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

The Celestial Dance

There’s a branch knocking knocking

On my window pane

A storm is brewing

The wind is blowing blowing

Over the hills, over the trees,

Through the brick walls

Of my domain

Where I huddle

And watch peering

Into the gathering grey

Birds have stopped calling

Leaves are rustling

The trees straining against

Their tethered moorings

Clothes flapping are

Hurriedly gathered

Doors and windows

Are hastily shut

And the branch is

Knocking knocking

As if beating the very

Rhythm of time


And my eyes fly

Like sparks from

Kindled coal fire

Reach towards

The murky horizon

Where I meet life growing

From the booming voice

Of universal death –



What is this force

That draws me out

From within myself

To want to join in –

In that great celestial dance

Compressed breath

So. The celestial bodies are misaligned. The birds have flown. Abandoned the branches where they had grown. The wind has fallen silent, perhaps has migrated to a different sky. Unable to hold on to you, clasp you against my heaving ribs. I let go. Without a whimper. Yet your ghost lingers. Stubbornly. Compressed within my breaths.

my caged soul

my eyes like abandoned boats – adrift

in windless waters

crave to strip you off that

smooth skin that enshrouds you

and lay you open

like a butchered beast

and set myself free from

my caged soul --

from your solemn silences

that touch me with the pinched lips

of a miser hoarding his

hidden emotions