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.