Wednesday, December 27, 2017

DIOGENES OF AN HONEST MAN



I squeezed 
lemon of thoughts
into a glass of brine water, and
stirred it 
quenching my thirst -
The birth of knowledge
Diogenes of an honest man -
Lantern hanging 

सबूत



कहाँ खोया है तू
मेरे सांसों की मात्र बानगी लिए
अब और क्या शेष बचा है
मरते - ज़ीते
खण्ड अखण्ड का भेद  लिए

अपने ही तो हो तुम
अभी ही तो मैनें  बांधा था तुझे
अपने ठुंठ से गिरी हुई पत्तियों की तरह
अब क्यों विचलित है तू
हमी हैं जो मरते हैं

कौन हो तुम
अपना वर्चस्व कायम किये
दिशा का भ्रम लिए हुये
अभी एक शाम और छोड़ जा
मेरे ड़ूबने का सबूत लिए हुये

AN EMPTY LOOK



A rustic music plays
into my sodden ears
wet of soaking memories
Traversing the bound 
of my unforgettable past 

The night meow
a slight of pawing legs
Stinging my shadow 
with unpleasant whim 
Crossing unthinkable thoughts

I have never been so lucky
in your hidden identity
The more staring I get
I get it not from you, but
Me; carrying an empty look forward 

SILVERY EYES



I lure your beauty
In silence of the setting sun 
Gripping haven of an art 
With heaving heart, that
By your golden knob
You will open your mercurial door
Flipping a part of me 
towards a certitude, that
When you will come
Nearest to my beat 
You will shiver a pound of moon
Into my silvery eyes

NONENTITY



It will fade,
It will fade like nothing before
Only 'this' remains of your memory
to remind me
of your retreat
towards higher elements 
somewhere;
and
that your stay too will wear out 
from an old sky
sans any twinkle
wasting on time and space
as
there was nothing before
to revamp my present.
It will fade
It will fade
A nonentity 
Upon all

MOTHERLAND



Hey Bharata,
Hey Bharata
Naman, Datri! The giver...
The breath of my breath
Om namo Namah:

Folded hands mine 
worship your divine will
Begging by my broken bowl
I lay prostrate 
Wailing my heart out 

Richness have not been my forte.
Truce bind me towards you, as
I run blindly
Shearing my time fleece 

Come by your supple feet
Grace humanity
'Vasudev kutumbakam'
All in oneness
All in prosperity
All in togetherness
All in peace

I chant ...
Bharata namastute:
The mother of all mothers
My Motherland!

My Himalaya
My Ganga
My people 
My temples, my mosques, my churches
My reverence
My hands touch your feet
I dust myself in your greatness

Jai Jai hey Maatri, Mother
Jay hey Maatri!
Om namo Namah:

BRISTLES IN THE AIR



I draw a running time
Mirroring my face
Towards a broken space
Freezing my wrinkles -
An old age adage

I search the deepest treasure
Digging my grave again and again.
Stultified
I stitch my remains -
A cadaver for my own dissection

I war on my weakest spot
And win a loss 
Comprehending the incomprehensible.
Rooted underground 
I search my broken twigs

I paint the darkest colour
On a blank canvas
And hawk protruding night
to prey on my thoughts
with bristles in the air

SACRAMENT


How you offer sacrament
planets upon planets
Garlanding the skies
through your invisible thread
And
When I pine
A look upon you
you drop tears
from my eyes
What denouement you play 
By final act, that
You residue ashes
to my body and sou

आशनागोशी



विचित्र शांति है
सम्पूर्ण आकाश लिए
ठहरे पल को
अपने आगोश में लिए

कोई वंचित है 
निर्बोध, टकटकी लगाये
कहने को अभी
और भी रात बाकी  है

सहमी सहमी सी है
शब्दों में रची कहानियाँ
एक जीभ तले
असीम सी शांति है

औरों से तुम्हे
भले ही य़ादों का पनाह मिले
पैमाना मेरा रंज है
अपने हीँ लहू से

विचित्र सी विरानगी है
दूर अास लिए
नब्जों में रुधिर सर्द है
आशनागोशी लिए हुये

KEEPING A HOLD



It was a barbed wire
Looking askance 
at my shadowy figure
and willed my crossing 
over to a free land, that
with legs of silhouette
I could very easily do 
But,
An instance rued on me:
What could one hold -
In this belligerent space
When one could not differentiate
between a shadow, or
A black shoot 


Keeping a hold on the ground

SISTER



Since I do not have
my own sister
to play me around 
at my house
Earlier when I was a little boy
I used to chalk 
a meaning on my blank slate 
Drawing long and pony hairs
Braided, on both sides of the head
A long and thin nails
hued with different coloured chalks
A simple frock, and
A high heel shoes, strolling
A walk through my heart's playground.
Now that I have my own
Daughters and son
I sneak a part of their play, and
When they are not at home -
Probably to tuition or in friends house
Or watching TV, or eating snacks;
There I unfurl my heart 
in secrecy of my room
and dance my body
to it's full rhythm
Hitting heels lighter on the floor,
Jumping seven heights of a toy -
Playing mind and soul
Owning frolic and fairy
part of my life again

LOST LAND



I sway 
by the soft western wind
the evening
rooted on a turf of a broken land
The earth of which
is slowly getting dark
as silence of the evening sets in
settling 
whisper in space
Birds flapping towards their nest
Burdensome dusk
charging lonesome heart -
A dead bird's dream.
The thoughts shear
an account of flesh
As the night-sheep
bucket its head
treading along 
the heights of lost land

WILL OF HEART



One thought
hoop on me
to perforce the inevitability;
the robbery
by the subtle thief
in the thickness of the night 

Steathily,
She comes by her long tress
A beauty in a veil, and 
take all my treasure
in a huff 
by the will of her heart

AN ALLEGORY OF LOVE



There are no days, here;
Between these straight nights
Devoid of light
I walk by my own will
Stretching my time
Towards the end and beginning, alike

Thoughtful wings
Wear flight of a bat
Where the sound 
Play my shadow
Eloping darkness into my heart -
An allegory of a night kiss

UPSIDE DOWN



How you giggle
like a tall tree
bearing greenery leaves, and
luscious fruits 
Every veins in the air
Surround me 
In your laugh
As I become a laugh in me 
Taking all corners of space
as my toy
And
Hop a little, and
Hop a little
Catching Suns and moons
Turning earth upside down

LONG JOURNEY



A train
like caterpillar
ran into my eyes, and
journyed across my vision
of silk roads 
whistling station after stations
weaving 
thread of my golden relationship -
those who get down, and
those, with whom
I share my days and nights
traversing on a long journey -
Moth taking a flight 

LUSTER OF MY EYES



From the altar 
of your highest abode 
I buzz my love
by your nectarine flow 
How faith petal my love
All that I see around
by my faithful eyes;
Isn't it the garden, that
Flower


luster through my eyes

TOUCH OF YOUR HEALING



You have a given
a yard of fabric
to wear on my naked bones
What secret then you search
into my sleeves
hidden to your eyes

I swell tons of pain
Nearer by my heart
to do away my birthing
in human form;
Yet you fulfill your desire
burning a pyre on me

You have panacea
for every illness
But being blind to my folly
I dig bigger wounds
darkest to my desire
to feel longer the touch of your healing

WHISPER BEYOND SILENCE



I have taken a gulf
into my heart
What uses are pen, that
deny its ink
to take whiskers of the night

If I am deluded
I am deluded by my senses -
light, sound and smell;
That which touch me
wear a woeful look

My deformity limp
on the steady path of life
I was perfect in death
reigning my silent throne
whispering words beyond silence

INNER HEART



You came lazily
by your western wind, and
whispered upon my grave
the subtleties of words
opening your inner mouth

I overheard the phrases
kissing upon my mound, and
like a drunken man
started skirting tulip
from my deeper roots

After hanging all passions
willowing into the air
I started dreaming; Dali's
"The Persistence of Memory"
into my inner heart

HOOFS AND STIRRUP



You told me
to gallop by the high wind.
What diminishing act
You played on me;
The more I tried
to forward my steps, painfully
it regress to my former self
beggarly
looking at dust-laden path
thousand miles across -
Hoofs and a stirrup

लघु विराम



एक मूल है
जो शास्वत है
बन्धन के उस पार
सम्पूर्ण आलिंगन में

वशीभूत हूँ उसके
मौन विराट लिए
आकार विस्तार लिए -
सौम्य सहृदय सजल नेत्र

खुला आकाश
पंख और परवाज
वही है
चरम उत्कर्ष लिए

रुन्धती है जीवन की सच्चाई
कहीं मिलना, कहीं बिछुरना
गरीबी है जो भींचती है

लघु विराम लिए

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

THE MINGLING


A shy old man
lived under a dense forest
in his old hut
hundred yards from the sea
freaful of water

He clinged to his fear and bones
Stone deaf, silent, he rarely left his house
laid out his memory
on the sight of a funeral urn kept on the mantlepiece -
his daughter died of malnutrition many years ago

He could not tranport his body
Nor was he tormented by imagination -
He died.

They put in his coffin the urn of his daughter's ashes
Next year -
The mingling

GOLDEN NEEDLE



A golden needle
bemoan
its futility
in brightness
buried
inside haystack
It stitches
richness
Under
its thoughtful sky
Unknown
to reality

DENIZENS AND ME



I have seen denizens
of the outer world
feeding on spaces
of its cosmic birth
inebrieted with a whirl upon whirl
holding sense of its presence
beyond the senses if humans could perceive
yet, invisible to our stony eyes

I have seen the marks
of your steps
in my dreams
treading reality with rounded perfection;
accrue me nothing
in comparision with your deluge
that drunk me darkeness
in ever deepening spaces

I have a little life
left on this earth, otherwise
my inertia is so vibrant
of my own doing, and
is not so inert
as it seems it is perceived
And can pen my surety
that I do with denizens and me

SWEET DEMISE



Bison with curly horns
fearless and devouring
ride my fear
swaddled in darkness
of which
hurling hoofs
rut my heart
with every silent paw
marking
a dead end to me.
Smile, conscientiously
taking a leap
smiling sweet demise on my lips

ENNUI OF THE PRESENT



She came searching for life, upstairs;
holding a clutch of time, that
she herself was feeling disenchanted about it

ennui of the present
came plashing with higher tides
indifferent to who she was

Oblivious of stepping legs
she strayed from her present path
to her familiar past

Repeatedly she called out her mother
that her mother was alive; resting or sitting in her upper room
knowing least that her mother had died forty years earlier

She is eighty years old now, pressing her remaining years
with the bonding lost into the past, that
She and her Mother once drew milk out of it

VALIANCE OF MY NIGHT



Valiance of my night -
the deep sleep
fights battles
with denizens of the uplands;
manoeuvring my dreams
Sword and armour
slithering quietly and skillful
into a larger space -
the crying
of an open battlefield

Defeat came easily
buzzing
into my ears -
mosquitoes;
as I threw my limbs
tearing
the safety web: mosquito net
unswaddling my legs and hands;
as I awoke
folding my dreams into a page

DUST



You piped a breath
out of me, and
played like no other before
my painful fortitude
rolling over the multiverse

All narration lost
in denouement of naught
in an ever increasing vastness;
and silence
upending the void within

I have lost touch of those
who derided me
of my painful bearing on this earth;
Now I chide
their becoming, a dust

HEAVEN AND EARTH



Leave me untrodden
to your distant land;
once familiar, now
ilk my space
away from you
to a place unhindered
by loss and pain
that you are no more, here
to paint my dreams in colours
to gain one more time in your beauty

as I somersault
the death
once more, that
I am alive now
I will do the needful
that burdened you here.
And believe me
it wont be much long
that we will rejoice the hinderland, up there

I will rue not
the days spent in repentence
the sadness
that levied your face
I will go ahead, and
Keep a handful of flowers
welcoming you
standing at the door of heaven
that
in your death I live
in your life I die
Diurnal or nocturnal
I live heaven and earth, simultaneously

Charlie to your love



Perchance,
I will not be able
to give loving words
to my silent mouth
but
Dressed motely, and
ragged
I will play, Charlie
in your love

Perchance,
I will loose my self
swarming into city lights
like a moth
yet
to my vision perfect
will ever crave
the distance
towards full moon

Perchance,
May you remember
out of me; but
sadly
when I will die
of my last puff
remember; that
I played Charlie to your love

MOTHERLY



I braved
my past deeds
to wing my silence
time and above
over many skies
surrogating my little form
this world to that
pithily abounding in macrocosm
and counted my universes
umpteen times
inside;
as she bore me, motherly
womb to womb

गूंज


इस वीराने में
यह कैसी आवाज़ सी गूंज उठी है
साँस थमी सी है, और
नब्ज़ों की दौड़ रुक चली है
कायल हूँ
हुनर पर तेरे, की
कोई बुलाता है जब वहाँ
सच्चाई काँपने लगती है
बंद बंद सी है
अन्धेरे का यह वीरानापन; की
चारदीवारी से अब भी
चिल्लाने की आवाज़ आती है
इस वीराने का
एक तमाशबीन सा हूँ मैं
लहू रंग बदलता है
रात कालिख़ की तरह

सरमाया हूँ



कौन से पाप के पोषक
हूँ मैं
मृत्यु तंज़ कसती है
मुंडेर पर काले काक की तरह

किसका सरमाया हूँ
फन में ज़हर लपेटे हुए
इस लर्ज़िश ए ठण्ड में
रूह काँपती है

कौन से शब्दों को
कण्ठ में सिहारते हो
जुबां अकाट्य नीला है
और फुफकारते हो