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.

The Waves of Time

Floating in an engulfing ether
Drifting in a sea where
Yesterdays mingle with an ever present today
With waves helplessly dashing
Against tomorrows cliffs; spraying a mist
Of hopes that pervades long in the air
Like aftereffects of all this conundrum
Slowly the waves retreat, silently like past
And today’s waves throw them back
Like recollections remembered…..
A face, a moment of joy or pain
The souls just being tossed now and then
Here and there in this eternal confrontation
Of yesterdays and tomorrows
Here on the shores of today.