My fixed grin

My face is a fixed grin
It's beginning to ache
I shut my eyes tight
Clinging to my
Nubilous dreams
I clutch my heart
With both hands
To keep it from
Fracturing apart
I choke back the
Words I want to say
Because all I hear
Is silence

Absorbing the light

I love walking in early morning dappled sunlight. The light filtering through the canopies of golden green is shiny with misty dew. The sun, when you look into it, peering through the leaves, percolates into my bloodstream, invigorating me with its golden glow. The tarmac, strewn with golden sundrops of petals, hard beneath your heels, disappears in a blind curve ahead, which is filled with mystery, though familiar in my memory. I have traversed by this path many times in past dreams. The sensation is like a leaf floating on still water; there is empty air above, cool empty depths below; your existence needs no endeavour, nor is there need for any achievement, for, no matter how hard one may strive, you just have emptiness above, emptiness below. You find your fulfilment in merely floating. And absorbing the light.

The flickering flame

I wonder, will this precious moment
Of moonlight, so lucent in the sky,
Pearly rays filtering through pink tinted clouds
And the dark leafy curtain
Where the exhausted koel keeps
Her vigil in the stillness..listening, listening..
Be extinguished, without a chance
For the flickering flame
Somewhere in the silence
Of a lost forest, to ignite
Into the blazing flame
It was meant to be..?

In the silence of the night
A dog howls, singing its hymn
To the moon, so aloof, so remote,
Sliding in and out
Of those clouds
That have not rained
Oblivious to the flickering flame
Somewhere in the darkness
Of a lost forest

This tangled love

This tangled thing called love
The intangible question of why
Why is it you I love
Without even meeting face to face
And why not some other
Anyone other, that I do come
Face to face in my life.
Why is it that when
I see your picture, just a DP,
And read a random tweet of yours
My heart leaps and bounds
Is filled with pain and doubts
About feeling alone
With you so remote
Yet so close.
And more than that
This unfathomable need I have
To touch, to hear your voice,
To hold and never let go.
To give birth to our love
Which each day bereft
Is so stillborn.
Each day a waste of our time
Which we could spend together.
Come close, come into my life,
Let our life begin this journey.
Travel by my side
To wherever destiny takes us.
Come away from your busy-ness
Hold my hand and let me hold yours
Wipe my tears and let me wipe yours
Let me rest my despairing head
On your chest, let me
Hold you close to my breast.
That is my tangled love
To weep together, to walk together
To smile together, to dream together
To just be with each other.

The midnight hour

The midnight hour
Strikes
The distance
Between
You and me

Coo-oo, Coo-oo

Yes, there's that koel again
She should be asleep at this hour
Lost in her restless dreams
Yet she screams.. Coo-oo, Coo-oo
Insistently, Popping out
Like a droll toy cuckoo
Trapped in that droll cuckoo clock.

She flings open that little door
That keeps her captured
And flies out as far as the tether
She's held with lets her
And she screams her droll song
Bobbing up and down
To catch the moon's attention
Coo-oo, Coo-oo!

Marking each hour that goes by
In a blur of longings, achings, hopings, despairings.

Some day that funny koel
With her silly Coo-oo, Coo-oo
Which nobody hears, or sheds a tear for,
Will go whirr..run out of her foolish Coo-oo, Coo-oo
Run out of her time, which she diligently marks
Perhaps without even a warning whisper
And then, even if she is wound and re-wound
And repaired and recalibrated
She will forget forever how to
Chime her silly hourly screams
Chime these frittering hours

So, listen, listen now,
To this droll koel
Here she is once again
Coo-oo, Coo-oo!

Night's whispers

Here we are, in this moment
Together, yet separate
The sun has gone down
The midnight sky
Stretches between us
Like a black cable of longing
Stretched taut in the darkness

This instant, this minute,
Of the night,
Like flower petals,
Destined to perish,
Is suddenly filled with
Infinite, deathless, breathless, life
As if it's whispering in my ears
Something I ought to know

Lost in the din

The empty path is
Erupting with people
Everyone seems to
Have somewhere where
They belong

Somewhere where

They are going to

The sun erupts
From the treetops
Fills the rooftops with light
The branches

Begin stirring with life

The koel breaks her voice
Against the sky
Even the crow joins in
In the chorus
With a croak
They keep singing, cawing

In unison

Little birds chime in

With their chirps and tweets

Longing for the dream
They dreamt last night
To manifest
In the bursts of flower sprays
That come awake
In the morning dew

Only to confront
The emptiness
Of the bright blind sun
Vacillating to and fro

And day turns to night
The path is bereft
Of people

But the koel still

Searches insistently

For an answer
From the emptiness

The emptiness replies
With silence

The koel is trapped
In her voice
She knows her fate
She will never
Find the answer
To her song
Yet she sings
Piercing the sky
With her cry

The crow croaks

And blinks

And night becomes day
The street begins to fill again
With hurrying people
Everyone seems to have
Somewhere to go

Where they belong
With their bags and briefcases
Clutched in their hands
The garbage bins
Begin to overflow
With the refuse
Of the hurrying people
Honking cars
And trundling buses
Grind through
The mazes
Of shouting hawkers
And scampering 

Wafts of dust

Mingled with dried leaves

The koel's voice
Is lost in the din

The crow croaks

And blinks 

Her bleeding heart

With hesitant, tremulous timing
The flower bud pried open
Her tender petals, one by one
To reveal her bleeding heart
To her beloved
The golden sun
Riding high in her golden sky

Only to discover
Her sky engulfed in blackness
Her golden sun
Was lost in the clouds
Of an eclipse
Too powerful for her
Tender petals
To pry open

Her tender petals
Shrivelled and crumpled
One by one
Into dry dust
Her bleeding heart
Turned to ashes

Fragrance of flowers

Just when I began to think
It was the end
Fragrance of flowers
Wafting in

Between you and me, There cannot be adieu

Between you and me there cannot be adieu
How can there be closings, endings, finales
When there has been no beginning?
Leave taking (if that is what you want it to be)
Can happen only after a greeting.
Between you and me
Our what has been, what could have been,
What would have been
Have not been born yet.
So my darling, how can there be an adieu
Between you and me?

Instead, my love, in this river of time
That flows so endlessly, so relentlessly,
Let us have our momentous fraction
Momentary though it may be
(If that is what you want it to be)
Let us have our moment of heartbeat
Throbbing together
Though I want forever
Let's at least have our 365 days
Entwined together
Before we hit the pause
(If that is what you want it to be)

Without our moment, our fraction of time
In this river of time, my canvas has no voice
Will remain blank. My hand will remain frozen.
How can there be memories, life stories
Fresh colours, fresh tints
When without you
My days are blank?

Instead, my darling, let us both
Catch that sun drop, that sliver of moon
That beckons us
Tight in our fists.
Let us hold each other tight
In each others arms
And not let each other
Slip out of our grasp.
Let us have our yesterdays
Discovering each other
Let us create our todays
Holding, loving each other
Let us have our tomorrows
Until time drifts into forever.

Let us tether our two boats together
And together float in this flow of time
At least for a while (if that be your wish).
Pause at a ghat and watch a sunset together.
Let us together paint
Our purple skies, our moons of yesteryears
And together sing our lusty songs of life.
Let us first create our landscapes
On which we plant our footprints
Before they are blown away
By the sands of adieu
(If that is what you want it to be).

Look, my love, look at the river
Golden in the sunshine, silver in the moonlight
As old as time. It flows on.
But empty, bereft of our boats,
Tethered together, floating, tossing
On its undulating surges and ebbs.
Listen, my love, listen to the music of the waters
Beckoning to us. Untie yourself.
And join me there.
There are many ghats for us to visit.
Traveller, let us journey together
And seek our destination together.

Let us have our moments of new beginnings, together.
Our moments of continuations.
Our moments of new suns, new moons, new skies.
And together ford our path through this river
Which flows on, as old as time.
Let us be each other's
Companions, Soul mates, Lovers.
Come my love, let us tell each other
Our stories, share our sorrows, joys.
Let us together soothe our hurts,
Savour our jubilations
On this great wondrous journey of life.
Between you and me, my love,
There cannot be adieu.

Richard Feynman’s Love Letter to His Wife Sixteen Months After Her Death

http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/08/richard-feynmans-love-letter-to-his-wife-sixteen-months-after-her-death/

broken wings

the mud-fingers shape the flight-bird --

clod-heavy, they mould

the dance of the gossamer wings


the revolutions whirl recklessly

in the churn of wheels –

a lost bird breaks and bleeds


tender years metamorphose to

hardened scab --

it’s time for the reckoning


time is coalescing, beckoning,

calling for the exacting of the refunding

of the despoiling of

a yearning cry


the potter’s hands, impotent artificers,

his spinning wheel by his side, motionless,

cannot repair broken strings

So far away

So far away, it seems,
Where you have gone
It seems I have to travel
This lifetime
To extend myself from
Beyond me, my births
Stretch my memory
Collapsed in this snapshot
Moment
To thread my heart
To yours

Forever

With arms full of tenderness
A heart full of endearments
I will hold you
In my mind
Forever

In my dreams, it's the right time... Now

How quickly the seasons of dreams

have left us - Dissipating like a spent cloud –

 But when I look upon your face, I see it –

It’s all there in the hidden crinkled pools of laughter

That break open like that April cloudburst

That suddenly drenched us

In this our nameless acquaintance

In which we got caught, inadvertently.

An acquaintance I keep alive in my dreams.

In my dreams, it is the right time, now

When hand in hand, we run away

Into the face of the wind - careless, carefree.

It rains. Stinging drops. We get soaking wet. And we laugh.

Into the wind.

In my dreams

We have the wind. We have the rain. We have the song.

We have the road. That runs without end.

The odour of the brown earth. Freshly sown.

Green grasses growing wild. Spilt seeds.

Sprouting shoots. Ginger and garlic paste.

Spreading their pungent taste.

Curry and spices. Freshly ground.

Seasoning our days. Which bubble

And froth. On burning fires.

In my dreams we have

 Sun filled afternoons. Which run into each other forever.

Like golden honey trickling thick through leafy branches.

We play in sand heaps. Build mud castles in the air.

Which we flatten with our stomping feet.

The fiery buzzing wasps burn our years in the mud houses they build.

In my dreams (it really is the right time now)

We walk on forbidden forest paths. Smell the wild flowers.

Taste the wild fruit of endless joy. Poke curiously into anthills.

And watch the dark insects tumble out. Pell-mell.

And talk to the trees. Collect their resin. That ooze thick and sticky.

In my dreams, hand in hand, we race. Keeping perfect step.

Panting. Eyes dancing.

We fling ourselves across the eons

And drink the nectar of life

In large gasping gulps

Quench our thirst in the middle of summer’s beat

Whittling away our melting moments under the shade

Of mango trees where birds call long and sweet

And peck-peck all day while we play

Our endless games. In my dreams. (It is the right time)

 And.. and.. In my dreams we climb into rain clouds

And play hide and seek. And run around like happy puppies

Rolling and tumbling in the muddy earth

And learn each other's language when our eyes meet

When our minds touch. In my dreams. It is the right time.

And yet sometimes inky blue creeps in my dreams

As heavy hearted we traverse our bumpy roads

The tarmac washed away

Where it submerges under murky water

Where rivers of doubt and uncertainty flood

And spill over into festering catastrophe

Where I disembark and my feet and lungs drown

And I reach out into emptiness to grasp your hand

To break free together and run across

Into our world of cloud and laughter

Heart and throat clutched in our hands

As hope sputters and coughs awake again

In my dreams. It is the right time.

The Puppet and the Puppeteer

Who was the puppet
Who the puppeteer
Who is the poet
Who the master
Who held the strings
And controlled the dance?
Who laughed
Who was laughed at?
Everything was such a funny
Pantomime.

But when the puppet awoke
To her own existence
And rebelled against
The strings
That made her dance
And laughed at
And pulled at the puppeteer
To make him dance
Beside her, on the stage
The master sliced the strings
Trampled on the puppet's limbs
And now gloats as he
Surveys the carnage
He is the master of his realm
The empty stage.

Who's gonna sing poetry to you?

((Who's gonna sing poetry to you?
Stone man
He doesn't want my love
He chooses anonymity))

((Will the indifference be unlocked?
He kills his love
She's dead
His heart cries
But it's time for him
To sit cross legged to
Find his nirvana moksha paradise peace))

((There's nothing, she thought, without love
She invested heavily
Not in stock or in gold
But in words she created
And freely gifted
And a heart she freely
Presented
But they were undervalued
And rejected))

The koel's cry

There are times
Say, mid morning
When I drink my coffee
Or afternoon
When the day's heat
Bursts out in droplets of sweat
Or when late night's
Feverish eyes keep vigil
Listening for your silent footstep

I wonder then
With stilled heart
What is the destiny
Of this frenzy of rhapsody
That stuck melody
That repeats over and over
Like the koel's cry from a nearby branch

"Do you think of me? Do you ache for me? Do you want to hold me?"

I don't know why I do
But the song recurs anew
Morning, afternoon, night
The koel cries

"Do you think of me?"

Another past

The caretaker of fates
Was the proffered bouquet
Of your presence
As subtle as the fragrance
Of incense
Its curling fumes
Drawing me into
Your world of make believes
Which I wholeheartedly agreed
To belong in
Always knowing
It was just a temporary thing
Always knowing
No matter how fleeting
The fragrance would resuscitate
A forgotten part of me
At least temporarily

And now I listen
To stillness playing
A gentle melody
Wafting in from
An immeasurable distance
While the sun lazily
Slips through the branches
And the last of another day
Dissolves into another past

The journey

Beyond enclosed space, walls and bars
Tiptoeing through mazes of hallucinations
I come upon the threshold
Like emerging from darkness to
Sudden brilliance - of distant suns
Sudden shift in the breeze -
The stars emerge from their eclipse

The land itself is re-patterned
Burgeoning creepers, thrusting flower buds
Re-emerge from the dry kaolin, ashes
Even still celestial bodies
Begin their perambulations anew
In quiescence to new realities
Obscured by the dust kicked up
By a yesterday storm

As the dust begins to settle
The earth opens her arms invitingly
You lie supine on her soft breast
And languorously watch the spectacle
The whimsical celestial drama unfolding
Scene by scene

Arrested in this transient moment
After journeying past dust clouds
Into the embrace of Mother Earth
The reality of
Infiniteness is unveiled