Night Heron

Red trees in evening's darkening glow

Breeze cat-footed,stealthy,alert

Like an ashen bird's 

first awakening your eyes 

Take in the night 

Eight night herons voyage on

Eight silent pilgrims or prospectors

In the distance mountains loom

Like destiny

With the bitter reluctance 

of a waking child 

A star begins to blink 

the landscape blurs

no more the song of the cicadas

here let us part

And peal off the pearly flowers of

rainy afternoons

One by one only to move 

on like night herons

And watch each other gently

bear into the night.

I' ve Not Given Up

How come I’m still a seed

beginning to dry up

before snow fairies have

visited me

Inside this darkening womb

I dream of life

when all around me

buried corpses

whisper prayers for the dead

I have thrust out my arms  

from between the twisted

roots of grass

yet the gardener refuses to

make a vent in

the earth for my living thoughts

Let me have a reason

for my death

showers fall and return

it hurts that my strength

                                                is my persistence.

Immortal Love !

The mists rained on that chilly night

When the two restless hearts lay miles apart 

Wide awake in their cozy beds 

Tossing,twisting and turning 

Waiting for sleep to creep into their eyes.

They were sleepless nights full of agony

When mutual thoughts flooded their minds 

Making them suffer in silence 

This silent suffering was true love.

When each night they lay with sorrow 

It was washed away by that salty spring 

They slept praying to the Lord in silence.

Have mercy on us Oh! Lord 

Let us not suffer for that mortal love

Take us into the immortal world 

Where our desires may be fulfilled.

A Late Evening !

A late evening ! I am alone

yet not wholly so

A crowd has feeling too

Enough to shift a little 

and let me sit 

on a teeny edge 

to rest my aching legs awhile.

I wonder afterwards.....

What if  I faint 

from sheer exhaustion 

They might pick me up 

What if I puke 

since I am not feeling well 

Will they....will they....?

The late evening is not black 

It is beautiful

Blue sky stretching clouds 

colored golden-milk 

Between the outstretched arm of 

trees turned black and solid 

before the day.

Alone,but not lonely 

I taste the first taste 

of my honesty

and my strength.

Home I do not think of,

But of destinations,desires,aims.

The late evening distills my wishes 

The scum,the slag dissolved....

all in my tiredness ....

and there remains 

precious little

Only the truth,existence and 

the desire to create.

Still ! I Wait

On the edge of your pale lips

A word has fluttered

Like a butterfly of many colors 

and many wings 

weeping silently on a fading flower.

Your brows creased in concentration 

you have drawn upon

all your reserves of energy 

to utter a single word of solace 

you can't bear to see me cry 

But between you,me and the walls 

We all know

It's a year since you spoke.

Oh! this tomb of shrouded silence 

and filtered light.

We have curtained every sunset
off your window
you live in perpetual sunrise
Yet,I can see in your eyes
that you know well this deceit
and also how to forgive it

If I could, I would smoothen
the furrows of pain off your face
walk you to the sunlight
arm in arm
create a world of our own
But the flutter of your eyelashes say
It's not to be
It's not to be

So I hold your hand
Silent in grief
and wait for a new dawn
while the sun sits somewhere out there
behind your curtained windows.

A Smile !

Let me accept the wounds of thorns

And merely touch a rose for 

it has a smile

Let me not possess it !

A smile has acquired a lot

It has made your friend say hello 

It has brought your dearest 

to the nearest.

It has greeted the stranger into you

Give the child,an affectionate smile 

Respect the superior 

with a respected smile. 

And kill the enemy with a smile 

All love letters of a friend

Are not worth one of her smiles

If the fire smiles, it lights a candle

And if it laughs, it is a disaster. 

Loneliness

Sorrow is greatest

Not when eyes pour forth

A flood of crocodile tears

But when a little drop

Loath to leave its shelter

Hangs on to the lashes

Glittering like a little diamond

Life is loneliest

Not when you sit all alone

And think a million thoughts

But when one harsh word

Cuts you off from the world

Hurting those you love best

And leaves you in black despair.

Oh ! My Shadow

I walk in shade
Trying to hide my shadow
But every corner i turn
There's a light burning
To expose me to myself
In this long,lonely lane
So brightly illuminated !

Many a times
I tried to touch these lamps
But always, to my disappointment
They are touching the sky
And at this moment
I wish, I could reach the sky !

I look around myself
Hoping to find a stone
But,adding one more
to my disappointments
I find no stones
to break these lamps !

Illuminating this long
lonely lane
Making it so bright
To stop me
to hide my shadows !

A Ray of Hope

The nights have seen me sleepless
But I have seen the spring die
Brutally.

I have seen summers on fire with pain
And autumns pathetic
With wounds that bleed.

I have risen in rebellion against winters
That seemed cold
With bitterness.

I have risen with the dawn,walked,
Head held high,to meet
The morning.

Aeons, it seems, but yet your memory
And the brooding of wrongs
Can cut like a knife.
And I have struggled but not died.

Yes,the nights have seen me struggling
But I have seen the spring die
Brutally.

Sunset

The evening rest now
while the sun sets
red and orange skies slowly
make way
for dusky shades
of the coming night.

But,
it is the twilight
that I sleek
and it eludes me
with its iridescence.

The swallows and
herons and egrets
have all gone
for the day.

But even as the
one - eyed crow
fumbles above in vain
for the last greedy morsel.

And the firmament is pierced
with one lone pale star
I know that
the twilight has gone by
which I long searched for.

Love !

Love is like
arsenic (the poison
which never leaves the body)
Even after the most most intense
fight
the bitterest quarrel
the dense hatred
the germs of love
never leave one's mind.

The relationship
never
ends even after the final parting
instead of the end
the parting
becomes
one more beginning. 

Dream

Dream is after all
A Bubble of soap
Which will burst into
thousands of
beautiful fragments
if you done to clasp it

Dream never dies
never dream of past
which is dead and gone
never dream of future
which is yet to come

Dream brings joys
and sorrows
dream brings you
to unseen world
dream is after all
a bubble of soap.
 

Memories

You left me but
you could never
leave me completely
The fossils of your memory
makes it impossible to
Believe that you died
a millions years ago

It is so like yesterday
Echoes of your
mischievous laughter
Still tickle my mind.

The sensation of your touch
still flows in my vein
You seem so real
Sometimes I dream of you.

Coming out of the fossil
to hold my hand
I know you could
never do that.

But who asked you
to become a fossil
you could have
perished like many others
without leaving a trace.

When the Night is Very Dark

When the night is very dark
I am lonely thinking of you
Some stars twinkling in the sky
And I am becoming very sad

A sweet thought comes to my mind
You and I all alone
Running towards the country fields
Holding your hands in my hand

But, sudden come to the real world
Where you are no more
Some stars twinkling in the sky
And I am becoming very sad.

A Pavement Poet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I handed over
A sheaf of my unread poems
To the pea-vendor at the street corner
He took it with a chuckle
Untinged with malice
And said
At least now, Sir,
Your poem will be read.

I think of all those people
Who buy the salted peas
And hold the warm paper-cones,
With my poetry on the inside
Some notice, some do not
And I flatter myself to think
That one considers it a bonus
With his 5 rupees worth

Stopping on his way home,
He reads the poem
Puzzled and perhaps amused
Then wiping the stains off his fingers
He drops the greased paper,
Which flutters down the pavement
Till it is picked up
By a willing passer-by
 

Pocketing my 5 rupees
I walked away
Musing on what pea-vendor said
To me his unintended barb
Was no barb at all,
For I realize,
And without rancour, accept
That I am just another pavement poet.