FAREWELL TO A SONG

She taunts me from the
Shadows of your love,
Behind your black iris,
A twinkling light,
The little diamond of your skies,
The mistress of your melodies,
She intrudes my dreams,
And yours,
I find her at the end of your songs
Songs I thought were mine,
Songs that never were
Wide eyed, tear stained,
I am lost,
She laughs,
And I am a broken word
of this tuneless song
A lunatic.
And she, the tune of
your mirthless reed,
a deathless river
between me
and all that never again will be.

SEMBLANCE OF LOVE

Perhaps there is no
love in your eyes,
Perhaps the misted
sigh of passion is
yet another mirage,
Perhaps you are a liar,
And me, your lie,
Perhaps these evening shadows
may transcend the seas,
Or perhaps they may drown,
Choke in the throat
And clot in a bloody heart,
I am the murderer of a thousand words,
A coward, draped in myriad veils,
And you, a feather,
A flake of snow from an exotic land,
Floating beyond my reach...

DOG WITH A FANCY NAME

You spoke of inflation in Greece
And quoted Nietzsche
You rambled on and on about
False consciousness and failing morality,
About the existential dilemma, the panic stricken world,
The excruciating futility of human life
And its uncertainty,
Half the things you said,
Flew over my head,
You stubbed out your cigarette, you sighed,
And when we were alone,
like all men, you begged for my flesh,
Outside our cold bedroom,
your imported pet from Europe
howled in the Indian heat,
And all I could think was,
How a dog with a fancy name, was still a dog

PERPLEXED

I wake from the dreams of
cotton candy and dragon flies
in hot afternoons,
long chases and mud on shoes,
from chalk powder on hands
leftovers from an attempt at
the unpolished canvas
before PT periods and sweat,
I forget the messages on greasy chits
and behind the brown papers
that enveloped my books,
back i am to darkness and sleep
now I trade nameslips with smiling supermen,
for a hand at the unfinished homework,
I hear voices telling me that H and O
leaves water, about constants
and variables of life,
about oxymoron and metaphors,
I read Dickens and Chekov
back home as dusk sets in,
I strain my brain and
sweat in the exam halls,
much like life, and the bell rings,
The dream is left in half,
broken, I would never know
how much I scored, I wake
to shakes and reality years after,
and stare at adulthood, perplexed.

STRANGERS

We speak like strangers
in strange tongues
not making sense,
We smile with lips,
while eyes stray like
hungry dogs on streets

We whisper in our thoughts
and look at each other, surprised,
We are strange strangers
who know every word of
each others history.

We dont speak anymore,
we who spoke everyday
in the past, and
laughed like fools,
unaware of a treacherous future.

THE WANDERER

I was wandering
In myriad nights,
Under the stars and the moon,
And caught, each drop of dew
that fell from the sky

In the morns, when,
the horizon was crimson,
I dipped,
and emerged as a red bird
And flew in the bright blue sky

Night no longer remained
My feathers fell to the land beneath,
And there were red pools of thick water,
The blue sky was reflected red,
And slowly turned dark.


I saw the stars in the pool,
And swirled and flew,
higher and higher,
Until I was a step away,
and reached out,
and plucked a lonely star
from the depressing darkness
and hid it in my heart.

TO A DEAR POET

You lie on the poem,
and wink and smile, and twitch
and turn and touch me like
a fairytale feather.

You grab me,
on you I lie, exploring,
Each word, each syllable
and every possibility.

You mock me,
You tempt me,
you confuse me,
In each poem you
take a new turn,
I lose myself in the new sights,
that you so effortlessly show.

Every line reveals a little more,
Here a whisper, there another,
then finally with each step,
I fall, and blend, I am you,
Doors opened
I explore more and more

All the while
You lie on the poem,
your head resting on your arms,
I bet you are enjoying ,
aren't you, you heartless,
Watching how I struggle
to take the plunge, to blend, to find,
and not to fall in love.

PERPETUAL TOGETHERNESS

Is it possible,
That these shadows thrown on the wall,
shall stay forever?
In the morning I looked,
and found a block of black,
like ink splattered, formless, yet one
Identities merged, indiscernible.

And as the sun moved through
the pathway of eternal time,
Slowly, they parted,
One, two and many,
swaying now and then,
Until the whole wall was scattered
with black outlines of reality.

Then as time passed,
they seeked the borders of the white wall,
and vanished,
Leaving plain white and nothingness.
I reflect,
The white seems whiter
with black here and there, than alone.

And then the night sets.
And the shadows come back again,
and play their games on my wall,
Blending into one,
The darkness spreads, and I know,
They shall drown in it,
And I shall sleep,
contemplating,
this perpetual togetherness.