Month: October 2021

If I get another ping from you
Where all you do is crib and cry,
I’ll block your number, permanent,
So don’t you even think to try.

You think I’m your agony aunt?
Just sitting here to hear your woes?
I don’t care if your boss is bad.
I don’t care if your food is gross.

It happens every time you have
Two options, which are both so bad,
Or both so good, you cannot choose
And run to me like I’m your Dad.

Just take your own decisions, please.
I’m slammed with many on my plate,
Against an old adversary
Whose options come with loaded fate.

It cocks a gun at me and asks
“Which option do you like today?”
It matters not which one I pick.
It pulls the trigger anyway.

It’s not that your problem is small.
I know it’s big inside your head.
I’m saying it’s your own to fix.
So, let me deal with mine instead.

You all who wish to save my soul,
Infecting me with sanity,
I stand here vaccinated to
Your toxic positivity.

You send your love in fancy dress
Of wrapped up gifts from Amazon.
I can’t enact your fairy tale
And there pretend to be your One.

Your chocolate hug and rosé kiss
And promised flow of teddy treats
Are weak proposals lost on me:
I’ve given up all processed sweets.

The gravel of my gnashing teeth
Has skinned the fore-end of my tongue
For I’m a bitter biting man
Inside a bag of sandy dung.

For many months, I mistook the pigeons’ cooing
For her incessant under-the-breath grumbling
That had been a source of widowed white noise
Through my Cartoon Network afternoons.
I now leave a little bowl of water for them
To drink from, to play with, to spill over,
Like she had done in those last few weeks
When she had become the quiet kid,
And I the garrulous grandmother.

We feed the departed when we feed crows,
She had said, not knowing she would be alive
In the simple home-making gootergoo
Of portly pigeons that dipped their plumage
Every evening in the smoky haze
Hovering over the cremation grounds,
Above the sooty patches of ash and cinder,
Left behind by the departing souls
Skyrocketing into their judged heavens.

Is it any wonder when her garlanded photo
Is overlaid by ghostly grumbling pigeons
When the morning rays from the skylight
Hit obliquely across the glass frame?

Why do you think it’s okay
To take my time for granted?
I value your attention.
And all I’ve ever wanted
Is for you to value mine.
How difficult is that?
If you won’t give an answer,
Don’t say you will get back.
Don’t beat around the bushes
Like lawyers prevaricate
When they don’t like an offer,
But won’t tell it to your face.
Don’t leave me in the dark here.
Both yay and nay are fine.
Just tell me now, if ever,
Will you be my valentine?

The art of letting feelings go
Begins with losing all you know.
For what you know is dear to you.
And dearness is a feeling too.
This game is not a finite game.
Your every moment is the same.
Your feeling comes, you feel it grow.
Observe it now and let it go.
Your feeling comes, you feel it stay.
Observe it here, then peel away.
Your feeling comes, you feel it is.
Observe it so and stay in peace.
Your feeling comes… you get the drift?
Accept the feeling as a gift.

Again I struggle with ink today.
At the paper blank, I blink today.

With the streak at stake, about to break,
I find myself at the brink today.

The street’s so quiet, muse on diet,
I am on my own, I think, today.

In form I trust, for write I must:
Some ghazal couplets I link today.

These muddy lines, like spilled over wines,
To my shamelessness, I drink today.

Do you hear the scare? “Misra, beware!
Your words are going to stink today.”

At the portrait of the man, I frown:
Is he getting up or sitting down?
The chair and crown are still his for sure,
And the heirs around seem to endure
His testing presence among their kind.
And he must rest his august behind,
For age has set in, and so has gout.
His rage is sharp, though, without a doubt.
He will holler on for two years more
While his heirs die crawling on the floor,
Each punished for High Conspiracy:
Ambition over intimacy.
The throne will pass to the cowherd king
Whose prowess today our children sing.

The fifteenth lap around the track
Was when I first became aware
Of dust on my emerging jaw
And itch in my eroding hair.

For with no music in my ears,
No tracker band around my wrist,
I wondered how I ran so long
And how my mind did not resist.

I hum a tune about the moon
While watering some rooftop pots.
But then I spy a distant eye
On me from other rooftop spots.
At once I freeze, full of unease,
Aware of all the rooftop shots
Her iPhone takes, as she makes
Her drone fly over rooftop lots.
I turn around to the buzzing sound
To see the drone in rooftop knots
Of clotheslines, as tangled vines,
Hatching their own rooftop plots
To catch all spies, and foil their tries,
Defending us from rooftop bots.

He’s eaten nothing all day
Except his own words
At the end of sentences,
Which he washes down
With an occasional sip
Of the electrolyte water
On his bedside table.

He’s read nothing all day
Except his own palms,
Cupped as a folded leaf,
I don’t know whether to
Receive divine healing grace
Or offer up his own divinity
To the nondual infinite.

His beatific smile is scaring me.