After the deluge

The lightness
entered inside me,
last night,
as I lay,
wrapped deep in
dreams.
I woke up,
sat on a chair,
felt collapsing
on it,
like a
bag of
possibilities,
buckling from
inside,
on its own
weight.
And then you,
you, with your
hair sprawled,
laying haphazard
across your face,
eyes quickly
blinking,
then melting
into a smile-
all glee, happiness,
infinite possibilities
inside me,
lighting me.

Summer Verse

All the rush
is futile.
Ecstasy, Passion,
Love, Jealousy-
they come
when they have to.
Each day, Sun
kisses the Earth.
Once in every
few months,
comes the rain-
a final ingredient
to what's brewing inside-
and gives the beautiful
smell of wet Earth.
You see certain things,
smell them, feel them,
make memories
of them,
some sweet, some bitter,
some horrible, disgusting.
And, once in a while,
it sparks,
the fire inside you
burns with a demonic rhythm,
reaches a crescendo,
and you realise,
all the worries,
all the evenings
wounded by it,
all the dawns seen
by you
after sleepless nights,
all of it,
all of the rush
was futile.

By the moonlight

The wet
shadows
of the trees,
swaying in the light
breeze,
forming a netted
pattern on the
road in the
pale moonlight-
I notice
them more,
when walking
alone,
for you always
liked these shadows
as if shimmering
like the surface of a
water body.
With you,
now,
I am
each day
more closer
to
what I've been
to  myself
in my dreams.

The Shaman

He walked
in unbearable heat,
towards the snow
covered mountains.
He was alone,
didn't want to meet
anybody on his way.
But, he did,
meet a shaman,
in a cave,
as he was sleeping over,
one night,
after eating unnaturally
black ripe fruits
from a haunting tree.
He asked the shaman:
Is there winter, snow, mountains,
loneliness
ahead on the way.
The shaman looked deep into
his eyes:
Go on, my son,
there is no mountain,
snow,
what awaits you
is more and more
unbearable heat;
it will turn your
golden skin black,
your hair will be fall,
you'll want to die of thirst,
but suddenly,
you'll feel utterly lonely,
satisfied,
as if,
in a hut on the
snow covered mountains.

I am a distorted man

i am a distorted man,

from inside.
i draw disfigured figures
distorted,
from outside.
i write poems,
incoherent,
trying to write something
beautiful in distortion.
I think about strange things
like the leaves that the tree
abandoned yesterday,
but why did it abandon them?
maybe, they were distorted ,
like the figures I draw,
from outside.
neglected people in rags,
in squalid corners,
made invisible by the
blinding brightness of the world
catch my attention,
I want to talk to them,
because I know
they are perfect
like everybody is,
in their own distortions.

Last summer

I sit cross legged,
angled on the wall of my balcony,
brushing my teeth.
Last summer,
I had detached a glass pane
from my window
and placed it
in my balcony-
I see a tree rhythmically,
melodiously, swaying in it.
Its nostalgic, melancholic
how it undulates
at another
cusp of summer,
late in the afternoon
as my mouth
becomes full of
white silica foam.
The breeze is lukewarm
and the wall bears
no sign of Sun.
Suddenly, the clouds shift,
the Sun emerging
jostling away from the
blue and silver clouds
and the glass pane
shines,
a mocking and ludicruous sheen
drowning
the music of the trees
with its gaudy gesture.

Like in O. Henry's stories

Like the plucking
of the string in
a violin,
it plays through me.
And you are the reed
through which
I play mine part
in the opera.
And the opera,
the play,
the staging,
its magnum
even as we sit,
in silence,
opposite to each other,
in a semi dark room,
with the sun low outside,
and the rain,incessant,
like in one of those
O Henry's stories,
that both of us
have read.

The Sea

The sea,
rolling by,
waves collapsing,
crashing again and again,
like eternal lovers,
falling into each other,
time and again,
each day and every night.
I lay on the shore,
reclining on a dune.
A distant ship
is lit up far far away
from me,
onto the
sprawling ocean,
unrolled in the silvery
full moon.
Whispers of the waves,
as they rush on,
touch my toes
and then again
pulled back
to the sea
as if,
something deep within
keeps it holding-
each and every
current
is like a breath
of the creature inside.
Sometimes, a sweet sullenness
comes over the sea,
its upset with the shore,
stops talking to it,
becomes still,
a silver metal all over.
And I keep on gazing,
wait for another night
for the sea always comes
back to it shore.

Of you, I made multitudes

'A malnourished man,
just a langot round his waist
and a turban on his head,
oblivious, eyes closed,
bathed in green,
on the heads of thousands.'
An old Steve McCurry click floats
on to the horizon-
like an existentialist
conclusion to the festival.
Among all these,
the motifs of Holi
I imagine your presence
wafting.
Of you,
I make multitudes,
in each particle of the color.
Your square shaped palm
with rounded corners
with your little fingers
had to touch my cheeks today.
They didn't,
so I imagined;
of you,
I made multitudes.
Like uncle Walt,
I had multitudes inside,
I poured all of it,
and, of you,
I made multitudes.

Dreams

Dreams,
oh this strange place
called dreams
where I meet you
again and again
and then lose you
again and again
in the teeming crowd
where everybody's face
but your face
is turned away from me.
A large mirror
stands at the end of the road.
I know its a dream
but I am rushing
towards that mirror
where I am sure
you are waiting.
But the sunlight dissolves
and its twilight
at some old fort
in Delhi.
Alone, among the ruins,
I sense your footsteps,
your smell.
Maybe, you're searching
for me.
I'll wait,
just let me hold on
to this dream,
to this place.
Just don't dissolve into
another sunny day.

And I weaved

And i read one poem
after another;
several poems-
some about love,
some about dreams-
kept on reading,
one after another.
I was looking
for some loose
end of thread
somewhere;
to pick it
and weave something
in this thin air.
I weaved and weaved,
and somewhere,
it lost form and shape.
There were too many
loose ends;
lacking coherence,
some found it
as broken apart,
in pieces
and a few could see
what resonated
throughout.

Winter creeps through my window

A silent roll of waves,
winter creeps through
my window cracks.
I pretend to myself,
I am sleeping,
winter touches my toe,
climbs up
through my veins
freezes my blood
The moments,
frozen,etched
on my eyelids.
Once again,
the same streets,
the same restaurants,
the same people,
the same beggars,
the same songs,
the same books
once again, with you,
right here,
etched on my eyelids.

I often close my eyelids

I often close my eyelids,
and the sun washes down
on them.
I often close my eyelids,
the moist air
from the deciduous leaves
fill my nostrils.
I often close my eyelids
trying to make
a picture of you,
for,I miss you,
with eyelids,
close and open.

Its New Year and I generalised

Slipping,
slipping away,
the fingers' hold loosening,
another year spent,
another rope loosened.
More suns,
and an equal number of moons.
Be sensible,
there is nothing new,
(pragmatically),
in the new year.
Its always the same
as Murakami puts it
"In the world we live in, what we

 know and what we don’t know are

 like Siamese twins, inseparable, 

existing in a state of confusion."

Everybody is a parasite,

feeding of this confusion.

Yes, I know,

I've done the crime,

I generalised.

But still, 

let me do this at least,

while you all,

drink and dance.

It rained in some far off land

The words aren't
floating in the
air tonight.
Somewhere's rain
has stolen them.
The thunder
in some far off
land's sky-
its not delayed-
it reaches me,
instantaneously,
through you.
I wish,
it was raining
tonight, here outside
my window
and I'd have gone
barefoot in the balcony,
feeling the coldness,
rising up through my feet.
But,its better,
it didn't rain here.
I want the
thunder reaching
me through you.

I miss Delhi...

And a story drifts on the streets of Delhi,

that when somebody asked Ghalib his address
Ghalib simply said
Delhi would be enough.

I miss the mornings
when winter pours on the streets.
I miss the
endless cups of morning tea.

The fog, the serpentine shapes
emitted from my mouth.
The miles of books
on the streets of Daryaganj

and the shopkeeper peeping
with his sublime eyes,
unfathomable layers of wool
covering the rest of his body.

I miss the very breath of Delhi.
The fine courtly Urdu lost in the
whirlwind of time, lost in the
generations of Old Delhi karigars.

What I miss, is the churlish, rough
Urdu, sharp on the tongues of
Jama Masjid's kebab seller,
sharp on the tongue of Chandni Chowk's sweetmeat seller.

And what else,
do I need to write?
I know it,you know it,
even Delhi's mystical air knows it.

That I miss being with you,
I miss, what would have been
long walks in hazy evenings.
When the moon refuses to come out of mist.

Cain

Licentious,
the dew drops fall through.
Promiscuously,
it impinges on the bare skin.
And a few clouds drift apart,
the golden hued Sun oversees through.
Gone are the dew drops,
gleams the skin, like the Harvest's corn.
And, forgotten, is the afternoon,
what remains,
is the wine of the evening,
on a riverside dinner table.
A slow flame of candle,
the eroding wax,
the slight roll of the waves,
the quivering of the forests.
A few more years,
and erased will be everything,
but the smell of the wet pines,
near the Gates of Paradise.

P.S. The poem is in essence dedicated to the Biblical character, Cain who was destined by God to wander forever. And, somewhere, in the middle of his wanderings, he met a beautiful and charming woman, Lilith. I, personally, wrote this after reading the book 'Cain' by Jose Saramago.

3rd floor Apartment window

"Oh, its so still, the velvety silence.
Shhh, did you hear it?"
"Yes, I did,
in the echoes of your heartbeat"

Now, suddenly out of a dream,
the dark corridors have closed their doors.
Your heart's echoes buried in my heart,
my insomnia will now outlast my sleep.

Uncovering my blanket,
I walk up to the window.
The few cars on the street,
make sure the city is always insomniac.

My nerves tingle for caffeine.
I make a cup of black coffee.
Oh, how it slides down my throat,
striking out all that was left of sleep.

I put a Kate Bush record.
And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places.

From my 3rd floor apartment,
I take the stairs.
Take a walk in the nightly rustles of the city,
I find myself at crossroads

Big digital screens blinking,
occasional taxi wheezing past.
And endless small, blinking lights.
I'd make a deal with God.

Yawps and Howls

There is a sluice gate onto my heart;
jets of blood and poems are arrested by it.
And when the wolfish poet inside me howls,
the bolts of the sluice gate are tested for their strength.
Who is to blame for the raucous yawps?
Nobody, but you.
Yes, you, the half hidden shadow standing beside a tree.
Aren't you the shadow from that evening,
chasing me ever since.
Come on,
insinuate yourself for the words dripping from my tongue.
You won't do it, isn't it?
Come out of your shell.
Here take it, take the silver bowl.
Collect what drips from my mouth,
my marrow and sinews were waiting forever,
to spout when you're no longer a shadow.
My tracks are bloody,
your half hidden stare from the tree
has been stabbing me.
Through the day, it burns,
you burn me.
and through the night, you stab.
Silence, I need your attention.
Do you hear that?
The sound of my blood gushing,
escaping between the gravels.
Someday, when some other mortal passes that path
through the woods,
he will see the blood stains,
hear the poetic echoes caged by the trees.

The chronicled Depths

In its depths, in the search of bottom,
there is nothing.
A free fall,
something is calling out from even depths greater.
Let me fall,
I've chosen it; no, not chosen it,
the fall has chosen me.
Why light the fire again,
when time had doused the red cinders,
only black plumes had remained.
What rekindles it now.
Its a note long lost in the song,
through its third chorus,
approaching the requiem,
the note strikes like an iron rod,
piercing the mud covered by grass.