For the Future

My future ramblings can be followed at:

http://sunshineanddandelions.blogspot.com/

:)

Three Poems for Posterity:

When it’s Too Late

Dawns, no longer fervent,
With the promise of day,
Lay punctured
At the fettered feet
Of a dead summer sun
That cannot rise.

“Love”, an early bird waits
Spreading its pallid wings
Waits to soar and sing
Waits,
Waits…
And falls.

The prancing deer, moans
Not even endeavoring
To un-hinge
Its stiff arthritic knees…
The elfish eel, eye-less
Sees no more.

To this ashen terrain
Of washed up jade
Color-bereaved blossoms
Night-loving lichens
Maggots…
Bring no light.

The seekers of day are dead.
Pray, let
The termites…
Live.

June 23, 2009.

The Last Song

While I hum, play a star strung song
On moon-beamed strings
Of an old guitar.

In our washed up chorus, let us
Liberate the long-imprisoned
Dove of dried-up love.

Then we might evanesce, swirling
Like perfect smoke rings
Into an inky night.

I shall hush my reproof, and you
Can save your unsaid words
In a treaty of silence.

And thenceforth, for all summer lives
Each quietly amble
On one's own winter pace
....
I, humming my verses,
You, singing your silence.


June 28th, 2009.


........

[I have willingly disappeared, for good
Into the silence of years of labour lost]

There is no retreat from this road
For on the hefty ride
Backwards of finished sentences -
Full stops intervene.

What would you spell out
To the protagonist in your book?
What hope will winged angels bring -
To a man sentenced
By a jury that will never sit again.

Wrongs and rights are immaterial
When being completely right
Makes you so so wrong
And being wrong fails to heal.

Think not, of relating
Any good, any bad
Of such stories in black
Such stories as ours
Without an end...
Bury those drafts deep
Beside all else unsaid and undone.

Let this chapter close
Like its subjects
On unfinished sentences
With big bold full stops...

July 12th, 2009.

-


Rest in Peace.

June 6th, 2009.

Emotions Unwritten

Many a silken scarves I shall have to spin,
Unspin,
Discard,
Shade...

Many a drafts re-word,
Revise,
Remake...

Many a moments,
Re-live...


Before my jelly fingers
Will ever do justice
To the Prometheus they aim to sculpt.

The Peace in my soul...
Is agonizing.

June 8th, 2009.

Void

Unto another, sapphire night
Cast,
All your spells –
Make those stars,
Disappear.

Or pluck out each, like
Raisins,
Off hot muffins –
Douse those fireflies,
Forever.

On its undulating, black fabric
Then,
Carve my name –
Cursive, like a calamitous
Odyssey.

In a wicker basket, hand-woven
Arrange,
Nature’s silly laws –
Erratically, like your unkept
Promises.

Let my follies be
The Noose,
That strangles –
Me, my futile hopes
Utterly.

Slowly, again, mon cher
Chant,
A lullaby soft –
So at last, I may dream
Tonight.

May 25th – 31st, 2009.

I am happy, I curbed
My fanatic heart
From painting
Another canvas plush
With pulsating colors
So fast.

Yet its sinking has left
A deep dimple in my chest
And my heart – swollen, floats
In the mires of my belly.

Putty and plaster
I have enough
To fill the gap
Completely.

So I shall not spend
Another age
Fishing it out
Only to lose it
Again.

May 18th, 2009.

In Memoir

I could almost, if I tried, let it fall
A tear for you, whom I love not.

For you loved me.

I knew it, yes, long I believe
Ever since I read my casual words
Carved on your countenance.

I dare not surmise - I fathom your despair.

I have yet to suffer
The wanting and the waiting,
The soul-wrenching agony,
Of loving one
Who loves not me.

Between pains -
Of him and me and now you
And then those to come -
I hunt for happiness,
Salvageable joys.

Relentlessly,
…
Life goes on.

April 19th, 2009.

Belonging

[Here follows, another ode, resplendent with "I"]

In a few oblong years
Surreptitiously
My emotions have transfigured
From an infinite echoing void
To first, a serenading prose
And now, a musical poesy.

I cannot write
Enough
On the mesmerising magic
Of the twittering sun birds
Flitting endlessly
In the flame-bearing Gulmohars
On a wet breezy May morning.

I sit sated
Long brimful,
Slowly dripping
With emotion.

I feign I have friends
Among happenings of nature
The comings and goings of lady-bugs

The blossoming of little purple flowers

The scattering of rain into spectra
The secret whispering of winds.

My grave, like my life
Should be littered with flowers -
Endless monuments
Of beauty dying young.

May 4th, 2009.

Doctoring Myself

[A testament of impending death
Hastily scampered, out her mouth as if
She could never again speak, did she falter then.]
I have reason to believe
The red sun sets, slanting
Oftimes, in a capricious east.

The permeating aura
Of blue pre-dawn stars
Speckles my pair of onyx pupils.

I have accumulated
Too much suffering
Within a pint of murmuring blood.

My curing days are over
I ambulate mechanically,
And healing had always been a ruse.

I wish to lay down my white-coat
And cradling some dolls and a weathered wand
Retire to a cave behind the western falls, forever.

April 19th, '09.

Rainbow

Sunlight is some strange spell:
Cast upon
A veiny white leaf -
Makes it glow green,
Atimes auburn.

Sunbirds gleam
A blinding blue
Among scores of dull
Earthy twitters.

Orioles glisten
A glimmering gold
In short leaps
From tree to tree.

Yet rain they love -
For,
In casual balmy evenings
It sighs sprays
Of spring’s best attire
In one careless sweep.

April 8, 2009.

Old Times

Appropriate, few yards, two by two
In this verdant patch
For me to lay
Asleep.

I must contain some droughty truths
Within grimy red brick walls
Of a never changing
Reality.

Street vendors outside, sell 32 bit jellies
2-leaf clovers, steamy ice-lollies
On square wheeled carts of
Wishes.

Keep this, friend, a modest memoir
Of what you are and cannot help
Of what I want and cannot
Be.

April 4, 2009.

Vacuum

How empty is a hollow bowl?
Vacuum is emptiest, they taught me
So if 'Empty' means 'To Have Nothing'.
Then this I can prove:
This star-forsaken night is even emptier
It Has so much, it jus' poured in me
7 sealed quarts, brimming with Nothing.

I soar to the shore
Of this vacuous sea...

The dead are better off, exploring.
(If endorsed, one transaction)
Hovering on the edge, I'd barter:
For a patch of their shapeless land -
Few days' wages,
A good night's meal,
Some past-perfumed paraphernalia,
An oft-perused memory,
3 unshed tears,
Lies.

Planting seeds of things lost
I'd float over, irrigate -
Till that day when
Recalcitrant thorny flowers
Fill the hole in my pupil
And I thud on the ground, blinded -
But at long last, full.


Mar 21st, 2009.

LSD

Mottled; muddled, are impatient realities
In a luminescent pool of battling thoughts.

(I must be drunk)

Voices, rainbow-stained
Serenade, from the kingdom of
Mist-burdened evenings
Twilight-stricken mornings.

(I must be stoned)

Follow, ballerina-toed
Up to iridescent stars,
This sinuous sapphire
Dragon-groan of frosty fire.

Brave, God-sped - this sorry journey
Taste the tinkle of a tolling bell
On the last rung of the beanstalk
Look back when they ring the knell

And Pixies, from the faerie-ring of…

Cerulean Flames and Dusky Dawns
and
Dawny Dusks and Tinted Tones

…will swipe your frightened soul.

Fettered in gold prison bars
We will tip, together
Sonorous mead jars.

Come love, slake
In this merry nightcap-tivity;
Let them build - our pyre lake.


Mar 19th, 2009.

The tears we shed

I have so folded and packed away
The past few years
That I can tranquilize with a sway
My oversensitive tears
By a drama of disgust
For all that once was.

We humans must learn to fashion
Some cautiously concocted facades
In this Darwinian contest
To cultivate our odds
For the survival of the fittest.

With an unprecedented leap
Of my ostensibly inured heart
In the middle of something deep,
In a moment, fall apart
All the fortified barricades
I endlessly keep erecting.

And frantically, anew
I rummage through
The hidden pile of dog-eared letters
For some semblance of why....

For each single tear,
You shed for me...
You have wrenched, countless in a row.

As I wipe yet another,
I must admit,
You wept a lot, I now know...

Mar 17th, 09.

......

I stretch out my hand
And offer you, free
A fistful of silence.

Break not,
Like procrastinated promises,
This fragile reticence.

Let it become
The seasoned conversant
Speaking for us.

-----

Like sprinkled icing sugar
It frosts - our empty spaces
Ubiquitous.

With the shovel of
Your slick veteran filibuster
You clear and salt your pitch.

And i bury myself
In the warm wool of defeat
Like an embarrassed ostrich.

-----


I never realized I still had
Some skin left to be fretted
By my own relentless muteness.

March 16th, 2009.

Give me, God, but a prayer

I want to pray, tonight
I want to beg God for words
Some mouthful, sayable phrases
To soothe your throbbing temples
To solace your tempested heart.

I want to say, tonight
"Fret not, my bosom friend,
God is not unjust...
He will walk beside you on rocks
And carry you over mires."

I will beg God too,
To lend me courage, but enough
That when I say this all
To look you in the eye.

I will beg God, lastly
For it all to mean
At least a little to you.

Marsh 14th, 2009.

God, bless my dear friend.

Self-Love

Man’s first and last love…

It gives her her share of might
Remaining oblivious, of the waiting look,
In her son’s eyes.
Her rowdy, slovenly, misbehaving son.

She will not kiss him goodnight.
Forgetting is not a part of her book;
Forgiving - always
Replete with extreme condescension.

She has convinced herself
Completely
Of the magnitude of her sufferings
And the perfection of her love.

The inebriety of her belief
Discreetly
Robbed her of the trust of her darlings
And won their silent reprove.

…is self-love.


March 13th, 2009.

"So that you still love me"

In a half-written poem, let me again
Commemorate,
How, on that last day
The drifting splotches of clouds
Grew purple
From the intense effort
Of keeping the hidden sun
To themselves.

Is that how she looked?
That purple?
Dressed in floral hues
On that last day
The insecure woman,
Flaming as she hummed:
"Pour que tu m'aimes encore."

The sea is like the soul.
On a calm day,
Endlessly serene.
Blow a little, O winds,
And the mirror cracks
Infinite jagged waves
Intimidate,
By their unsaid promise
Of havoc..

If the sea were, one day
To gravitate unto itself
And stand, miniscule, a mortal -
One would meet a beautiful woman
Twinkling and unreachable as the stars
Serene and turbulent as the sea
Radiant and terrible as the sun
Warning as she danced:
"Pour que tu m'aimes encore."
.
.
.
.

Mar 9th, 2009.

Few feathers, somewhere...

Few feathers, somewhere...

It rained, he says,
and has been, ever since.

(...something important to say...)

Like him, there have been
A few, enamoured by this snake-dance.

(...too young for sad verse...)

Wandering eyes falter now, soften
At the doe-eyed innocence of my charms.

(...should meet up some day...)

.
.
.

(Few feathers, somewhere strewn...)

I have lost my feathers, ever since
I hatched out of this shell, for you.

(I have discovered...)

Man once learnt to converse
God never taught how to unlearn.

(And you once told me...)

A morning glory that blossoms eternally
There is never a dawn for it.

(Then does he not see...)

My bare brazen fingers tear
Nude flesh beneath my chafed skin.

Mar 5th, 2009.

Sing me then

Lend me your eyes tonight...

Maybe, for an unpleasant change
I could look at me, unsuspecting,
And in your all-encompassing glance
See the termites at work,
The rotting facade...
See through all the cardboard walls,
The blank canvasses...

Maybe, for an unpleasant change
I would look through and beyond
At things that transcend an 'I'
At the onyx star-lit sky
At the reasons why winds sigh
At the carefully fabricated lie
At the distance between you and I.

And in that omniscient moment
Perchance -
I'd transform my doleful lament
Into a beauteous song;
I'd harmonize with the universe
And dissolve to become music.

Sing me then, on starry nights...
I'd live on, forever,
On the resilient strings of your guitar
On the resounding baritone of your voice
On the sighing arms of west wind.

Lend me your eyes tonight...

Feb 19th, 2009.

A Long Walk

I could walk on water
If the lake, in reverence
Would freeze where I stepped,
A tiptoe, feathertouch, ethereal.

The winds, however, I know
Are irreverent...
They pass through me
Stealing wisps, of misty nothingness.

Yesterday, in the ashes,
I caught few embers - amber
They glistened blue, slithering
Down, through my singed palm.

In the elements, today, I have failed
To find proximity, companionship.
The moss on rocks dries up,
And sea-gulls fly away where I walk.

Perhaps my soul, like me, is destined,
To walk the byways and alleys,
Looking askance, shielding eyes,
From sweaty auburn sunsets.

Feb 15th, 2009.

Unlived

Apportionating, to a farthing -
The blame, mon cher;
Will not, cannot
Buy back -
Me, my baby pink hopes;
You, promises you couldn't keep.

There are now, scatterred -
Some charred photographs, untaken.
Also - hither, tither;
Cuddly late night secrets, unshared.

Anew, each -
To another,
Unpredictable 'We'
A floral vase awaits
To be fashioned, thrown -
Obtusely, by trembling hands.

Feb 15th, 2009.

What shall I name thee, little one?

[I wish I could cry like I did once
When mom lost a promised pencil
On her way to school to take us.
For days, I couldn't be happy enough
I couldn't get rid of that weight
Squeezing like a tube - my belly.]

I have a small lump
The forbidden apple stuck
Somewhere, here.
A little tugging
Of a corner of my heart
There, where she hides -
My kindergarten spirit
Sad, having lost -
A favorite toy.

We missed seeing the Bronx Zoo,
But at over a score,
I think I'm grown up enough...
Huh! (and she smiles weariedly)
I know I'm grown up enough...
Inside, to be able to read
The blankness of the canvas -
Of little joys and losses
That mattered too much.

And this loss is greater
To my dying soul
The loss of losing a loss
A cherished loss.

Today's blue sunset
I dedicate
To the dreamy little girl
With a fountain in a love-in-tokyo
An altered royal blue frock
And a sea of hopes.


Feb 15th, 2009.

Questions?

Seven seas? An ocean?
Twelve thousand miles?
How far am I now?

Where from though?
From where 'I' began?
Or the ephemeral 'we'?

Do you falter mid-thought a-times?
Do you too hear it in the air?
Loss, misery, memory?

So many speckled questions?
A basket of tropical fruit in sand?
Drops of rain in dry desert-storms?

And the answers unreachable?
To me of course, but to you too?
Aren't they facets, of one glittering diamond?

Do you know why it glitters so loud?
Why it bluntly blinds the mind's eye?
Should I say the secret out loud tonight?

Answer?
Alone....
Utterly alone.
The answer too, stands alone.


Black bitterness?
Did it have to color memories of you?
Could 'we' not have been dear departed?

Like begets like?
So shall I reap?
What verse shall I sing?

In this random blabbering,
Could I but pluck a memory,
Plum, ripe and fragrant...
And freeze it into an icicle,
To safe-guard in my heart.

Could I but (somehow.... anyhow)
Like glazed cranberries,
Preserve a memory, pure, of 'us'.

Could my verses begin to rhyme again?
Or I cease to write?
So that forever 'we' could be...
Immortalized in eternal time
Orchestrated in flawless rhyme.

Could I but stop finding all over,
Another question to question my questions.
Could I but find an answer once,
To answer the helplessness of my answers.
I would sieve my soul through pearly filter-paper
And leave my bitterness like dregs in a pot.


Feb 11th, '09.

To the Ones Who Know :)

Blue, yellow, purple,
Aqua, bronze, cranberry.
Endless lights, peeping, from behind
Floating wisps of frosty snow clouds
Welcome me, to this land of plenty.

In seven inches of foamy snow,
In two-block long shopping malls,
In abundant garbaging of foods,
I found -
Things I didnt know...

Luscious strawberries, a whole pound.
I never knew bananas could grow
Over one foot long.

That on a white cotton shirt
("Anne Klein", oh my!)
I would ever spend
God-forsaken Rs. 6000.

Warm water, two feet deep.
I never knew how weightless
Being weightless would feel.

That a valentine red coat
("Nine West", oh my!)
Would innocently support
A "MADE IN CHINA" tag.

Human sea, endless; fathomless.
I never knew how different
A sea could be from another.

That the moon, oval and gold
("Universal", oh yeah!)
Would look quite the same
From 11th floor of Club Quarters.

In this land of plenty,
I found too,
Things I knew...
Things I'd always known...
Things I'd always know...

Blocks of concrete,
Mounds of chocolate,
Aisles of jewelry,
Long racks of clothes...
Please my wondering eyes,
Coz in my tiny heart I fold,
Some memories to be shared...
In the eye of my camera, catch
Some photos to be mounted...
In every passing moment, breathe
The prayers of some people...

My dear family, "I love you".

Feb 9th, 2009.


Dedicated to my parents, siblings and dear bhanja.

First Day in New York

Impromptu, inspired, my fingers flow
As I see, across a silver window
A red cardinal fluffing in white snow
Amidst a novel, alien, frosty glow.

I shall wish soon, of a long lost dream
Upon the first snowflake kissing my brow.
Then unwrap my folded hopes in honey cream
And let them soak the sweet, albeit slow.

I am no Anglophile,
I am no pro-american,
I am no BCP,
I am no ABCD...

A dreamy dreamer
Just a dreamer...
In an alien land
Of alien dreams,
I seek to define,
I seek to divine,
The will of my heart
The heart of my will...
In the soft snow,
In the crunching leaves,
I shall find fluttering
My few dreams,
they might find wings to fly...
I shall set them free.

Jan 18th, '09.

Unseen

Walk beside me, stranger
Close, Closer...
So as time goes by, our drooping shouders,
Kiss - in the hazy streetlights.
I will show you laughter
In the twinkle of an eye.

When the quarter moon rides, stranger
High, Higher...
And in our flimsy muslin pajamas, cold creeps up,
Recondite - in late January nights.
I will show you misery
In the stealing of a gaze.

I might walk on clicking heels, stranger
Loud, Louder...
When our speckled thoughts rise, stealthily mingle,
Quiet - in Orion's blinking starlights.
I will show you hope
In the flicker of a matchstick.

Walk within me, stranger
Deep, Deeper...
When our lonely selves assimilate into a superior, singular, terrible
Solitude - with its self-constructed rights.
I will show you fear
In the hollow of my hand.

For the night, tonight, is bleak... and long.

January 7th, 2009.
23:30 PST

When the lights are out…

On dark December nights
A pale, demure, waxing moon
Sits like a patiently begging bowl
On the western roofs of Mayo hospital.

Eastwards, Orion leans awkwardly
Over the shallow gothic arches
Of the weather-beaten, crumbling facade
Of the centennial “Gharri wali building.”

Dark, within and without…
Candles – flickering here, there.
Little ones, throwing light – far…
An imago of the starlit skies above.

Frost, like a baby bamboo shoot
Grows up – through my heels,
As I stand – Dreaming…
Wishing upon a lone, esoteric
Shooting star -
Winking secretly
Just at me.

For a brief lasting moment –
Peace – within me,
Pervades.

Jan 1st, ‘09.