TEA

I yawn

When i’m bored

Not when i’m tired

I sleep then

I’ll only laugh when asked about favourites

Sometimes i drink tea

Not the milky white one

Neither the one without

Then, tea smells of the woods

And dew

And autumn beginnings

There are tremors

When i miss grandma

And think of smiles

That vanished with them who left

Some words stayed back though

And pages full of holes

Once called stars

A blank page full of them

In a tumbleweed jungle of pile

That pile, pile of dreams

Pile of childhood

Pile that we left behind

Pile called Rubbish now

Games of dream and lose

They play everyday

They work, fix things, get thrown, throw others

Play ball

Call it a day

Sleep

They drink coffee

Beer too

I drink coffee too

But i drink tea, sometimes

I told you

Theater

A schedule was made
to stage the imminent
on the night


When we exposed expectation
to the wilderness
of the crowd's imagination


Analogy was our honoured visitor
when Brecht, Ibsen and Shakespeare
dined with us


With gorgeous appetite
and voluptuous pride
we began to play


with a million stares
on our exposition
we began


It was called
Inside Out


Nothing they'd ever seen before
they said
was so honest as this
It was called
A revelation


I feel i have seen this before
said a voice from the farther rows
Probably in your own backyard
or a premonition
said we

It was called
A churning


We waited for the gallows
in resolute silence
It inspires me to sing
said another



It was called
A revolution



The final chapter
Resurrection
said we


I found my mother's buried treasure!
exclaimed a child
It was called
A Passion


Drenched in glory
some sat on the pyre
while some submerged
in the wealth of  an afterlife


It was called
The Theater

Visitor

Somewhere in my heart
Where i'm afraid to go
A bell rings often
And the embers are still alive

A visitor is rare
though intruders peek through the glass
Now all foggy
The edges rusty with time

The white morning
is often a gust
that visits the window to the backyard

It bangs with fury
like the walls had known once
when storms raged in the outer hall
and an infant cried from the room upstairs
When the images of the gods trembled
and thunder raged in the outer garden


Where there are weeds now
and shrunken relics
Lost in the nowhere
amidst the overgrowth


Where the key lies buried
There is one who knows where it went
How it fits into the groove


The visitor


The front door gets knocks
but to visit
must be different
With expectation
love
remorse
kindness
anxiety
patience
reverie
and wildflowers
because they are tinier and more beautiful


To meet
To greet
To find
To be found
To trade earthly musings
for a day's worth of amusing
To present and embrace
To become grace
To smile and enchant
To hide and flaunt
Every weakness and sorrow
Like there's no tomorrow


The visitor smiles
Because love travels miles

YOU SUPPOSE

You suppose...

While i laugh away

And gnaw at my sweet tangerine

Between wide eyes and sunny laughs

You suppose...

Now, should i cry, should i laugh next?

Or will you wipe the frown from my brow next?

Which one is it today

Chillies, Chocolate, or Ice?

You suppose...

Now i got gooseflesh

Tell me, should i dress up for a party or will the salsa do?

Or wait...I could write a poem for you

And wait for your critique

Then do i rejoice or furiously contemplate

 The ingredients of the evening?

You suppose...

Black goes with white

And red goes with blue

But i could be a rainbow

And still like you

You suppose...

My heart is your playground

My soul your farm

You bask in the shadow of my love

But you have an affair with your decree

I hold your hand

The moment is tender

Let’s be

But then

Do you suppose?...

You don’t feel the need for me

The Other Side

A transgression
What is it
that makes it seem so sterile
Shivers and raised brows
is all it gets for performing so passionately


In the insidious cave of impulse
you don't know what colour to paint it
Is it white?

White as the morning light
through half open eyes
On a winter morning

It may even be a shade of black
Black like the boiling tar they placate potholes with


Take a cauldron and brew
all the words you will never speak
all the gestures you will never use
all the roads that will be blocked
till it lives
latent as vapour
at the back of your mind


Is it temptation?
Is it the lust of tearing through the naked wild?
Is it a sorrowful evolution?
Is it the cat hiding in the closet?
Did i find something i never thought i would?
Am i out of breath?
Is it a boxing match?
Will there be a stone pelting ceremony?
Is it something called random?
Will they find a word for it?
Will they put the word in a cage?
Is it the truant missing from school?



Is it Life itself?

WINTER CITY

Naked tree

Infant being

Dew on ancient veins

And all nocturne

Hush

The winter city does not speak

It creaks

It moans

It whispers

Rasping yet calm

From deep within its Immense grey nothing

Of a childlike orgasm

Oft from the away

Of the deep, dark, warm blooded secrets of a cure

Come now, blizzard

Snow or dust

Infinitesimal and wise

We’ve hung our wounds out

We will rejoice

While we find colour

Burning in your brilliance

Alabaster, gold, honey brown and chestnut

Now we’re all camouflage

The grass is olden, wistful and unkempt

We’ll look through and find each other

Or maybe a passing bird will carry us through

To other realms

Or back to our wombs

 Like the echo of steely friction

And the prick of alpine thorns

Like a thousand needles

From the paraphernalia

Urban nomads play on

Amorphous and obscure

Boldly proclaiming their dissonance

And in its trails

The treacly placid darkness engulfs

the mind

with its Itinerant leftovers

from an infantly battle

 It returns

To sleep

To heal

To prepare anew, for a duel

In the Winter City

Beloved....

Her love was of black and whites

Of blues and greys

She loved becoming and change

Almost a transaction of ‘i’ and ‘you’

Troubled by a thousand scorpions was her sore soul

It lay in a cocoon now

Where the mind was locked

For fear of feeling pain, she laughed

Her laugh made me cry

So poignant, aswell with the injured heart’s fury

Forgetting to smell the raw in a wound,

To feel the vitality

To imagine the vividness

The heart had forgotten

Now in it lay concrete in the making

A stubborn erosion

An aching cancer

A scar of twenty years

Her fear of being alone

Unloved

Caught hold of the senses

Yet unable to express

Understanding would not come about

What do you do when love to possession to hatred you become

Running the race to the justification of scrutiny

Shall you go to a messiah, a man of silent sainthood

With nectar of truth in his gentle warmth

And see your reflection in the water he holds so calm

Or shall you find the peace which you invoked

Had you ever loved one to the heights of no return

Where your beloved could love you no more

Yet you would love

Why do you ask love of your outer self

Your other will not forgive you

How can you feed your child, your god, with ignorance?

To be broken, yet to bloom was her religion

To keep alive the faith in life

in vitality

the spirit of a wound

Her face stood still and her eyes shone through

The light she had lit within all these years

The tears that were still alive within

Shone in her caramel eyes in the amber light of his office lounge

She sat there typing away

With her hair falling out of her hairnet and loosely over her face

Delicate, yet never vulnerable

Nothing could harm her

Determination had grown steely

It was time’s gift to her

Pain was love and love was pain

The determination was to live

Filling the blanks for all around her

There were only blanks on her page

No full stops though

Her mother had a heart that was so swollen with pain

That she would laugh and cry at the same time

And a dad who got lost

Could you blame them for their lack of strength

Had they ever felt love? Only possession, i shall think

Sheer possession corrupted the soul

A lack of understanding is harmful

Very harmful to the enlightened mind

Yet the love of such a brethren nurtures as well

Yet in such nurturing you shall only grow closer to the material

The hurt you inflict in reaction to such hurt is not justified

Take shelter in forgiveness

It alone is the greatest life giving force that one can draw upon

Journey

Sitting at a window by the sea,
I sought in a faraway land
with wanderlust soul

With the mind at war
and infant heart
journeying within

Like trodden clay
moulding anew
with each stroke

Love became stubborn
Faith wasn't humble
for a ceaseless quest was mine

The twilight ocean gleamed in my eye
painting innocence
the sun grew on my window
and a sapling bled green on the linen curtain

the air grew sheer
and the soul took glorious flight
i bid farewell to time

Climbing higher
the roots had grown moss, i saw
and the bark smelt of home
scratching the surface i found a face

a frozen smile
a broken embrace

The limbs held strong
branches, cradling my presence
sweet little was the fragrant fruit that grew ........

The Excavation

As the ropes grew tighter
and the walls grew strong
The sky caved in
The blue was no longer meant for flight

And suddenly, the screen turned off
The distant hills were clear again
and the water seemed crystal in the sun


As the first brushstrokes
unearthed the remains of the day
The stars twinkled clearer
and the galaxy breathed

I threw a pebble
and it danced on the water
The ripples laughed back at me

I dug deeper
to find random moments
caught in between
Calcified in time- Pristine

I held them up to the day
they glistened
lighting up my face

Then, windborne promises
Swept past
Waiting to find the stars
or maybe a heart

The sun prodded on,
Go ahead, dig deeper
Your need is to discover!
Preserved in tiny streams, i found gold
from memories of springtime

I asked them for answers
where have you gone?
why did you leave me behind?

We travel with you, wanderlust soul
we live in your journey
they said
and i felt a hand in mine


I scratched the surface and sand gave way
encased in a petal were ashes
Remember, when you buried us, they asked

That moment of remorse
Those blunt violent words

A bitter recourse
I said

We fed on your regret all this time
I stroked them with my fingers

I forgive you
And they vanished

Dismembered remains
missing parts of puzzles come next

I never thought that one went there

Well, now you have the answer

I know, i say

Corpse remains vanish from my soul
Their funeral now complete
and i see the circle
and find a buried ring
faded and burdened
a promise holds it strong

Till my dying day
i pronounce you husband and wife
i remember those words
and echoes fill my conscience
as i wake

The morning streams in
As i lie beside you

Black and White

Its 3:00 a.m
And i stand in the shadows
Looking at the moonlight
Why do you light up the dark?
I ask

And she sighs
Once spoke the night
I wouldn't have been black if you weren't white
I wouldn't have been wrong if you weren't right
I wouldn't have lasted if you were stronger than me
I wouldn't have mourned if you weren't in glee

I touch a ray and feel the light
In the hours of the black and white