Category: Poems

They justify among themselves
Their unrequited love for God:
They love because they know they can,
And will is easier than won’t;
They do their prayer parties ’cause
To do is easier than don’t;
For what will fill the emptiness
When emptied of His emptiness?

In talking to a younger me,
I realised how far I’ve come,
And how the journey of these years
Has made me unempathetic
To those who yet have not begun.
Forgotten are anxieties
That paralysed my every step.
Forgotten, disappointments faced
If, at all, I took a step.
I’m so so far from where I was.
And yet, and yet, I am so so far
From where I want to be at last.
You’ve got to love the journey, sis,
Despite the humps that break our cars.

My air-conditioned valley view
Of sunny, shady, sunny greens,
Creates a flickered fantascope
Across our windshield, which careens
Away from screaming motorbikes
That have no time for scenic scenes.
No more does Mother want to wait
To watch me watch my clicking screens
Which try and fail to capture hills
Against the blurring biker teens.

Preposterous? I do not see
Advantages of long careers –
Long I have no longer got,
And debts I have, and long arrears
Raised against my long neglect
Of roles my pity volunteers
Not accounting if, for long,
My work belongs where work appears.

If short I shall be, short is clear.
No longer will I heed or hear
The ones who are not near nor dear
And yet are keen to interfere.

If short I shall be, short is cheer.
No longer will I live austere,
Nor no longer wear veneer,
If I do not feel sincere.

If short I shall be, short is freer.
No longer am I Engineer,
Nor no longer Marketeer,
Nor no kind of Profiteer,
Just someone who will appear
Every time his souvenir
Opens to an open ear.

If short I shall be, short is here.

A letter has to volunteer
To start a poem on a page,
And bid the other letters come
To stand with her upon her stage.

And then they must committees form
Of words – of nouns and verbs and such –
And meet in lines that break somewhere,
Unheeding of the space so much.

And then the lines must cast a vote
With operatic chorus ayes,
And hope that they are not the one
On which the Reader rolls her eyes.

And even if they pass the buck
Of Reader’s eyes from top to end,
They must do more between themselves
To be a worthy poem penned.

The only way’s to play and play
To different musics every day,
And come for all rehearsals dressed
In hopes of being the show today.

I know you don’t like jewelry,
But will you take a string of beads
Of little moments, full of Life,
Like fruity Life’s leftover seeds?

…

The fogging mask of eyeglasses,
Uppended glass of ice on face,
The twinkling stars on roasted corn,
The lemon gulped without a trace,

The poking of the mayonnaise,
The red-sauce mehndi on the palm,
The shall-we-take-that-city-bus,
The railway bench of waiting calm,

The twiddling thumbs in chilling breeze,
The fattened kittens on the fence,
The optical illusion pond,
The books with signs in brushing pens

…

The string will only grow with time,
And on the days we rage as storms,
We’ll thumb these beads like rosary,
Until our hugs again are warm.

My drawer draws withdrawing eyes.
Its holder holds withholding hands.
A gentle tug, a glassful chug,
I stand to stand withstanding sands.

The charcoal sketches in the sky
Have started drumming on the tin
That shelters me amidst the scents
Of Eden’s gardened seraphim.

She introduces, green by green,
The leaves and stems of every shape.
And meeting them with her, I see,
I’m so alive, I’m so awake.

This bonsai here of thirty years
Reminds me of the Artist’s Way:
That crafting beauty takes a life
Of mindful caring everyday.

And look, she says, a little bird!
A hummingbird, replies my hunch.
In yellow petals, yellow plumes
Are seeking Sunday’s leisure lunch.

Is that the karma of this place?
A resting hop for Time that flies.
While nodding to the rain, it thanks
The sunlight in her kaajal eyes.

No point in showing marble slabs
Reposing on unwoodened doors.
No point in showing wooden planks
Unpolished on unmarbled floors.

Material’s material
In being immaterial:
Invisible in finishing,
Remarkably ethereal.

No point in sharing dreams aloud.
Until fulfilled, avail a shroud.

It’s over when it’s over, but
It doesn’t start until it starts.
And where you start is up to you.
The middle’s where you find yourself,
Between hereafter and ago,
With choices you don’t understand
Except in cause and consequence.
And so your story writes itself
With every foolish folly felt.
And so your mind regains its peace
By ending what has not begun.