Driftwood

Washed ashore,

It lay bare,

The driftwood. 

Flowing out from

The gushes of insanity. 

It sought solace,

In birds that sang 

Of life with grace. 

The driftwood, 

It didn't want to be seen 

But feathers find their melody.

In the beauty of a wreck, 

The driftwood. 

It lets the wet wild grass in,

To twirl hopes, 

Into its hollows. 

The room was filled with a pale beer tinge from the lamp. I heard a murmur, looked at mother, almost rolled in her sheet. 

Her face covered, only hair left out on the pillow and a despondent white rosary, hanging from the side. 

It has been overused. Once all it’s beads had fallen out, never knew something like that could be reassembled so finely. 

She often goes to bed while praying and other times she kind of does it because enunciating those verses for merely few minutes would sedate her. 

As she snored at the challenge that this day was I read with my hand in air, moving it impatiently to find more light. 

With a twitch in the neck I realized it was over, after almost having read for an hour. 

And all this while I had been holding it like a delicate art work, my hand being the easel. 

OF YOUR BEAUTY

The most vivid images 

Are of course of your lies

Twirling a vine

Their sartorial grace and ingenuity 

could undo all damage

The patterns bolstered 

After every unceremonious loss

Of their face

Every time you smiled 

At those 

Unhinged by the 

Failing memories, 

of your truth

Every time you were

On a killing spree

It Pours

I see monsters soak in the walls

Paper pink flowers yearn incense 

It pours now

And they have waited long

Crickets chirp till dawn

Not a flicker 

And silence so wet 

Seeping in the green

It pours now 

And had never been so long

From within a room so dense

The faces outside, begin to blur

Merging in the mist one moment

And walking out of it

In another

It pours now

They had all been walking long

Few Words

Untying the imaginary knots 

From the draperies of their madness

A sum of their depths

Lies between their eyes

With only edges and angles

An unaccomplished 

rhythmical chaos 

That has left a running mark

On a pale canvas

Seeping in an age of love

 

His face is worn now

Fret with few words 

The few she remembers

Out of all the ones they fell for

Look Away

You look away?

Your soul will abide

Taken in conscription

You look away?

As they run amuck 

It will swan indistinctly

In the pale scribes

Of those heroic embezzlements 

You look away?

As they polish their medals

Or you blind with shine

You look away?

Run a riot elsewhere

This march is over

Raqs

 

The tall eucalyptus bowed down,

After a thunder storm.

The teen shed shuddered,

Covered with pale leaves.

Laundry curled round the rope.

A beautiful calm,

And it came.

 

The smell of drenched green and moist mud,

Beads ballet through the window sill,

Trickling the weathered books on the board.

As darkness smeared in,

My heart unfurled the quiet.

 

I heard the wheels roll over,

The engine roared and resettled.

Standing at the door,

Leaning on the worn-out mesh,

My wings aflutter.

 

Rising up on my toes,

How I yearned for a tender dance.

Caveat Emptor

It will enter like incense 

Through an unperturbed window

When you are half asleep

It's sweetness lingers on

Like the tender spring-wood

A sign read- 'Caveat Emptor!'

Will sweat passion 

In it's early summer

And before it has been long

The scorch will announce it's trials

Blinded by the heat to trust

The glistening fluorescence from far

Will bring thorns, in measuring distance

On knees, right before they fall

The lilacs bleed belonging

Like a fallen graft

After a mewling monsoon

That belies it's hybrid beauty

With failed attempts

A sign read- 'Caveat Emptor!'

The sun dried leaves rustle

In despondence 

They whisper autumn 

Into the flame red boulevards 

Soon the hearts were numb cold 

But moist too

Praying for this solstice to be the last

This winter of love

Wrapped withering hopes to dying warmth

Of Endless nights 

And cold-blooded closures

A sign read- ‘Caveat Emptor!’

APPETITE

"Do not, DO NOT! Let a man define your life", he said

She felt strong

She developed an appetite 

"I moved cities for you", he said.

She smiled and choked

An appetite for stories

Few months later

That felt like a million years

She cannot imprison her thoughts 

In her expressions

Her appetite for destructive silence

 All she wishes

That he had completed his sentences 

He did complete them

Not in words but

In flesh and blood 

She is scared to read them complete. 

"You make me complete", he said.

"You will leave me", she always felt

Like half a spoiled portrait, 

abandoned by its artist 

Who ran away 

To save his face

His appetite for grandeur

Who turns away when 

Every-time it's pulled up 

On a humiliating display 

Her appetite for his silence

Was now over

LOOSE ENDS

You couldn't break her heart.

So you broke her spine.

Tying the loose ends!

Till you could see her fall, everyday.

Was no Cleopatra 

Not from a glorious father

Couldn't bite the snake

Or poison the stoup

She must lay on her back

On the muddle of knives

That you forgot to arrange

Tying the loose ends!

There was no Brutus 

No battle she could fight

Your truth was decent

Your lies prettiest

Your story always won

Myriad ways of sacrifice 

You had only forgotten 

One does but return

And rebirth required death

Tying the loose ends!

At dawn

Wide awake at dawn 

lying on the floor.

Teary eyed I stare 

outside the window.

The giant Neem,

Restless, 

bellowed up the silent clouds.

Dark and mysterious 

Into the never ending nothingness.

The leafy green almost struggles.

I can feel it ruffle my unkempt head.

I wish it whisks me away 

as it resettles

Into the never ending nothingness.

The bitter sweet

Never ending nothingness

Fall

You were falling from the top of a nowhere. 

Screaming at the dark to break, 

Almost without a voice. 

Your eyes clenched, 

and released the dark,

at the same time.

Chasing a no name and running away from it.
At the same time. 

You felt it was your last.

The fear of loss exhausted your breath.

But right before the final thud 

You were pulled by a tiny hope.

You mustered all your strength 

And opened your eyes.

That feeling of immense relief,

A sigh and it was just a long scary dream. 

Your mother was by the bedside

Her presence calmed you

Little will you ever know

Of her fears and sores 

Her endless wakeful nights

Since forever

Yet she always smiled.
More and more. 

Moss

The secret layers of the wall

Were coated with that beautiful moss

But then, it was just that, simple.

It was green but you wanted flowers