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.

Ears & Voice

My ears, forever refusing
to sleep alongside my eyes.
Restless,
they long for a voice.

An eternally sweet voice,
seasoned by Mediterranean's golden sun,
borne from Delphi's prophecy,
bursting forth ever since.

In the veins of spring's grass,
in the autumnal dew,
in the wintry fog,
in the tree trunks

its there biding its time
to meet my ears.
The air can't carry,
for it lacks the art.

Maybe I hear it,
I hear it all the time,
in orotund baritones,
in your honeysuckle voice.

Random VII

Now, when you are walking down
a dark alley,
suddenly, stars flood your way.
The light suffuses you and the darkness.

It burns through your flesh,
turns your bones into ashes.
Swept away by the wind,
your remains are washed away.

For, you'll combine again
when you want,
when the alley's darkness
no longer remains to haunt you,
to hurt you.

Random VI

Broken glasses, empty seashells.
They have swallowed the echoes.

Standing on the shore,
the eternal desolation of waves seeps in me.

The sand is insistent,
it denies the overwhelming by water.

Here, in the empty desolation,
today is tomorrow and tomorrow is today.

Maybe, a ship will come, carry the desolate
or itself become desolate like the broken glasses, seashells.

Random V

Lean from the starboard
of your ship.
The sea is rolling, calmly
each moment, defined,predestined, identical
The full moon makes it a mirror,
an icy blue mirror.
Don't look down, at the sea
the tendrils of your hair
might cleave it,
might break the mirror.
Just look ahead,
reflect the icy realms
of Atlantic in your eyes.

One day

One day, when the soaked raindrops

will ascend to the sky,

and the petrichor of the March of 873 B.C.

will be released from the soil

and the Sun would be new

and the moon would not have born

and the Everest would be a tectonic fault

and all the rivers would be sea

and all the glaciers would be ice again

and all I have done,

would still have to be done.

And then, maybe, I would

do it all over again,

inch by inch, second by second,

breath by breath,

till I find myself again

writing, waiting once again,

for reversals.

. 

Where do you work?

Walking along, the wind whispers in my ears.
The trees warm the songbirds in its womb.
Its a cold chilly winter night,
an old copy of Pushkin's poetry in my hand.
By the moonlight, I try to decipher Pushkin,
some old friend had asked me yesterday
"Where do you work?"
I had simply stared, turned away,
clutching Pushkin tightly.
I work, Neitzsche lights my fireplace.
Being jobless and studying,
a strange and difficult art.
My hunger douses my fireplace.
My thirst slows my pen.
I work at the godown,
I am a carpenter of ideas,
old and new-give me any thought-
I'll fashion it to your time.
I am an amateur thought artist,
infantile brushstrokes cover my notebooks.

Random IV

Across the road,

beyond the glass panes, 

there is nothing,

nobody waiting.

Wake up, wash your face,

look in the mirror.

Search for the remains of dream,

crusted on your eyelashes.

Swim up, swim up

come to the surface of water.

Lungs may not hold up a second more.

Its sunshine, bask in it.

Across the road,

beyond the glass panes, 

music plays, coffee is brewing.

You're not alone. 

Random III

The crimson sky,

swords of sunlight,

fall through the glass panes of my window.

The swords trace 

patterns on my empty notebook.

Its pages white, bright shiny.

My hand in mid air,

pen clung between middle and index finger,

making unintelligible shapes.

White page, shiny, bright,

crimson swords on it,

cut through my conscience.

Long and wasted years

spent, burnt away.

Faces, years, friends, foes, nobodies 

rush past.

Crimson fades, slowly

to light orange.

The swords losing the edge,

the steel melting,

the pores of conscience closing.

Memories turned about,

present restored again.

Light orange, suddenly

drops into darkness.

I light a candle,

near the notebook.

Its pages, white, shiny, bright again.

November,a little bit more smile

November is there again,
its left foot stuck out,
inside the threshold of time.
November, strangely,
does not fall in any season.
Its neither chilly nor hot.
Its sweet, contemplative.
introspecting, light, slightly windy.
The accelerated breezes
just reach a little bit deeper
into the bones,
form a litle bit frost
on the veins.
The hair on the arms,
a little bit more sensitive to November.
Right now,
its a little bit early in November.
A little bit on the wee side of November,
and then,
afternoons will start flowing into evenings.
November,
a little bit more mysterious,
a little bit less light.

P.S. : November owes a little bit sunshine to Thomas Hood and L.M. Montgomery .

Black, Green and White

And, maybe what you see is not the truth at all.

And, maybe, all of it is a stage play.

Maybe, life is a treatise on theater.

You play multiple characters.

Change morals and principles,

according to character's psychology

-each passing second-

change costumes.

Go into green room,

apply glycerine,

apply paints,

chalk a new character.

Umbrella

Outside the window,

snow falls.

White on green grass.

Green encrusted with white.

It falls,

soft cotton like plumage.

Covers the tarmac,

the wooden rooftops.

Beyond the pine covered mountains,

stands a chapel.

A bell

chimes.

Echoing

through the valley.

Snow thickening,

Standing,

leaning against the

window,

without  batting an

eyelash

she

is silent,

listening to the changing notes of chimes,

seeing the ballet of snow

and pine leaves.

Its twilight,

forever twilight here,

like in a Grimm tale.

A glass of wine in her left hand,

twilight,

snow,

bells.

A knock on her door,

snowfall is hailstorm,

the pine trees come rushing

like an avalanche.

She doesn't turn,

wine turns from red to magenta,

the glass tilts,

coloring the snow below the window.

The avalanche nears,

twilight

turns to

dawn.

She wakes up

in an London hospital,

a patient,

hope had long left.

Lou's gone

It ends where it all began-

Sunday Morning-

Lou Reed passes away,

like a single chord guitar sound.

The poet from

New York Central.

The Velvet Underground's Revolver,

Warhol found him sometime in 1967.

Listening to Walk on the wild side,

gives a peek to Warhol's factory.

Drugs, sex, rock & roll-

key ingridients of a simple Lou Reed single.

With all the imperfections,

he still managed to make us see a perfect day.

Some 50 odd years after

the release of Transformer,

I don't know,

if his poetic allusions

required moral justification.

Lou was always the progenitor.