

across the rubbish labyrinth of emotions,

Was it the blazing heat of passion

or the unhurried touch of innocent love?

Whatever it was but I’m a pilgrim now

seeking peace for the soul

with a broken heart,

Purifying myself with bitter tears,

which are sometimes tears of raze.

 

The proven infidelity of love

giving an affliction of the soul,

With a speared heart

the pilgrim seeking the secret code of love,

And the bleeding stones and thorns on the path,--

her inflaming proofs of disloyalty.

 

Thus the pilgrim goes

still holding the image of that thorny rose,

Mournfully reciting the hymns of misery,

Gathering the rotten, sour fruits

fallen from the sweet tree of love,

The wayside bushes snubbing

with perfidious, malicious sneer;

boughs crinkled with wrath

like natural brutality in her heart.

 

Pilgrim, where are those adolescent jaunts

and big reserves of steely character?

Thou turned out to be a soft prey,--

the stone cut by a blade of grass,

The air sighing with

disillusionment and disenchantment,

Ruined memories scattered around,

The mirrors of falsehood surround,

Her velvet, docile dove’s gait

hid a haughty heart’s clawy bait,

Her starry splendor

was full of devouring despondency,

Her slender courtesy

hid savage snares for masculine fantasies.

 

All along it was love without hope,

It made me prone to

dupe my own pride,

Now, the solitary sandy swirls of

her lovemaking resonance

wafting with exultation around,

And the pilgrim walks with

his wounded masculine pride,

shorn of light and gallantry in the eyes,

Memories echoing like horse hooves

on cobblestones in the dead of night,

striking at love’s cuts and bruises.

 

The pilgrim lost in the pale mists of memories,

Moving like a mule

carrying saddlebag of stoicism,

All soiled with her illicit love,

the pilgrim goes seeking

the oasis of love.

 

The desert has its storms,

The pilgrim has his own,--

bristly and jumble of nerves,

enigmatic and conglomeration of oddities,

There I go on the pilgrimage of loss

and after long-long barren miles

I gain something,--

a sad but dignified autumnal smile

in lieu of all her sweet guile.

The wheel of time

 

A child’s sparky fascination,

Its smile radiating tenderness,

Enjoying free gifts of joy,

Holding the coins in piggy bank

bigger than any gold mine.

 

An adolescent’s evocative showcase,

All out shimmering and sizzling,

The highly stylized teeny hoppers,

The follies of love or infatuation

sinuous, clandestine and damning.

 

Mad with love

the youth’s audacious installations,

Ephemeral love on moonlit nights,

Rigorous and virulent in its grip

(almost sinister and vampirish),

Flamboyantly goofy, zipping and zooming,

Squealing adrenaline rush,

Frantic and fidgety,

Spectacular and grand.

 

Stirring, intrepid spirit of middle age

to carry the domestic yoke

amid all the social cockfighting,

Skimming over the competitive scum,

The shifting, virile nature

of the greying years

spangled with nostalgia

for the erstwhile peaks,

So much the passing time speaks.

 

Now on the other side of age,

The realigning of compromised reality,

The poignant reminiscences of youth,

Now surface the skin furrows uncouth,

Time’s acutely roving work

etched on the skin’s landscape now,

The startling storage of lifelong pursuits

now almost wreckage,

The soaring imaginations gone,

Draped in humbling eerie

the thoughts of afterlife swarm,

Gingerly waggling nostalgic gait

seems just death’s bait.

 

The trivializing passage of days,

Gone are the bright rays,

The world just a turbulent grey now,

Snippets of life barely chugging ahead

through a dreadfully narrow lane,

And a scowl and frown,

Or some odd chuckle,

Thus goes time bulldozing over us.

 

The touristy venture from

self-congratulation to self-flagellation,

Bones in disarray,

Eyes grave and serious,

A helpless witness to the shifting landscape,

An invalid clinging to convalescence dreams,

Begging for stipends and allowance

of some more drab fruitless days,

Pleading for pennyworth of life,

Poor and miserly soul

soliciting help from the angels,

Taking it to be a paradise,--

but drudgery in dungeon it is,

Horrid apparition of death hovers above,

Aah, the subversion of life and its fraudulence!

Then the last wish,

‘If nothing more, give me at least

a splendid, ceremonial grave,

Let it not be a pauper’s grave

without mourners at the funeral.’

 

The last breath fluttering a farewell

with one final wish,

‘Let there be

silk-thread embroidery in my name!’

Broken twice

Broken twice,
First by her,
then by her replica,
No fault of theirs,
Just my folly 
because I looked for solution 
in the same problem,
I looked for the remedy to the pain
from the same stone,
Getting broken twice 
is born of my choice,
I don't blame them
because that's all they can do
caught in their own pain,
So what if I got again slain.

The dying year

You salute the rising sun and the upcoming fates,

And dump the rest as mere names and dates.

But my burdened self on death bed (or in labour pain?) sighs,

'Dears, you forget those fallen promises amidst these hasty byes!'

Hope

 This foggy, cold midnight says,

The next sun will have fresh rays

that will warmly gloat over the wrong shades

bitingly, filthily draped around the 

beleaguered, beggared, deprived mass of flesh,

Tomorrow it just won't be mere trash!

A beginning it will be, all new and fresh!

The queen of a reverse world

 

I stand upright in my reverse world,

With my own shape uniquely curled

as per my own unchained ways,

Your nights are my days,

You are free to scorn or spurn

or even try to burn

my freedom wings,

O thou vain kings,

futile will be thy taming strings,

How can you tame someone whose soul sings

the songs of formless love,

Eagles you can't hunt this dove

because when you pursue me

you have your legs where

your head ought to be.