Mumbai---Not a poem

My brother was on that step, tying his shoe-laces,
My sister was in that kitchen washing the dishes,
My father was reading the papers in that maple chair,
My mother was cradling the baby in her hotel bed,
My soul-mate was playing a guitar on that stage,
I was home staring at the TV, watching them, all of them.
The unidentified corpses…and the identified…
All blasphemic, anonymous losses.
Anonymous paradox, anonymous stings.
The fire is gone, but they are yet burning…
And the rage, and the hatred,
And the love and the faith.
And it all comes back to the top of the tree
When a branch burns, it inflames other trees.
The trunk remains to remind all of us this---
There’s nothing more to let down,
There are only those to be down with.

Raincoat- The Song

Just when it seems like the rain’s been on my shed all day,
It strikes the roof at once and trickles slowly down the walls…
And awakens the mud-buried secrets of the talkative earth
As it breathes a misty sound on my window, I hear it all…

And I can’t wait…..
For it to join the hustle,
And I can’t wait…
For it to hit a puddle,
To knock on its door and jump back like it’s afraid,
But slowly after many a while, dissolve…
In this raincoat of the world.


Your lips have been so dry; it tries to divide your mind,
Your thoughts swim clearly under the frozen lake….
Hollow creek and Eden seems fairly much closer
Than the horizon I chase all day, for just your sakes…

So I can’t take….
What you have for me, my heart---
So I can’t take….
It belongs to nobody, my pulse---
What is your life but a piece of the plan that life must be.
But slowly after many a while, it makes sense…
We’re the raincoat of a big mess.

But look here I am standing, letting this rain shape on me.
Now when I reach out, you will see the horizon lean on me
Along with the blur of blurred paint
In the many raincoats of rain….

Dancing, till she Entranced...

In a flash, the grubby water,
As the cough of an old man,
Spilled out of the gutter,
And began its tragic dance…
Dancing, till it entranced
All humid, stymied passer-bys,
Bidding a slow-motion goodbye,
As it faded, in some heroic stance,
Dancing, till it entranced…
I’ve walked lonely paths of bloom,
But never have I ever so chanced
Upon waters so alive, so at home,
So inanely oblivious, and human,
Dancing, till it entranced…
Dancing till it entranced…
At the mouth of the frail gutter,
It gurgled raspy, with the angst,
Of a soul, marooned in some desert,
Like his last swig from the drained flask.
Collapsing into a flaccid rant…
Dancing till it entranced…

Weight of the world,its not me,

Blame the legions of impurity

And this flaimg blaming game.

I'll be dancing all the same.

I feel water, under my breathe,

Faceless; exposed my flawed soul.

I see water, when thus leak my eyes,

The hunger stay on untold.

I hear water, in ared-hot hiss,

It lingers quite white,volatile.

I am water, dirtiest of the drain,

I grime, I dry, but I never quite die.

Claustrophobia

the alarm ting tings away all by itself…selfless…
The nudging and jostling gets harder…
As I am suddenly vivid in the sequences of incidents
In my sordid, ordinary life,
As far as I see myself in that sequence…
I am locked.
There is no way out…
The threads of forbearing snap right into my eyes…
Puncturing it…
So I bleed…
My vision bleeds…

The call of the crow perturbed the otherwise solemn,
Otherwise calm lake-side, where a crowd has gathered…
At the barbwire fence, watching a claustrophobic, wailing insane…

The sarcasm of it all suddenly takes shape so clearly,
It’s better if you shut up by this time around…
The motion of my humility towards your satisfaction
Is in face with the red-lights of my glowing wound…
Now that you finally see it for what it is…
I hope you feel blessed, under the maple sky…
In my sordid, ordinary life,
As far as I see myself in that sequence…
I am long locked.
There is no way out…
The threads of forbearing snap right into my eyes…
Puncturing it…
So I bleed…
My vision bleeds…

The call of the crow perturbed the otherwise solemn,
Otherwise calm lake-side, where a crowd has gathered…
At the barbwire fence, watching a bereaved, wailing insane…

Unnoticed, except by a solitary pair of eyes.

Gangreen Grapes

When it becomes that absurdly obvious,
You laugh at your own lack of resource,
Then you growl a little to let yourself know
How you are so formidably low!

In this ploy of changing places,
My love is lost in the grapevine.
Taste my luck; it’s been to places,
Soon we can feed on sour red wine.

Standing, touching the wood of your fence,
I am done defending my existence.
Remember those words your mentor said,
The one retired,with Alzheimer’s in bed?

I know that you have been raped
By the subtle seeds of glory, soured
By the fleshy seeds of your grapes.
But now I’m losing you forever!

I will shed the watch, shred the clothes,
Fall to my chest, surrender to the floor,
Won’t rise until the grapes are gone,
And I’m with you all alone….
Because, I know, my wait won’t be long.

Fourth Element -Alignment

In a flash, the grubby water,
As the cough of an old man,
Spilled out of the gutter,
And began its tragic dance…
Dancing, till it entranced
All humid, stymied passer-bys,
Bidding a slow-motion goodbye,
As it faded, in some heroic stance,
Dancing, till it entranced…
I’ve walked lonely paths of bloom,
But never have I ever so chanced
Upon waters so alive, as it croons,
So inanely oblivious, and human,
Dancing, till it entranced…
Dancing till it entranced…
At the mouth of the weak gutter,
It gurgled raspy, with the angst,
Of a soul, marooned in some desert,
Like his last swig from the drained flask.
Collapsing into a flaccid rant…
Dancing till it entranced…

The faces that exist alone to veil souls,
To carry on, behind, the daily dirty work,
The water witness, everyday, every second,
Like the hush of a human sculpture.
The water in different drains, slither
This way and that, before and after,
It emerged through that gutter…
Perking its head, as if to say,
I have been in your eyes,
Just as you made me cry…
I’m the water you grimed,
The rain you try to entice,
And the reason you survived.

But did you ever think about that watery mirage
Faraway, upon that runaway highway?
Did you ever wonder why you always craved
To touch that watery speck of sunny pave?

Because, today water too has a face,
The face that is somberly veiled.

No drop of water is pure anymore...

Aligned with earth's leaking bore.

Mortal Things

Upon one pristine unholy night
A blood-sucking,pallid girl had cried
To slit the veins of her betrothal
Unto the glacial, carnal salivation.
To denounce her freedom in the frame
Of time, to put a reign on eternity,
To stop knowing that for years to come
She may live and age into nothingness.
To stop the growing of nothingness,
She wanted to know she will die one day.

Will someone come and untie us all,
Here in the middle of our crucified fall,
To pray with us that may she not
Come for us tonight as we’re weak?
I’ve heard a creak, don’t want to wait
Longer now that we can escape,
Her clutches, for all the while we’ll stay,
Farther we get from living for immortality.
Live I will for the blood-sucking, or godless
Reality--maybe--but I live, till one fateful day.

Look, straight into the eyes of death,
It awaits you on its hunches.
But it waits…for you to appease
All of life’s fateful wishes
For you. Death waits…
For you, where eternity...only devours.