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