the wall

The collage
that I know not how
had strung itself
on the wall of my nowhere
and was a caress,...
a wrench on the
outstretched arms of desire;
and where
my heart
the fool in my
castle of air
had many a time
sung lays of loss
in a bubble burst of innocence.

In that witness mute
to what we ever were
or could be,
in sepia
and in colour of violation
now oftentimes
I feel a loving tousle
a knowing whisper
that sometime
the bravest things
are what we never do

Blue Moon......once in a

 

 




 

sometime 

when you are a memory,
a pulsing beat,
alive
as a sweet trickle...
and I
gather myself
to the contours
of your dreams
strumming soft
a tender tattoo
with the fist
of my heart ;
when, through half- collapsed
tunnel of the past
shines the place
where love had laughed
for the last time.
Then, I,
cupping scalding hands
around dying embers
of the night
push another raft of hope
into that oceans of minutes--
my life--
and bobbing,unsteady,
know that
sometime for us to live
all we need
is broken hearts.

 

आँगन की कली ......इस बरस

उसी वीरान आँगन के घनेरे पेड़ के नीचे
दबी सहमी सी दुबकी सी मेरी धुप जहां है ,
रुपहली गाल पे लिए शबनम के  चंद आँसूं
मुझे वोह पूछती है बोल मेरा हमसफ़र कहाँ है

पकडती है मेरा दामन मेरी जानम ,कली मेरी
तुझे कह कर गयी थी मैं की तू जिगर रखना,
बिखर न कहीं जाना दुनिया की रिवायत से
मैं आऊंगी बरस अगले तू बस जगह रखना

सिखा कर गयी थी तुझको जीने का चलन उस शब
वही जिस रोज़ तूने  दिल के टुकड़े संजोये थे ,
होता है मसीहा हर बा-पाक शीशे का
इसी बात पर दोनों ने अपने ख्वाब बोए थे

मगर देख तूने न जिगर न ही जगह रखी
मेरे जाने के बाद ऐसा क्या मसरूफ हो गया ,
बता तो दे तेरा क्या अलग सा हो गया तुझसे
क्यूँ फिर से मेरे दोस्त तू मायूस हो गया

नहीं आना नहीं आना इस आँगन मैं भूले से
वीरानियों मैं क्यूँ भला चटके कली कोई ,
मुझे तो इश्क था तेरे होटों की तब्बसुम से
चलूँ ,उठूँ ,भटकूं, देखूँ फिर गली कोई

मेरी नम पलक को देख कर वोह ज़रा ठिठकी
बोली की जब चाहो मुझे फिर से बुला लेना ,
टुकड़ा इक ज़मीं का न हो गर तेरे मुक्कदर में
मुझे चुपके से अपने दिल में ही खिला लेना

The Shooting Star

In a hutch
of daub and yew
once dwelt my sky
forever around
forever blue.
Descending, it waded
through shadows,
thru' unfathomed fears
in pools of voices
formed by tears.
Then climbed...past
dizziness , past pains,
and I ,blinking,lowered
my hands to tear-stains.
Yes it was over
and yes, she was through ,
a heart weighs more
when split in two.

The Mute Stencil

To be apart
from you sweetheart
could be for the best;
but when you're with me
in you I see
a visage beyond the rest.
Do you know that I
who had never known
the sweetness of caresses
would now exchange all metaphors
 in return for a word
wrenched from my nib
like Adam's rib ?
My dearest,
when hands fall away from poems
can I touch your face--forlorn--
so much, so much like my own ?

2B....sonnet

My love,
homeless wanderer
conceived in sand
perished in sand
splashed once
in distant oases
on unreached shores
beating desert drums__
futile as adjectives__
to stone-walled doors .
Then panting, weary,
soft-touched her cheek
and wistful tucked
a curl behind
the ear of memory .

The Unforgiven

Tonight,near the opposite wall,
my vagrant floor stopped its walk,
looked up toward the Silence strung,
and travel-weary began to talk.

I never wore the rainbow plume,
nary a silver lining show,
but dusky,dappled ,darkling blend
the colour of yes ,the colour of no.

I know I failed the serenade,
was purblind to the tint of things,
but now I have a snow-white pigeon,
with just your name upon its wings.

She smiled---my pictured damsel blue,
a smile that hailed the passing birds,
it soft-lit ,once, her ebony eyes,
then darkening,bode the death of words.

B........A sonnet

Come sit beside me.
Forgotten lovers we-
the kids of love and illusion
of incubatic delusion
of fidelity in things
of engagement rings.

Come , leap into my eyes
and I'll shut them tight.

Give me your hand
across chasmic dark,
I'll caress the lines
then....pause the trace
two droplets poised
at the edge of my face.

Nightmares's Booty.

Missing all appointments,
returning, unshaven ,
to a life-proof house,
old, insulted love-poems
in tarnished tatters
clinging to my chest,
leaves in my hair .
Anon, again , a lucent halo,
an erotic silhouette
a flash from yestereves
soft lays a whisper
and ever so coy
sows another dream....

Espirit........

When night cups the peaks,calms the din,
and distant, folds the shore-line in ,
then here , beneath this hallowed roof,
clean __bereft of weft and woof
of tangled threads and fraying seams,
of wakings rude and webby dreams__
here alone , with eucalypti brooding,
I drowsing drink my poisons all,
sink, and swim in a frog-spawned mire
then plaintive hear her crowning call.
Me ,a gruesome grieving ghost,
soft-croon ,anon, with eye-lids wet,
"I know, I know I died, but please ,
please do not write me off just yet...
do not.... write me off....just yet "

Requiem......

In lands where the lilies blew,
and, shy, once, the three dreams met,
there, anon, in anguish mournful,
unloved cupids, amorous players,
soft-peddle their unsold wares.
There stands a broken David,
there a brooding Thinker lost,
bashful, baleful, blue-bell wreathed,
they rueful wail the unpaid cost.
Have they eyes and do not see,
what moths and tapers burning wrought,
in wanton, whoring , wasted realms
bleeding hearts are never bought ?

The Way-farer.

Yeah ! she's of me ,and a sliver of my soul
to reach her somehow is my ultimate goal.
But I won't hurry, or return with my fears
I'll travel , and travel ,and travel for years.
Sit on milestones,reminisce, again make bold,
and anchor on her shores when I am old.
Wiser for the voyage ,richer in kind
and if she be another's ,I won't mind.
And if she aint lovely ,well let her be
she gave me this journey ,did'nt she ?

The Waning.

And there he was.
Gathering droplets, wet ,
of days gone by;
each trickle forsooth
a promised quenching.
Days on days ,years on years,
shaping, a bucket green,
of soft-gleaned strawlets made.
Then saw ,reflected,
in that darkling gloam,

that shimmering whirl,
his crescent moon..
A sudden storm, a thunderclap.
No bucket . No moon in the bucket.
Emptiness in his hand....

Bodies of love !!

I caress the darkness
of innocent forms .
I touch nothing .
Where the sniffle ?where the moxie ?
where the evanescing, dubious doxy?
So few are given us to love,
ah! so few, gods above.
And this the way we all survive,
touching the scabs of ancient wars ,
defaulting to the oldest scars .
Why is fate written in the body
and never , never in the stars ?

Ascent

My road ;
that dappled,darkling, winding stair,
a spiral out of cloistered growing,
upward to a tortured knowing.
There, around a corner unlit,
 hidden lurked some unlived days,
nostalgic shadows from the past,
yielding hsiens to devils cast.
A flight below the body's awning,
under the windowed ,tattered soul,
she whispered thru' a-veiling twill,
"let consequences spill how they will ".
And, panting I , a boy in love,
strung where the bee-mouth sips,
of tremulous hands and lucky lips,
tripped on doorsill of a dream,
clutched the hem of innocent charms,
and breathless folded in her arms.

Deep-sea Blues !

Were you fain,my love
to weigh pennies of truth
`gainst wages of blight,
a sifting sieve,
for honest darkness,
for sinful light ?

Flowing Savannah !
river of my longing heart,
row me along thy shorelines,
sputtering, half-drowning,
`mong fluming eddies of desires,
in urgent,lapping ,icy fires.

Suck me under,Whirlpool !
draw me unto thy silence--
thy tears my prayer--
and my elusive mermaid be,
string tied and fancy-free.

Amour-soft gossamer ,
my transporting metaphor,
melting ,soft-yielding,
coalesce,then just be,
my ambrosial flow
and, my final word :Thou !

Blushful Spring

Will you, my love ,
for just this once,
with my lillies blow,
flush pink in my roses,
rub memory's petals,
and, bashful ,glow ?
In that heart-warmed clover,
that darkling meadow,
where I died for love
under the dark cuppola
 of your mystic shadow,
will you, my love,
diaphanous wings a-sway
alight....and soft kiss
life's autumn away ?
Then gentle,unbenownst like,
un-nail my cross,
make whole the ruined,
and brooding find
the absent cosmos ?

Won't you, my love ..???

 ·

Just This Once....

When pleasure is not
a pattern ,nor
a Paradigm shift
from gloss,and , your loss,
methink you slurp with felinity,
sup with masculinity
and soft ,do purr,
blazing eyes a-blur
in anguished divinity.
Then ,for just a while,
I fondly smile,
polite to myself,
deceiving elf........

Contours of Time

Years. Again I stand
here, `neath my Jasmine bush,
a witness mute,
to a throbbing `then'
a still-born `now',
those falling petals,
ruined and marvelous,
all at once.
I reach across
the in-between,and,
soft trace a shape,
an angular face,
a tenuous belief
made real.
A double take, and she,
the inside-shake
of my ruined heart,
raises half an eyelid,
beams and ,breaks
into spots and dust.
Infinity.