To Lucifer

Misconceived blasphemy

Alas! all that ardour,

All lured away

Engulfed in egos,

Wrapped in wraths

Oh! A meek earthling

And a fiery finesse

Was there any match?

 

Standing tall

Amid the bowed ones

Angles of light

And beings of fire,

What was that you sought?

Oh! You know what you got!!

 

Whom did you defy,

Oh fallen one?

Man or God!

Pagli

(On seeing sanyasins on the banks of the Ganges)


Oh! I am a widow no more
No longer do I wear the white
No longer is my forehead
Bereft of the vermillion
No longer am I weak
No longer am I meek
I am a pagli
Carefree, not careless
The world is at my feet
And so are its rules and bonding
I am a free soul
The ugly body I have is a veil
Of the beauty that I have within
I was a widow
I was married to a man
Now I am not
I am married to my Lord.

Adressee Not Found

The postman comes after many days
And hands me a letter
With an address written in my hand and I can see
Long back I had written a letter to myself
On an address where I never lived
And they took it so long to bring it back
Well it was there anyway, after all
Back to its sender who unknown to them
Was the addressee too.
And I could see the stamps of failed attempts of delivery
And a final stamp of “Addressee Not Found”
The letter unfolds and asks me a question:
“Have you found yourself?”

Walking Along the Pavement

Life, obscured by its prominence
Exhibits its brightness in varied shades
That paint in hues of pain and pleasure
And sighs and smiles on a vast colourless canvass
Where multitudes of men
Move on a rested frame that slides
Ahead in terms of present
Pouring into past and pacing into future
Full of dreams.
And I walk along a pavement
By the side of the running track
Where haste races past in an aimless attempt
To outrun present
Yet time takes its own steps
Synchronized to the beats of a heart…..
The honks of the screeching cars
Lends this procession just some din.

The Unmade Bed

The pillow lies inclined,
With an impression of an overnight weight
Of my head, recovering slowly.
The soft folds of sheets
Like labyrinthine mazes,
Hold in them dreams,
I fear to let free.
I let it the way it is
To meet it again in the night
To wrap me in, and give me back the dreams
That lie there in its folds.

Love by the Side of the Grave

The hands that once caressed her face
And combed through her hair are wrinkled now.
While she lies shrouded, sleeping peacefully
He all alone, aloof by the side of her grave
Lets his tears flood his face, and soak his parched lips.
The hands that once held her hands in ecstasy
Now sift the soft clay, mounded into a low hill
That weighs upon his old chest
Full of memories, of a life spent together
Amid all those happy moments when joys
Played miracles and made life more sweet
And when time tested with all its might
In some form of adversity, pain and fear
Her lap nested him…..
Now while she lay deep in slumber
Beneath the cool earth, he, scorching
In the fire of separation, insecurity and helplessness
Raises his hands for a prayer,
For her peace and atonement
With a wish to meet her soon.

Chaos

Like newspaper clippings pasted
Into a graffiti,
Silhouettes of past, dimmed
In the foreground of now-a-days
The cries for peace are muffled in the din,…
Pessimistically optimistic,
Yet the sighs go on.
The utopian dream is a nightmare
Snatching everybody’s sleep
In the middle of the night
Still I wake up late ….

The morning news tells
How many died yesterday!

Thoughts in a Graveyard

Shrouded in some fear
Of a latent claustrophobia
Oh! The grave dark and deep
While some in some merriment
Think of having a long sleep
Yet Grim in his dreadful grin
Smiles…. may be!

The leaves fall with the autumn breeze
And petals drop one by one
Shriveled by the coming winter’s frost
Oh the times steps, slow, at ease
Yet with a pace always at a run
Unending and at what cost!

Slow and steady
Like in some eternal hourglass
The sand empties itself
Into some hillock of a past
To be there for ever.

The Play

I peep with fear through the window
To see the comedy of life
Lest I be a clown myself
I laugh the most untoward laugh
At myself in the mirror; I think
I don’t have time to think
I laugh at the tragedy
An ever going one, this life
Ah, we mere spectators
Of the play where we are the cast
Cast in a pitied cast
To play not by our will
To laugh, to weep, to cry, to die
The way we are wanted, to be
Or not to be; I think
Why do I think?

Death

The candle light flickers,
shadows oscillate like thoughts
of past, present, future; unending.
The breaths heave,
up the chest and down,
the heart beats pump life,
systole, diastole……
The life’s equation,
plus, minus, multiples, divisions
and a predestined solution!
And a buffet
blows the flame off.