SPRING SEEDS
⋯and now the April has also gone,
Where are the seeds that I’d sown?
Like a ploughman I worked
in the summer almost melting bones,
Removed the stones,
Rattled which the spirit like someone
caught in desert’s sandy moans.
Then during winter my toil lit up a bonfire
amidst blinding blizzards and nature’s icy deeds,
These were my spring seeds,
embedded, impregnated in earth through my earthy deeds,
Spring seeds meant to
conceive, germinate, grow, ripe, flower and fructify,
But the spring came and went with a sad sigh,
Sorrows in my barren fields hit another high,
My spring seeds thus lost,
And me the farmer standing forlorn
without that harvest of which I used to boast,
Now the scorching May sun
beats down the dusty land with a fiery pun,
Peasant and his field thus stand mute,
Almost complete has’n the plunder and loot,
To gallows was sent my crop,
The hangman just mechanically pulled
the handle at the hanky’s drop,
Efforts’ dead body hangs from that noose,
And even the last strains of
faith, will power and hope getting loose.
People say that too much is my browbeat,
‘Why not clear another stony plot
to get something to eat?’
Perhaps they don’t realize
the blind, illogical passion’s treatise
which I wrote over stones with a pure soul,
Impractical, insane I stand out
with cracks and brain’s hole,
How could I expect fruits from this very plot?
And now I stare at the nullifying dot,
The desert storm meanwhile hisses with its lust hot,
Seeds have most probably been killed,
Aah, with amazing precision
the Goddess of infertility drilled!
While the songs of my fertile efforts in a chorus trilled,
But She has’n successful in its swipe,
Its blinding gung-ho and macabrous hype,
Lolloping its greedy tongue to
dejuice and deflower everything ripe,
Now I lay my back against a
hard, hot, unshaded rock,
My weariness, fatigue and torture
put me in a sleepy dock,
In that short uneasy sleep
I get some relief from the pain of this injury deep,
A luxuriant crop I see in my dream
and nearby gurgling goes a stream.
The Invisible, Untouched Debris
A painful churning goes on
in the deep, deep recesses mine,
Outwardly I manage to look well and fine.
On my skin sweat beads shine,
These tiny outpours of my desperation
are the struggling vestiges of battles
that I failed to win.
There is a salty sea of sufferings inside,
which the clothing and the mask hide,--
The sea of tears accumulated from yores,
Here mournful, tragic waves strike
the forlorn sand on gloomy shores,
There were deep, hollow pits and spaces
that could have’n easily filled up with
sweet freshwaters and lifeful braces,
But that wasn’t to be,
Rather the tears of endless traumas
made up the sorrowful sea,
Outwardly I just tread on the ground,
And even try to dance
to the social puppetry and civilized sound,
But in the deep recesses of the sea of my being
sharks shred the flesh like the bloodiest of hound,
Thousands of leeches suck the soul’s blood,
And the salty sea gets another torrential flood,
Surrounded by such deadly gloomy waters,
My being’s lofty peaks
shudder with protesting shrieks,
In those vales, precipitation born of miseries
sends down dark showers,
Creating mudslides and breaking stones
from the lofty towers,
Deep echoes of this sea’s triumphant storms
go rumbling through the inner being,
Rains, floods, earthquakes
storm the soul’s citadel,
Their combined fury unleashes mud and sleaze,
Carries which the ensnaring breeze
towards the salty sea of gloom,
Even though outwardly I manage to
keep up some bloom,
But the tremors from inside
reach new high day by day,
And the afraid soul runs helter-skelter
to find some solacing ray
that might say
a valiant nay
to the horrible avalanche pouncing on my soul,
Golden Noose
With that invisible love story
tied with an unseen cord
to my tightly sewn lips,
Let me kiss the last drops of her memory
from the cup still brimming
with her image.
The last spiritual door
opening finally for His light,
Preparing for something more,
somewhere in some other world and form,
Where down the distanceless
space-time continuum
lies the timeless face of an
untold, unrequited love tale.
The tiny waves of breathing
can now no longer carry the boat of life,
Last moment’s stormy seizure
quickly subdues the feeble efforts to stay afloat,
And down goes the body,
Hanged by the cord
of a painful love story that was never told.
The Defeated King
The night was very long
and all moments thronged
with frustration, angst and despair,
The darkest faces yelled for anyone to dare.
Like a terribly lynched mule
sluggered away the day
without bringing a new ray,
Now, the night’s long sinewy hairs
cast ghastly shadow over the battlefield lost,
And battle scars get bandaged with frost.
A cumbersome long-long day
when his efforts got butchered
by some mysterious force’s riotous ray,
Now stars shine on darkness’ face;
Like tiny lamps they twinkle from
some fallen hero’s mace
and point to hope and smile
somewhere still holding onto tiniest of trace,
Their poking raylets brace
the frozen blood around scars,
‘The day will come’, they say,
‘and the next sun will light up a new ray!’
‘You will then forget these days dark
and still fearsome nights with a terrible hark!’
The wounded, handsome soldier’s hands
clenched a fistful of earth all blood-soiled,
There were more moments to be toiled,
Somewhere fire in his blood still boiled,
The enemy’ll return in a couple of hours,
‘Let me see how many heads my club covers!’
For the mace handle his hands fumbled,
But once again his feet stumbled
and he fell down,
But that effort’s majesty shone on his face,
Succumbed he then to his injuries and died,
Aha! Immortal was that last shot of pride,
It was found frozen on his face
when the victorious hound
arrived later on the trophy’s trace.
Invisible Scars
Too often I’ve stumbled, staggered
and fallen headlong,
Cuts and wounds mercilessly throng
the bodily stranglehold mine,
Deep fissures reach
where the soul’s diamonds shine;
Injuries so deep—
Aaah! Invisible, invincible dragnet’s richest reap.
Nobody sees the gaping holes in my spirit,
Here the destiny’s blind force
so venomously hit!
God! Why is it that deepest scars
are invisible to the society’s eyes?
Why remain unnoticed
cuts and wounds of such mammoth size?
Injuries like deepest trenches on sea’s bosom,
Above on the surface
the worldly water waves normally,
Below the scars lurk dreadfully
and darkest of dark roam
in the gloomy, depthless womb.
I, the perpetual peasant,
Always engaged in the sacred labor duty,
While the foe doing
its undoing spadework continuously,
Its ensnaring checkerwork grinning cunningly,
I meanwhile rise up again
to get some littlest bit of gain,
Alas, my mountainously bulky efforts
only but go haywire!
Not even a little mice I find,
And sorrowfully the tiny lamp goes blind,
The invisible scars
get enlarged and multiplied, of course,
But not even a single eye
sees the bloody bath and the loss!
Last Hideout
Here I sit in my cold, secluded corner
and take stock of the
pleasant profanities scattered around,
The world basking in its
majestic, unholy mundanities,
while the unhindered morality singing unbound.
The corner with its stagnant stench
and mucking air;
where my tortured holy-self lie,
Cruelly contriving world meanwhile tempts,
‘Why thou become the fodder of game fair?
Son, now have an unfair try!’
‘Succeed thou will,
the moment thou unshackle
thyself of poor righteousness!
This load will always find you a loser,
for too old is now the history of uprightness!’
And I shiver and snivel
in my little, dark hole
to keep the little flicker going,
The dark-race however gets
perpetually stormy and cries,
‘Let’s us see! How long you’ll keep rowing?’
Too small is the boat which carries me
across this deadly sea,
Big waves pound from all sides
and each crest devilishly neigh.
How foolish of me
not to surrender to the cozy
seduction by the compromising short-cut!
Cut after cut they give me
to break open my little hutment
whose wispy door is bravely shut.
Passes as the time,
graver still become the urgency to
drag me out of my hiding hole,
Too far and wide is the
swash of ‘only feasible game’
in which all must play a survival role.
God! Let me see how long I can cling
to my altar-like holy den,
But times are really dark
and the moment will surely come,
The little lamp will go blind then⋯
This tiny flower
becoming a fruit;--
Transformation of this
once petalous soot:
Its beauty and color
now turning into a tiny vase,
Old flower and the infant fruit
transmixing for nature’s laws.
Flower’s beauty being sacrificed
at the fruity altar,
The Goddess of fruits
watches this pleasant hatching from far,
She muses with a midwifery glee,
Sings then a playful lullaby for the
fruitling in the flower’s womb,
Oh! How glittery is this little
juicy lad in the petalous tomb.
So, the soft flowery curls
take a hard, fruity mould,
The petals bold
vanish into juicy, hard fold.
Love Storm
When love smiles like a rose,
some famished heart gets a dose,
Cupid’s arrow breaks the shackles
and that unemotional, hard crust crackles.
A pumping machine is heart no longer,
as the softest turbulence gets stormily stronger,
Love-storm knocks at the rugged coastline,
There for a new dawn, several suns shine.
The Love like a flower
sways to sizzling dew-shower,
Dew-drenched, a new life sizzles,
and moments rejuvenate in precious drizzle.
The heart dancing in the rain,
Pleasant madness; nothing to gain!
Sheer abundance of all giving,
Gain-lorn is no longer the being.
Heart’s orchard in full bloom,
Archaic-old now seems that gloom,
Brightly starry is the night,
Self-esteem soars to loftiest height,
And when the storm ebbs out,
like a panicked fish heart’s angels shout,
‘Oh, thou uncertain tide,
when will thou again arrive with thy sweep wide?’
The Game
How hard and how long
I take to reach near
the summit of my hardworked hill,
All battered and bruised,
final steps I still try,
Above, the peak brags its highness,
while the caterpillar’s soul doth cry:
‘Yonder, still uphill sweet cups lie!’
My eyes ogle at the peak,
And heart ready to render
a full-throated victorious shriek,
But eyes then see
the hard taskmaster’s glee,
Awaits who there to teach
that solacing sips are still out of reach.
Oh! Its quick ascendancies!
Always galloping ahead
with mammoth mirth in hand,
It is always the first
to quench its thirst
from the cup at the crest,
Then uproariously beats its breast:
‘There lies another one!
Pal, let’s get promptly begun!’
Oofs, its insatiable thirst!
It claims exulting victory every time,
And I get my weeping, mediocre rhyme.
