MY FIRST CRUSH

First, I fell for your
Written words in timeless verse.

Next, I fell for your written words
In striking metaphors and symbols.

Next, I fell for your
Written words in emotions delicate
And feelings passionate...

Yet next, I fell for your written words
Spreading shine, music and rhythm
In the dark corridors of my life.

Then, I fell for you….
And had my first crush on you, my invisible poetess
Gripping me in virtual tentacles and
Living in an unknown world.

THE CLEVER PLAGIARIST

Speak not to the
Stubborn cuckoo
That perches hidden
Amidst the branches
Of the gulmohar in unfailing regularity,
As spring sets in our neighbourhood,

Beware
In a bad trade deal,
He’ll cajole you,
To barter your melodious voice
With his jarring one

Compose no more
Your original music
On your humming scale
When the cuckoo is at
An ear-shot distance
Camouflaged and all ears:
He has survived for ages
Taking the music-lovers for a ride
On pure piracy.

Convert not
The visible alphabet
Into exclusive and exquisite lyrics
When the cuckoo is lurking
In the thick-red foliage;
He is a clever plagiarist
And master in distance learning.

OH! CUCKOO…..MY CUCKOO

Oh cuckoo, my cuckoo
Do sing and sing
With your heart into the song
To soak my love’s soul
In your music and magic
That she’s inspired to compose
Immortal lines.

Oh, cuckoo, my cuckoo
Do sing and sing out
Your passionate heart
So that my love's soul
Gets absorbed into music
Of a different tune
This spring, in an alien land.

Oh, cuckoo, my cuckoo
Do sing and sing out
For my kindred soul,
Made of delicate emotions
And soft dreams that
She finds her way through,
Stranded as she’s
In wonder and awe
At the crossroads.

The Cactus

Imagine me
A solitary and ostracized
Vegetative cell
Of a barren loin
On a limitless sandy habitat,
Where my tender dream
Was sprouted.

I was dazed in my virgin dream
On being tossed
By the seasonal onslaught
Of blinding winds and winter
And sweeping shadows
Under a looming barren sky.

Between unending moments
I felt the primordial thirst
On my thorny throat,
With which sooner
I got myself familiarized.

I have touched with my palm
The surface of the damp Moon
On a naked firmament,
Playing her ancient game
Of hide and seek
On a periodic pattern.

During lingering nights,
Waiting on a forlorn hope,
I have also seen
The hollow and waterless
Eyes of the Pole Star
Nurturing in every blink
A fraction of a dream
Of a pregnant cloud
And pining for the chaotic drops
Of an earthly monsoon.

Me, having loneliness
For a company eternal,
And parched to the core
In the midst of a tropical May,
Waiting on my toes
For the breath and whisper
Of an Indian Sawan.

Canvas and Colours

‘Hold on !
Just hold on
Your mundane brush
And dare not soil
My silken skin
With the cheap colour
You purchased from the local market
On a Sunday window-shopping’

Thus commanded
The virgin canvas
While preparing itself
For long voluntary wait
For the right colours
Both deep and worthy.

For years
It was waiting
Like the accursed stone
At the workshop of my heart
In a dreamy passivity
By holding together
The abstract criss-cross
Of the sagging fabric
Till a wrinkled eternity.

Today, during an unusually heavy
Urban evening
Sitting on your drawing room sofa
Over a badly prepared cup of tea
I gazed, I gazed at your pretty profile
And your lovely eyes
Dispassionately as usual,
When the lonesome Evening-star
Got itself suspended
Over your roof-top,
Like a kingfisher.
I tell you, I tell you
That was the moment
When I felt an unusually
Deep commotion
Rustle and bustle
Definite twist
And an uneasy urgency
At the work-shop of my heart.

‘Steal the colours at once
From her lips warm and extra-red
And paint me all over!’

Thus came the Second commandment
From the immaculate canvas
And I painted
A masterpiece.

Nobody Knows

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why a green leaf
Fell apart from the mighty tree.
Some say,
The trunk was tender.
Others say,
The villain was the west wind.
But everyone was silently sad
To see it lost
Among a plethora of dry leaves
Tossing their heads below
On the swollen sod.

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why suddenly
My vision got blurred
And I could not locate
My favourite starlet
Through the window
Even during starry- nights.
My mom terms it
The handiwork of an evil-spirit
That eyed on me.

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why the poet
Stopped composing
The last couplet of the great epic,
Some say,
He has gone crazy
Others say,
His fountain-pen
Was broken,
Yet some other say, that
His heart was broken.

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why the cuckoo went dumb.
Some say,
The Spring ditched him.
Others blame it on Winter
But all wondered
How was it that last year
He sang deep-throated
When there was neither Spring nor Winter ?

Nobody knows,
Not even myself
As to why they parted
Supposedly on a fine morning
With throats choked and eyes moist.
Some say,
They parted silently.
Other say,
They did mutter some words
Of the nature of suppressed whispers.
When she turned her face
And he looked downward.
Everybody looked askance
But nobody asked.

Flowered

Placed in the midst
Of a twilight zone
My vision went hazy,
My fancy disoriented,
And while my failed dreams
Were in desperation
I had a glimpse
Of the loveliest of faces,
Under a white veil.

I stole a glance of the loveliness
Of the countenance benign,
While lamenting
Over the distorted reflections
On the fragmented glass remains
Of my dreams
Of phenomenal dimension,
Which I had fondled
And renewed over the years.

Through your white veil
I stole a glimpse
Of a fascinating amalgam
Of beauty and compassion;
A flowerbed
Of exclusive red roses
Of dewy-freshness,
Clad in a thin pall
Of a late winter snow
Of Kashmir Valley.

Through your white veil
I had a glimpse
Of the last oasis
Of my life,
In the midst of
A harsh and fiery desert.
Through that white veil
I rejoiced the sight
Of a gorgeous painting,
Drawn by a ceremony
Of profound colours.

Under the white veil
I again had a glimpse
Of a fairy of Ajanta fresco,
Full of exquisite tenderness
And love of beauty.
Yet, always with a suspicion
Of something deeper
And transcendental.

Beneath the white veil
That embellished your face
Like a patch of snow cladding
The upper reaches of your abode,
I had a glimpse
Of your soil and scenery
Of reflection and reality
In full bloom.

Sun and Shadow

Under the shadow
Of the sky,
I neither fancy
Nor relish
To ransack in vain
The ephemeral magnificence
Of a pied rainbow
Drawn on a broad canvas.

Under the shadow
Of the same sky,
I am not ecstatically thrilled
To hear in futility
The music of the drip-drop clouds
Emitting an earthly odour.

Rather without a grumble
Of any hue
I love to brave
The mid-summer sun
Of a blazing sky.

While I damn care the sun,
All along I endeavour
To keep the shadow
In good humour
For, I know the shadow
And the shadow
Has the celestial potential
To eclipse the sun.

Nothingness

Carefully crafted schemes
Seem to sink like a load
Into an abyss
Of weird anxiety.

Ephemeral excitement
Seems to get extinguished
Like the fluttering flicker
Of a dying match-stick.

Dream of a day
Like a dry leaf
Fails to take off
For, a clumsy evening
From nowhere
Overtakes it
Before the real sunset.

The Disjointed Kite

Spring winks from the icy-blanket
Of a long slumber,
Mildly tickling
The benumbed roots
Of a budding red-rose.

Eternal mirth seems to peep out
From an elegantly packed
Chocolate box.

From the deserted grove
The Nightingale
Echoes a happy note
For a one-time change.

The brook murmurs.
The mountain breeze hisses.
And all species
Vegetative and winged
Seem to smile and flutter,
Whisper and gesture in the language
Of a virgin love-letter.

I could definitely hear
Everyone, trivial and profound
Announce in a language
Loud and clear,
That on this Valentine Day
“Love is in the air”
And I thought
I should ground it.

Fool that I was!
I grounded it and Love nosedived
Like a disjointed kite
On the blades
Of a thorny shrub
Grown on a rocky land.

Untitled

Can you recall?
The hard words spoken,
The stern glances exchanged,
When you pinched me
Most uncharitably
On the left side
Of my chest?

Then it caused nothing
Beyond a minor scratch
And I lost sight of it,
For during intimate moments
I was lost
In the togetherness
Of a cut-piece moon
In a starry-jungle.

Do you know?
This Winter
The scratch reappeared.
The pain, revived and
A deep wound emerged
On my hairy chest?

Because you were at it,
I have been taking extra care
To hide it under a fine skin
Like the hidden yolk
Of a hen’s egg that has
A regenerating potential
Which recurs in solitude.

Unnamed Biography

I am transfixed
Like a spider
At the epicentre
Of the web of a bunch
Of beaten moments,
Untouched by the reality
Of time and space.

Quite often
I find it funny
And deeply ridiculous
To unknot and tidy
The same beaten moments
That lie like a heap
Of tangled threads
With invisible beginnings
And no visible ends.

I know not why
A statuesque calmness
Has rendered me speechless
On a ruined panorama
Of succeeding desire and despair.

I have been treading
Through the time present
With a rhythmic synergy,
By elbowing aside
The lived past
Into the black and white pages
Of an unnamed biography.

Topsy- Turvy

Ere I could lift the violet
From the western sky
With my slender brush
To paint a splendid sunset,
A dark horse
Came galloping
From the far east
And trampled the canvas
Under its blind hoofs.

Ere I could merrily hum
With the home-coming sparrows
The familiar chirping melody,
The great Himalayan frost
Of the icy-north
Rendered them dumb.

Ere I could compose in my poetry
The infant-smile
Of an early bud,
The icy-claws
Of mid- December
Ravished my garden
Into a pathetic insignificance
Of bruised stems
And bleeding twigs.

Ere I could confide with you
The opening chapter
Of my unfinished autobiography,
The thick hairline
On my tender forehead
Receded like the ebbing waves
Of a vanquished tide,
Leaving the sandy shore
Of erased foot-prints
And scattered shells.

Time

I am stranded
At the centre
Of a sprawling round-about
Even as Time resolves
In the visible pace
Of the seconds hand
On my old wrist-watch.

They say,
They have seen
Time crawling
Like a soiled infant
On the earthen floor
Of their neighbour’s courtyard.

During my youth
I have seen Time
From the spectator’s gallery,
Running with the exuberance
Of an able athlete
On a hundred-metre-track.

Now Time has mellowed
Like my beloved grandma
Into a handful of
Crumpled anatomy,
Squeezed to the core
Like a piece of ice-cube,
In the bewildered eyes
Of her grandson.

Three make a crowd

If you nod
To my rose,
How easy it is for me
To plough the earth
And dot it all over
With a multitude.

If you consent
To live with me,
How happy
I shall be to build
A palace in mid-air
Above my thatched roof.

If only you wish
To listen to my sonnet,
How easy it is for me
To compose an epic
Of million couplets
And recite it for you
Under a moon-lit sky,
When you and I
Make a company
And the moon a crowd.

The Bell that tolls

A multitude of shooting stars,
Befalling on a placid harbour
In an alien land,
Render the brave hearts
Into sitting ducks
That leaves me in knee-deep tears.

A lonesome jasmine
Spilling out
From a sultry landscape,
Soaked by early monsoon
Drives me crazy
For the scent
Of the curly tresses
Sprouted on her nape.

With a wink-less gaze
I look for the Northern Star
In the midst of a multitude
That shall guide me
From the wilderness
To a safe shore.

The bell that tolls intermittently
Atop the dome,
Echoing through the
Cobwebbed corridors of my being,
Drags me to the doorstep
Of the city cathedral.

Return Journey

Desire gets burnt into ashes
In an internal combustion
Of a blunt-faced
Suburban locomotive,
Screeching on the rails
To the oily doorsteps
Of the city brothel.

Intermittent giggles
Of a bunch of naked innocence
Emanate from the dense slums
Along the tracks
And slimy animals bask on the furrow
Of the black mud
In indolent sexuality.

In broad day-light
The popular woman
Of the city,
In her cosmetic cell,
Pines for the scent
Of fresh strawberries.

The setting Sun ejaculates
Dull rays at six,
Forming a strange silhouette
Of a faceless crowd
On the concrete road
Of the metropolis.

Rebirth

A hearty elation sets in
At the sight
Of a closing sunset
That shines like the glaze
Of a live-pyre
Across the river.

I am thrilled all over
By the cool breath
Of a clear and present ecstasy,
Never felt before.

I am hardly curious
And never nervous
About the temporary flickers
Of a cluster of glow-worms
Intermittently winking
Around the village cemetery.

No more I scream
At the sight of a coffin
Full of unshed tears
And abstract remains
Of my premature dreams
Awaiting a quite burial.

Through the smoke-curtain
Of a leafless autumn twilight
I distinctly visualize
In the remote sky
An orphaned-star
Pining for the warmth
And security
Of a mother’s womb.

Permission

Bound by an ancient habit,
On every dawn of my village
The Sun of my childhood
Rises on his own.
From the violet
Over my village cemetery

As usual
During an unusually sultry monsoon
The rustic clouds
Pour themselves out
Over my village earth
Unmindful of her necessities.

During a forlorn
And tired twilight,
The remote stars
Dreamy and subtle,
Yet distinctly familiar
Even to my ancestors,
Sleep-walk on to
The dark canvas
Forming a celestial pattern.

Traditionally
Wild and passionate,
The spring flows
From the usual direction
Of my cousin’s village
On the Basanta Panchami Day
Year after year.

Flying from nowhere to perch
On the dark bough
Of the old banyan tree
In my backyard,
The lonesome cuckoo
Pours out his soul
Without waiting for the chorus.

The passionate jasmine
My mother planted
In our garden
Gets impatient to bloom out
Its nocturnal fragrance
For whomsoever it may concern.

This being so in and around me,
Should I wait for your permission
To spell out the vibrations of my heart?

The Perennial touch

Beyond the horizon
The sun was
Dragging his feet
On the trodden path,
When darkness
Overtook the evening
And its dullness as well.

I was in a hurry
To reach you
Even while the day’s dust
Had hardly settled
On my bald head.

A nervous uncertainty
Gripped me
Like the tentacles
Of a vengeful octopus
In the sea of urban humanity.

You were kind enough
To greet me at the doorstep
With a smile,
Having strong elements
Of an algebraic equation
For my flat mind.

We sat face to face
In the rented drawing room sofa
When the tired ceiling fan
Was rotating its wings
Most reluctantly.

My eyes quickly ran around:
The brass decoration on the wall
Carrying loads of appreciation
Due to a work of art,
Had an obscure shine on it
And was hanging precariously
Like a patch of snow
On a broken wall.

The room got choked
By our silence.
The scent of
Those plastic roses
In your designed vase
Was too much for me.

But in their midst
You were a picture perfect
Of quintessential beauty
An object of my desire benign.

“Can I touch you?” I said
And touched you perennially
Like the sky kissing the earth
Beyond the seas.

My Maiden Flight

Very often I smell
A temporary breath
Of a petal of hope
Getting evaporated
Into the vacuum
Under my nose.

When love
Like a solitary drop
Seeps through
The unseen pores
Of a sandy bed
Of a dreary desert.

Trust gets twisted
At its crucial joints
Like the tender bones
Of a still-born babe
In the murky corridors
Of a tiny coffin.

Lo!
After my maiden flight
I land on your courtyard
Like a petrified swan
With broken wings
And bleeding dreams.

Mislead

Even the dictates of almanac
Mislead the sacred course
Of the holy Ganges
Into the arid zones
Of the sandy pasture of Thar
For a smell of vegetation.

Sundari smiles
While hanging like
A dried up saree from
The balcony string
Of her dingy cell on West Avenue,
For she offers an eye-contact
To the tattered frame of
A cycle-rickshaw below.

After a casual copulation
When the domesticated sparrow
Flies into the blue
Leaving her in pregnant deception.
Strange,
She still collects dry twigs
To build a dream,
To lay eggs
And brood in incubation!

Here and Now

I adore your loveliness
Within the boundaries
Of my ordinary eyes,
Within the bounds
Of an unbound ocean,
Within the reach
Of a receding horizon.

I hear your words of beauty
Within the audible range
Of my mortal ears,
For your words reverberate
Long after you speak
On the inner walls of my soul.

I smell your passionate breath
With the certitude
Of an irrepressible jasmine,
For I am not the Himalayan deer
To be misled by my own musk.

I love you
With the immediacy
Of here and now,
For I know not
What lies beyond
Or beneath.

Tonic - Touch

When I gaze
In an uneasy anticipation
At your face from the terrace,
All that I see
Is a pair of wide open eyes
Following me against
The blue background of the sky.

In a moment’s time
Your eyes gain
A benign dimension
And encompass me
With an ease,
And lift my agony
As if it were a quill.

Your words,
As sweet as you are,
Embalm my bruised frame
And fiery spirit in no time.

Your tonic-touch
Served with the compassion
Of a lovely angle
Holds my injured being
With the intimacy
Of a divine fragrance
That clings to the flowers of the valley.

From a pair of exclusive eyes
Your healing vision
Clasps my soul
With the softness
Of a summer drizzle
On fine desert-sands.

Entomb the Silence

Out of a heap of cold ashes
Of a dead volcano
I wish I could
Ignite you
And get myself overwhelmed
By the lava of your stifled desire
That you cherished by
A deliberate discipline.

I wish I could
Replace the half- spoken
Mono-syllables
Meticulously pronounced
Through your measured lips,
In an eloquence
Never heard before.

I wish I could
Help you bloom out
Of the layers of the tiny bud
Into an open-eyed
Sunflower of a prolonged noon.

I wish I could
Caress you out of
Your icy-midriff
And flow with your
Tide into the seas.

I wish I could
Tickle you out
Of the long-pregnant pause
That shapes
Your earthy incarnation.

I wish I could
Entomb your silence
At my backyard
And engrave the epitaph;
“Here lies her silence
Never to be resurrected”.

Do I Belong?

I have coined subtle words,
Framed robust sentences
And idioms unique
In my private fantasy and
They miserably ditch me
At the fateful moment
When I wish to confide that
‘ I belong.’

Carefully pronounced words
Fizzle out
Under the feather-weight
Of nocturnal dreams
Nourished in the womb
Of a barren Autumn.

Faint beams
Of a pestering hallucination
Giggle mischievously
When I don’t know
‘What is what?’

I have rehearsed in vain
Ridiculous postures
And carefully designed dialogues
In the privacy of my greenroom,
For I cannot
Look eye to eye
When most wanted.

Between the Covers

I have plucked
Every primrose and daisy
Sprouting in myriad colours
On every wild vegetation.

I have also plucked
All the flowers on my path
In their youthful fragrance
Of spilled out pollen,
And in their sealed-dreams,
Clinging intimately to the
Tender stems of unknown creepers.

I don’t know
For whom they bloomed.
For the hot Sun?
For the cool Moon?
Or for the soothing South Wind ?

Just see!
The flowers have never complained
-Either loud or in whispers-
Or perhaps
I have not cared to heed
Their effeminate indignation
Against my reckless passion.

Believe me.
I have also not spared
All the early flowers
Of Spring and Summer
Grown in the distant meadows
Only to press them for you
Between the covers.

A Substantaial Shadow

Often I am haunted
By the reflection
Of a shrunken face,
On the slippery floor
Of an illusory shadow,
That has gathered
An impervious thickness.

None can claim like me
To have measured
The substantial shadow of a dwarf
Gaining an immeasurable height
As never seen before.

Even when,
You are by my side
I tip-toe
To the left of the highway.
And get drenched to the core
By the visible nothingness
Of a cluster of barren clouds.

I know why, of late
I seem to feel ashamed to ask
For a word of reassurance
From my mother,
Who on long frosty-nights
Takes an extra cup of tea
To keep her warm.