An Encyclopedia of Lies

Technology
should hit the sweet spot:
nothing more
nothing less.
 
We are a generation
of depressed spirits.
Art
doesn’t excite me anymore,
nor do works of fiction
or three-line poems.
Everything
is picture-perfect.
Suddenly
the blemishes, the cracks
make the frame
believable.
Are even the imperfections
generated?
 
I want to smell the grass,
feel the sun,
eat popcorn,
and watch
two teams
fight it out
in sweat and mud.
 
I want to feel the grit.
I want
to sort
the grains of truth
from the pixels.
I want
to revel
in reality.

A Spotlight on Our Ugliness

Our primal instinct
is to strike
or to flee.

We evolved
from a history of violence.
We emerged
from acts of violence
in tattered rags
and tainted spirits.
With our zealous, shining weapons,
we wiped out
forests, tribes, races,
and entire species.
We stole
rainbows, 
laughter,
sunshine
from entire generations. 

The need for peace
is a foil.
The call for arms
is a recurring theme.
 
Like the fate
of epochs bygone,
the terror
will not descend from the skies,
it’s hardwired
in our flesh and blood.
 
Nobody
can save us
from ourselves –
not even
the prince
who attained moksha
under a glorious canopy,
or a messenger of peace
who entered a city
riding a donkey.
 
We sharpen
our knives and axes
on their altars –
stones
baptized
in blood.

The Burden of the Forever Man

The air
is heavy
with his grunts
and guttural sighs.
 
He has lived forever.
Some tribesmen say
he walked with the saber-toothed.
 
He fought battles,
hunted bears,
hunted with bears,
jumped into waterfalls,
emerged out of pyres,
abducted women,
courted women,
sired hordes of children,
narrated stories
by crackling fires
to friends and folks,
slept on mountaintops,
lay awake on warm floors,
stared at morning skies,
evening skies, night skies,
brooding. 

One breezy evening,
on the banks of a mighty river,
a little girl
sits on his lap
and asks him about the time
when a dragon
swallowed the sun
whole.
 
He smiles,
narrates about a time
when the silence of a deep forest
was interrupted by heavy rain
and the cries of a newborn
broke
into the darkness of an eclipse
to mount
the steed
of immortality.
 
He died
countless times
in his dreams,
and woke up
each time
to the savage reality
of his sweat and flesh,
to the horror
of his own breathing.

The Story of Him and Her

She stripped her clothes for him
seventeen years ago.
‘Steamboat Willie’
was playing on the television.
 
The nakedness
was starker
when she bared her soul
to share
her deepest desires
and darkest secrets.
He admired
her cracks,
licked
her scars,
made love
to her unhealed wounds.
 
In all these years,
he didn’t give her space
to unfold,
or time
for the wounds to heal.
 
He
prodded
her vulnerabilities,
struck at her
through the chinks in her armor.
 
He pinched the wick,
killed the flame,
and disfigured
the spirit
of a tigress.
Spongebob Squarepants
was playing on the television.

In the deepest chambers
of her well-guarded shrine,
she mutes his voice,
stares at him long enough,
and pets
his loud insecurities.
The stench
of his presence
fades. 

The claws
push through the skin,
the stripes
reemerge.
In those cold, blank eyes,
a tempest
has risen. 

Perspective

It’s a mad, mad, mad world.
It takes immense effort
to find an iota of peace
to calm
our throbbing nerves.
Sensibility
is a fleeting shadow,
time, a teasing lover.
 
Like children
in a spring garden,
we chase
after butterflies.
And when we catch one,
we don’t hold on to it
for even a blink –
to absorb its colors.
 
He stands
in the middle of a busy road.
Soft sunlight
streams
through his delicate fingers.
He stares
at the wonders
of the morning sky
and chuckles.
The laughter
lingers
on his face for too long.
 
They call him
a mad man.

The Wildest Ones

Like a flag
tattered by the bullets
of a thousand battles,
they bare it all –
their ugliness,
their darkness,
their scars
on the body
and on the soul,
for the world to see.
 
They come
unclothed,
their faces
unmasked,
their words
unfiltered.
 
The wildest ones
are the purest ones.
 
They
don’t
hold back.
Their ugliness
is the naked truth
of the world.
 
Their silence,
its death. 

The Infinity Monkey Problem

Somewhere
within the walls
of a freshly-painted bungalow
in a faraway island,
a handful of AI machines
churn out code
ceaselessly
to derive a meaning
of the existence
of all.
 
A billion years
may have passed.
The hardware
was replaced
with sentient photons
assigned
to the same Sisyphean task,
to derive a meaning
of the existence
of all.
 
Infinity
has passed.
These photons,
like tireless wanderers,
dance between
uncharted dimensions,
shine upon
gods and beings of hidden worlds,
squeeze through wormholes,
get sucked in
and spewed out
of black holes,
catch up with the edges
of the stretching universe,
but the meaning
eludes them all.
 
Infinity
has come
and gone.

Time
stands still.

The question
stares back
from the freezing,
paint-peeled walls
of the deserted bungalow–
demanding the dots
be connected
backwards.

A Sliver of the Sky

 

We bleed like this

We live
in a grand illusion.
We imagine
we have risen,
we strongly believe
we are the elevated.
We are no different
from the hungry beasts
fighting for a scrap of meat,
or a mate.
 
We have our little shining moments
under the starry night,
when we narrate our lofty stories –
conscience-driven parables,
to the younger generations.
 
At all other times,
we are just a bag of bones
driven by base instincts.

We live
a grand illusion.

Enjambment

It was not
a clean strike.
 
He pierced
between the chest
and the groin
in quick short stabs,
nineteen times.
Every time
the knife dived
into the skin,
the sharp metal
soaked
in the rush 
of warm blood.
He reveled
in the poetic release,
in the abrupt
sputter
of words.

Acts of Kindness

Shoals of king fish,
lulled in revelation,

circle upstream
in a faraway river
to find their mojo.

Under the spell
of meditative swirls,
the galaxies
dissolve
into the waters.
 
From one pilgrimage
to another,
in absolute calm,
the seekers
peel the beauty,
layer 
by layer. 

From one act of kindness
to another,
in absolute calm,
the giver
bares the bounty,
to be emptied
and filled again. 

The Thorough Gardener

He left us
when he was 82.
 
He died in his sleep,
peacefully, the staff said.
He sensed his departure
two days
before his final breath.
 
He called his wife,
his sons, his daughter,
told them
he could feel the chill,
he could see the light,
he could hear the calling.
 
That afternoon
when he closed his eyes
in the silence of the hospital ward,
he dreamt of:
the bloom of yellow flowers
and the sharp scent
of freshly cut grass
in his garden,
the lull
of an empty train station
on a misty morning,
the smell
of peppery mutton chops
served with piping hot rice,
the endearing sight
of his granddaughters
grinning ear to ear,
the roar of a soccer stadium
as he pushed his way
through sweaty tackles,
the sparkling excitement
in the stark black eyes
of his kid brother
piggybacking on him
through busy city lanes,
and his airy walk
melting
into the white, warm,
welcoming light.
 
He left us
when he was 82.
He remained 82
ever since. 

The god speaks

I don’t cage my bird,
I don’t clip its wings.
 
I am the sky,
all of it.
You are the breeze,
you are the joy
of the breeze.
You are the leap,
you are the freedom
of the leap.
 
Together,
we are the universe
folded in a mote of dust,
inseparable
in all the atoms
in all the motes
in all of space and time. 

Sanguine

I love your work,
how you articulate your ideas,
how you strike a chord within.
I adulate you,
I am your fanboy,
I spend sleepless nights
thinking how your work
ruffled many feathers.
 
On quiet rainy mornings,
I close my eyes,
surrender to the siege,
debate with you in my mind,
and I choose gray
over your black and white.
I burn.
 
In those blood-red moments,
I witness
my rebirth.

Notes on a baby’s first visit to a pond

Nestled and tucked         
in her father’s rocking arms,
she opened her eyes
after a dreamy siesta.
Her wonder-filled senses
soaked
in the sudden burst of colors.
 
She blinked
at the streaks of sunlight
dancing on the tiny ripples,
her cherubic fingers
tried to grasp
the flight of damselflies,
she tasted
the fresh bloom
of water lilies and marsh marigolds.
She leaned forward
and caught glimpses of:
egrets
nesting in the reeds,
wild geese
taking off into the clear blue skies,
grayish-brown toads
diving into the warm waters.
 
Startled
at the barks
of their family dog
chasing after some wagtails,
she let out a milky burp.
 
That summer afternoon,
the memory
was etched
in the deepest layers
of her subconscious
like an impressionist painting,
only to come knocking at her door
years later,
in a cold, lonely, candle-lit space
of her dorm room,
when she nursed
her first heartbreak.

Cloudburst

The fog 
in the mind
precipitates.

The clouds
swell
and dissipate
in a wispy halo.
The silver lining
buzzes
like an alarm clock.
The spectacle
draws me in.
I bare my chest
against
the storming deluge
like a fabled warrior
drawing his sword
against a fire-breathing beast.
 
I wipe
the powder
from the tip of my nose
and wait.

An Uncomplicated Man

 

He's a manchild,
he's a wolf cub,
crowns himself
Nature’s Masterpiece.
 
He sulks,
he clings,
he lashes,
he lets go
for the briefest moment,
then grips tighter.
 
His silence is no wisdom,
his stillness is no self-reflection,
his overbearingness is no love.
 
His hunger
is voracious,
his lust
unquenchable,
his greed
for the things that destroy him
inexplicable.
 
Sometimes,
I watch
my Doberman pup
gnaw at a bone –
compulsively,
mindlessly,
pointlessly,
like sane people
doing stupid things.
 
They wrestle
like brothers of the same litter.
After the rush of adrenaline
wears off,
the pup
lies on his chest panting.
My exhausted man
stares at the ceiling
and gleams
as in post-coitus.
Ever ready for another round,
the pup
stands on the summit on all fours
and yelps
at the alpha of the house.

A Simple Girl

 

She's a contradiction–
either shines merrily with the stars,
or sheds the glimmer,
by her own will,
to become one
with the darkness.
The overhanging,
self-doubting,
gray clouds
suffocate
her to death.
 
A rainbow,
even in a dream,
is like antimatter:
eats away
at her element,
decimates
her being.
 
She thrives
in black
or white.

an unremarkable life

When memories bite
he swallows the poison
and folds
into the ordinary,
unblinking.

Time
etches 
a faint wrinkle
on the canvas
of silenced words. 

A Dish for the Ravenous

There're animals
on both sides,
the most despicable, horrible animals,
who twist the narrative
for an inch of land,
for an imagined god,
for a trivial slight,
a slight passed on
across generations
like a Chinese whisper.
 
The same twisted narratives
are churned,
blended with new sentiments
to appeal to emerging appetites,
garnished with fallacies,
plated
as an appealing dish,
served 
ice cold
to the famished masses.

The hollow vessels
echo
with deafening chants
of 'absolute justice'.

When it rained fire for a hundred years

Shiva arrives with Parvati
to pay obeisance
to the victor of the battle.
 
Among the walls 
of the steep mountains,
the victor stands tall
in full glory,
his enormous visage
rising to the skies.
His flowing mane
radiates
with the glory of a thousand suns,
his blood-stained, 
razor-sharp teeth and nails,
are forged
from the elements 
of the darkest chambers of hell–
elements, 
so virginal,
they were untouched
by light and other forces of nature
for eternities. 

His deafening roar
splits the heavens in half,
fuses the elements.
From the turbulent waters
emerge
catastrophes,
micro-worlds,
and entire universes.

All the other gods
watch the spectacle
from the safety of their realms. 
Shiva moves closer
towards the mountains.
His ears
are ripped
by the thunderous wrath,
his eyes
are blinded
by the blistering fury,
he fights the torrent of comets
hurtling towards him
with the sheen of his trident,
the projectiles turn to dust–
the ash strewn grounds
and his ash-smeared body
turn cold,
yet his feet
instinctively
start tapping
to the primordial drumbeat
that shakes the earth, the sky,
and all the dimensions in-between.

Shiva manifests
into every beast, monster, demon,
and a combination of all,
to stop the apocalyptic force,
but is decimated
every single time.
 
Parvati,
unaffected and unscathed
by the chaos,
walks past the exhausted ascetic
into the melting mountains,
into the expansive mirror–
summoned to action
by Shakti herself.
She crosses
the rings of fire,
enters
the domain
of the vanquisher’s blazing aura,
and gently touches his shimmer.

Engulfed
in mother’s love,
the beast
calms down.

War and Peace

In the story of civilization,
the shadows 
of every suppressed generation
idolize a Hitler,
the hunger
of every self-aware generation 
search for a Buddha.  

We 
are either riding 
towards the next tipping point,
or already
perched 
on top of it.

Temporal

A snowflake
lands softly
on a bright red fence–
nature's 
briefest crescendo.

A robin
shrugs off
the melting powder on its crown,
disappears
into the bluest blue.

Wanderlust

Time
is never a straight line.
 
The being
jumps
between
the past, present, and future –
between
memories and worries.
 
When
the mind
transcends,
the roots
pierce deeper.
 
Time
pauses.

Playing God

My cat
pounces on a gecko,
not with all its weight and might,
but gently.
It blocks it,
releases it,
strikes it,
teases it,
plays the bully,
before delivering the final blow.
 
The hero
has his redemption arc,
the villains too
shine
in rare moments of kindness,
other mortals
eke out a living
with the little they have,
and well,
god being god– 
teases
and delivers.

Of gods, godmen, and the gods among men

All the great gods are dead.
 
Their cathedrals,
their bejeweled crowns,
their elaborate scriptures,
turned to dust.
 
Their angels,
their henchmen,
their institutions,
their flags,
their guns,
their pride
rule the age.
 
I search for them
in the crowds,
in the confused faces,
in the little gestures,
in the humble acts,
in the noble lives.
 
I feel
divine presence
in minimal schemes,
in simple plots,
far away
from the world of excesses.
 
My altar
is at the god
of everyday wonders.

for those little, soul-sparking orgasms

He climbed mountains,
crossed oceans,
and went to the end of the world
to swallow
or gently sip
the smallest wonders:
a songbird,
a snowflake,
a field of dandelions,
a glorious sunrise,
a wild orchid breaking out of a crevice,
a meal under a humble roof,
a puff of smoke from a stranger’s cigarette.
 
He crossed
the wild frontiers
to live through
the salt of a different sea,
the whiff of a different cake,
the weight of a different light. 
 
He wandered 
among the ruins
of an ancient civilization
for a gasp
of an idea,
for a grasp
of an idea.
 
He roamed
among the streets
of a small seaside town,
beams a smile
at an old lady in a balcony 
dusting an heirloom rug. 

The Prophet – The Age of Crumbling Walls

He was in deep slumber
for too long,
in absolute silence,
in stark darkness.
Ages had passed.
The space
around him
calcified.
One day,
a terrifying growl
resonating
from the deepest chambers
awakened him.
 
He landed softly
on the freezing floor
and tried taking the first step.
His bones crackled.
For a moment,
his senses were startled,
his being was stunned.
Gravity
sucked the weight
of his existence.
His frail body,
made up of
feeble twigs and fibers,
collapsed.
 
Over the next few years,
he chipped
steadily
at a corner of a wall,
close to where he slept.
He was stubborn
and persistent.
He lost everything
in life:
what he stood for,
who he stood for,
friends and folks
who stood by him.
The puppeteer
cut the strings.
There’s nothing more to lose.

When a hairline crack appeared in the wall,
he pressed his lips
against the gap in the stone
and sucked in the life in the air
from the other side.  
 
His mind
played tricks with him.
The streaming sunlight
nurtured
the god complex.
He banged his head against the wall
and chanted
to the outside world:
Infinity
does not exist.
This is all there is.
There’s nothing beyond.
There’s nothing beyond us.
 
The chanting continued
night and day.
The crack
became bigger.  
At first,
nobody listened.
Then came a cat,
then a couple of sparrows,
then a human being –
his first follower.
As the days passed,
more and more followers
assembled
outside the enclosed shrine.   
 
One spring afternoon,
the wall
finally
gave in–
he pushed his way
through the dust and rubble.
The crowd
went berserk.

A prophet
has risen
from the ashes. 

The Prophet – The Age of Falling Stars

The leader of the clan
emerges
from the underground cavern
after four years
of self-imposed seclusion.
The dust
and the stink of death
have settled. 
His eyes ache
at the deluge of light,
his lungs
rejoice in the cocktail of wonders.
Two tribesmen
fall at his feet
and offer him fruit.
He breaks open
the pomegranate
and squeezes
the sweet juice
into his mouth.
The crowd behind him
cheer loudly
and start dancing
to the trance
of thumping drumbeats.
 
He raises his hand,
hushes
the euphoria and jubilation.
He announces:
This is the taste
of the old world.
 
The one-eyed seer,
the oldest of the council,
squints
and spots
a blazing comet in the sky.
 
Infinity
stares back at the prophet
through the cracks.

Home, Far Away

I am driving at 70 miles per hour,
mind goes blank for a few seconds
lost in thoughts of my hometown:
 
childhood, friends, silly pranks,
rain,
muddy playground,
my right index finger trying to balance
a drop of water that slid off a window grill,
first crush,
dried chrysanthemum tucked within the pages of a dictionary,
father –
a regular small-town boy who grew up too soon,
dropped out of college, skipped his teen years,
mother – left us too soon, no memory of her,
my first pet, a betta fish in a small bottle –
named him after my first crush,
fed him crumbs of dried worms and egg yolk,
the colours and flavours of a festival,
a twinkle in the eyes of the elephant god.
 
Two oceans apart,
thousands of miles apart,
thousands of memories tucked away.
I instinctively
swerve the car to the left side of the road,
the last thing I remember
is blinding lights
engulfing my being.  

The drop of water
slips off my finger.
The colours and flavours 
fade away.

Godavari

She’s a world of contrasts.
 
She giggles like a schoolgirl –
her mirth
jingles across expansive corporate halls
cutting through smirks, sighs, and half-smiles.
 
She waits
coyishly
in silent corners
for a glimpse of her beloved.
 
She mothers her little sister
through struggles, heartbreaks,
tantrums, and tiny demands,
and is stern at harmless trespasses.

She wails
her heart out
into the muffling arms
of a pillow.
 
She’s the spirit of buzzing lights,
She’s the eye of the tiger,
She’s the deep of the forest.
 
She’s broken multiple times–
on the inside and out:
by a mother, by a father,
by a friend, by a partner.
 
She's a shard of glass,
She's the flame,
She's the lantern in the storm.

Like the Japanese art 
of fixing broken pots,
she works on her cracks
sometimes obsessively,
sometimes as a habit– 
each time
emerging
as a bearer of darkness,
as a warrior of light.

Poetics

She fled
the house of abuse and horrors,
into the promise
of a new sunrise.
 
Hopes shattered,
she was plunged deeper
into the scorching heat–
from one level of hell to another.
 
She stabs
into the visceral, deep-red silence
of the heart
for a moment of final release.

*the title and the poem are a reference to the tragic triad mentioned in Aristotle's Poetics.

Twist

It's the gentle souls
and their cold indifference
that shatter the soul
more than a thousand blows.
 
It's the tale
of the town beauty–
a librarian's wife,
a blacksmith's lover.
 
The heart
forgets,
the skin
remembers. 

He's Stardust

He shines.
He transcends.
He's above and beyond.
He belongs
to higher realms.
He owns the heavens,
the forests,
the winds,
the caravans,
and every creature
in every shell.
 
She
owns him.
He needs her
like a firefly
needs darkness.
He can't resist
the allure of
her biting wit,
her wild tantrums,
her earthly beauty.
She keeps him grounded.
 
She's
the water of the mountain springs
born
to temper his overpowering essence.
She's
the salt of the earth,
the glow of its core,
the dance of the mighty river,
the storm in its element,
born 
to tame his hubris.

The heady appeal of the ocean

I soak the aching soul
in the salt of the waters
for hours
under the harsh sun.
Ocean
is 
therapy.

Night falls.
Moonlight stings,
the crabs storm the gates,
fear
dances on uneasy waters.
I bury my feet
in the warmth of the earth,
the sands
swallow me whole.
 
I am born again
at the golden horizon.
I jump into the waters
for yet another baptism.

The Revelation

It’s the silence of a July morning,
it poured torrents the night before.
It’s thirty minutes past five,
It’s me, my racing thoughts,
a cup of hot instant coffee,
and my hands deftly slicing a pomfret.
 
The dead eyes of the fish
implore me for a final release:
Is this free will?
Is this a dream?
Is this buried trauma, revisited?
Is this programmed?
Is there a fly on the wall,
an elephant in the room,
or skeletons in the closet?
Amidst this noise,
I cut my finger.
Blood drips on the wooden cutting board.
The thick droplets
assemble into grisly patterns,
there are faces everywhere –
a screaming woman, a wide-eyed child,
an anthropomorphic bunny,
and long-haired demigods with hollow eyes.
 
I look outside the window at the heavy sky.
The clouds stare back at me–
fractals
of the same grisly faces.
This unholy unease,
I have felt in my bones before,
this striking sequence,
I have seen this before:
in a past life,
in another dream,
or in another level
of the same game.
 
The déjà vu
is the giveaway. 

Promise of the Premise

Every time a person dies,
a library burns.
- Alain de Botton
 
He observed beauty
from a distance
but never immersed in it,
never got entangled in its web.
He thought it wise
to err on the side of caution.
 
It was the season of misty mornings and fireworks.
He was drawn to the scent
of fleeting skirts and pearl earrings.
He was bowled over
by the chemical rush that hijacked his senses. 
He took the plunge–
the inevitable happened.
After two years of courtship,
she said he was not enough.
He was in pieces,
fragmented.
Pieces, 
when put back together,
didn't become a whole.

When the noises were quietened,
he retched at the stink of his grief,
he heard the stars twinkle–
like pinpricks in the eardrum. 
He witnessed the slow passing of time,
one devastating memory building on another–
of the sparkling, good old times.

Under the lights of a new, warm home,
the exhaustion wore off finally. 
He dipped the brush in reds and yellows
and pressed the bristles against the canvas.
The dance of the wet paint
dripping on the background
transported him to an afternoon
they made love
like possessed, unhinged beasts.

He was faithful to his tragedy
but was unfaithful to his memory of it.
His broken heart
spoke a new language,
its grammar, majestic,
its flow, lyrical.
He painted still life,
frozen moments,
dried flowers in vases,
sleeping cats on carpets,
women in deep gossip in the bougainvillea shade.

The tragic hero,
his transition
now complete,
arose from the gutters.
The eyes of the sunflowers
stared back at him. 

A sky full of stars

Things have become prettier,
beauty – more perfect,
language – flawless,
colors – more saturated,
experiences – unrestrained,
life – optimized,
with more time between the ticking–
a day has more than twenty-four hours now.

The trees have more fruit,
the forest has fewer trees.
There’s less doubt between strangers,
and more space between lovers.
The elegies have become more profound,
the spaces between words – more hollow,
Lips and breasts have become fuller,
words and feelings have become empty.
Outside, there’s less terror and more peace,
inside, there’s more terror and less peace.

I wake up in the morning,
heavy headed, foggy-eyed,
I look at myself in the mirror.
The outsider
waves back at me.

Voyeur

Amidst the deafening growl,
the ground breaks open
just wide enough  
for the innards of the planet
to peep at the voluptuous beauty
of the dark skies.
 
The downpour
quenches
an insatiable thirst.

When a tree falls in a forest

In every battle
of arms or the heart,
we don’t return home
unscathed,
we lose a part of ourselves,
sometimes a sliver,
sometimes a hide,
sometimes a moral,
sometimes a soul.
 
On the darkest nights,
when I stare from my window
at the desolate streets,
I see
spineless, heartless, soulless creatures
roaming aimlessly
like voiceless remnants
of an emotional apocalypse.

Red Herring

I always thought
the smothering stress
of the rat race
or the overbearing expectations
of my mother
would pull the trigger
and fire the fatal shot,
not until
his debonair charm
took my breath away.

Inheritances

The horrors of childhood
cast an engulfing shadow
beyond adulthood,
beyond the final breath.
The nightmares
creep into generations. 

Be aware
of what you put out into the universe,
the light bounces back,
so does the darkness.
Be wary
of what you whisper into a child's ear,
a lullaby
returns as symphony,
a word of hatred
may break a heart
or make it bleed rivers.

Ellipsis

Heavy clouds
loom over the ivory towers–
expansive spaces of isolation
nurtured obsessively
by ordinary people.
The silence that infests
inside and out,
hangs upside down
like snoozing bats.
 
The unspoken
becomes the soul’s slow poison.

The Discreet Charm of Not Knowing

The aching urge
to peel and nibble at cuticles
is fetishism 
that doesn’t know itself–
fetishism to taste your own element.
The beauty of twilight–laid bare,
is a wet dream 
that doesn’t know itself.

The wild swaying of the branches
to the monsoon winds
is juvenile playfulness 
that doesn’t know itself.
A late afternoon dream
is unfinished business 
that doesn’t know itself.
The inner child
is a fading shadow of the past 
that doesn’t know itself.
The unbearable weight of the ticking
and the hollow spaces
are life’s curtain call 
that doesn’t know itself.
The muted voices
and its tender ache
are the full stop 
that doesn’t know itself.

When the stone melts...

He’s dealt
with the worst in men,
desperate, hungry, lawless thugs.
He’s witnessed
the worst of the world,
gangrapes, mass murders, forced conversions.
His best friend died in his arms
in the battlefield,
he lost his son
to the madness of brainwashing sermons,
his brother resigned to the deepest darkness of the cellar
and is terrified to see the light of day.
 
Nothing moves him anymore.
The cruelty of life
hardened him,
his sanctum – petrified.
 
Late one autumn evening,
when the air was loaded
with the unbearable lightness
of pellucid wings and wayward spirits,
he knelt by a lantern
and recited short stories
to his seven-year-old granddaughter
from the yellowing pages of a secondhand book.
When he finished narrating the tale
of the reunion of a mama bear with her two cubs,
the little girl pulled his shirt
and hugged him tightly.
He abruptly dropped the book to the floor
and did something
he hadn’t done in the last six decades.
He hugged her back
and cried uncontrollably
into the strange silence
of the unrushed hour.

The Odds

With the few words I know
I weave a million stories.
Most of them
go unnoticed,
one or two
resonate.
 
With the 'ever-evolving' constants,
countless worlds and timelines
emerge from the womb,
merge into the womb.
Most of them
dissolve into the mist,
one or two
become self-aware. 

chocolate over vanilla

I play the game
a million times.
I choose
black over red,
gills over wings,
clubs over spades,
sense over sex,
or otherwise.
Whichever path I take,
whatever excuse I make,
I end up doing the same shit
over and over and over again.
 
I stare at the same skies
and bathe under the same starlight
across all the universes.
I smell the same flowers,
play the same cards,
I holler through the same hallways,
sleep through the same rollercoaster rides
and scenic drives,
I dab the same vapors
and dabble with the same odds,
I jump into the same valleys,
float over the same fog,
I fool around
with the same friends
around the same streetcorners,
I fuck around
with the same chances
in all constructs and deconstructs.
 
I play the game
a million times,
same code, different skins.
 
The gods
laugh at our drama
and our petty troubles.
They stoop
and whisper to the winds:
Choice is an illusion.
The game is fixed
and the dice are loaded.
 
We’re told:
The fallen hero
rolls the boulder uphill
to witness another glorious sunset. 

String Theory

Puppetry:
I shake my limbs to the music
like a manic ape, scared senseless.
Her ghost sits across the room
in a secluded corner.
The weight of her presence
drowns the beats and the dull ache.
 
Her Solo Performance:
I drag my frame across the cold mosaic,
assaulted by shame and stink.
She beckons me,
holds me by the nape of my neck,
and strokes my bruised back
like she’s playing the cello.
 
Tethered Cords:
I relive the horrors of those final seconds
in the overpowering stillness of the night;
glimpses of her
through the shattered glass,
fragments of her
through the shattered memory.
 
Haunting:
I close my eyes, sometimes forcefully,
sometimes in silent resignation.
Her laughter cuts deeply,
and her whispers
dance on the flimsy strings 
of my existence.

Sliding Doors

Should I take the train
for a 'happily ever after',
or miss it
and let the anguish
gaze into the abyss,
birthing a thousand elegies?

*title of the poem lifted from the 1998 movie.

Soul-in-a-Pod

Pods are flung into the air
by the wild waves of Time,
like orcas playing with a seal.
 
Beyond the chaos,
carried by the salty winds,
a few lucky ones
drift towards the golden sunset. 

Midsummer

I sleep
in a sea of wild grasses.
 
The blades stretch skyward
thirsting for heaven and sun,
and sway
like tethered spirits
of fallen warriors.

Once upon a time in a simple world located far, far away

A room is no longer a room,
once a blooming garden
of flutters, kisses, and caresses.
A wall is no longer a wall,
to keep us safe
from the monsters.
A painting is no longer two hills,
a sunset, and a flowing river,
a pure-hearted expression on canvas.
 
Love is no longer delightful,
its loss, no longer bittersweet,
the world,
no longer forgiving.  
 
Scribbles on newspapers
were pure random joy,
lullabies
wooed us to deep slumber,
stories
spilled magic into the forgotten corners of the heart.

We grow up
and we complicate.
We lose the power to let go,
and harbor memories that push us to the edge.
 
We learn
and we complicate.
We write lengthy essays
for what a child may express in four words.    
 
We live
and we complicate.
We try to cram more life into that little dot of time,
until we die trying. 

Crush

It's never a broken heart.

It's a sore heart.
It's the sting, 
like skin getting scraped
against the asphalt.

It's a heavy heart,
immensely heavy 
and pregnant
with an unbearable void.

It's a wailing heart,
crying out like foreboding, wartime sirens,
weakening the joints,
making me collapse like a ragdoll. 

It's a bleeding heart,
color - deepest crimson,
warm liquid oozing out across,
like a vessel with a thousand punctures. 

Or may be, to call it a 'broken heart'
is an well-intended euphemism. 
Giving it any another name
might mercilessly crush the bearer.

monkey see, monkey do

They're told:
A little curiosity will land them in hell,
so they play it safe
and don't go very far.
They don't break the walls
or climb the mountains.
 
In this blink of time
on this insignificant speck,
which stance is wiser?
Be wary of the wrath of gods
and accept the narrative,
or deny the bullshit
and take the journey inwards,
and outwards?
In the end,
none of us will make it alive,
and none of us
will be any the wiser.
 
When the volcano erupts,
the frog in the well
and the thousands croaking in the nearby pond
will be boiled alive.
After the sounds are muted,
the gods last a little longer.

November Rain

He looked dapper
in the crewcut and the uniform.
He was a gentleman,
a different kind of beast,
a beast, nonetheless.
 
Grandma said:
real love
is letting him go,
if it’s for a higher purpose.
I held his hand
through the train window.
My legs were trembling,
my voice, choking,
tears were rolling down my cheeks,
and a shiver ran through my spine.
He pulled my arm closer
and kissed me on my wrist.
I felt his callused hand
delicately graze my cheeks
as I stared at his beautiful, thick eyelashes.
A storm broke overhead.
 
Hordes of thoughts thundered in my mind.
I was sweating profusely
and was about to faint.
His aftershave,
the jasmine garlands,
the stink of drain water,
and the overwhelming smell of samosas
made me nauseous…
When I opened my eyes again
the train had taken off.
 
It was a cold November morning.
He had been missing from my life
for nine summers.
When I went to drop off my five-year old at school,
it was the same unmistakable trace
of aftershave in the air,
the same unmistakable crewcut,
and the impeccably prim uniform.
His moustache was thicker,
the cheeks were sunken,
and his eyes were deeper.
The beast hasn’t changed.
 
He smiled gleefully, waved at me,
and tried to stop a couple of cars
before crossing the road.
My grip went limp,
and I dropped the umbrella to the ground.
The downpour, the honking,
and the hot flash
were overwhelming.
I knew I was about to faint again.
 
A couple of seconds
before passing out,
I felt his tight grip on my waist.
My eyes were closing gently
as I saw my reflection
in a tiny teardrop
glinting from his boy-like eyelashes.

What the squirrel heard from its burrow

Every object—
a chair, a tree, a rock,
the wriggling worms underneath,
a spider weaving its web,
the throes of its paralyzed victim,
a spoken word, the unspoken,
a brushstroke, a birdsong,
church bells, funeral pyre,
jubilation, innocence,  
the mountains, a cloudburst,
an overripened sky,
is its own philosophy. 

Every man, woman, and child
is their own philosophy,
whether they choose
to fall or rise,
to hold on or let go
to speak or not to remain silent,
to love, be indifferent, or to remain hostile,
to learn, unlearn, or be stagnant,
everything we consume
or purge,
every drug
that enhances, excites, 
or softens the experience,
is a variable in the equation,
is a part of the becoming.

Whether we choose
to be or not to be,
we add to the experience,
we merge into the consciousness,
we become the oneness. 

Scalpel

Chaos, stillness, timelessness.
Myth, gravity, fragility.
Incisive, piercing, lingering. 

Eyes
that cut through
the suspense of the moment,
bear
the weight of the words,
unravel
the magic of life itself.

Hamstrung

I saw
cannons firing in the sky.
I watched the spectacle with my father.
There was one that landed too close.
We tried to run for our dear lives,
but we froze in time.
The whirlpool above us
sucked us inside.
A string snapped,
the dream vanished.   
 
Our reality
is a reductionist tale
of the insecurities of the gods.
Millions of them
walk in and out of our dreams
trampling the canvas,
setting off a mindless stampede.
We survive
because of our myopia.
We open our eyes
and we forget everything.
Anyone with the mental capacity
to think beyond
or to remember more than they should
either goes insane
or kills himself.

The perfume she wears on Sundays

Time—
gnawing bits of her scarce joys,
chipping away at her appetite for light and hope,
scraping her element,
peeling her essence, layer by layer,
eroding her zest for life.
 
On really bad days, time
plunders, butchers,
forces itself on her,
gets away clean,
until what is left of her
is a mere shadow.
 
Sometimes,
I stand at a street corner
to take in a whiff
of that special perfume she wears on Sundays,
or to catch a glimpse of her wearied smile
that still warms my heart.
 
Sometimes,
I wait there,
with roses in my hand,
roses of the deepest red, I told the florist.
 
My knees tremble,
my throat runs dry,
as I struggle to summon the courage
to reclaim the grown-up girl
I still call my first love.

Skin Deep

Silhouettes, shadows,
extreme close-ups, tears,
reflections, reflections on tears,
starlit skies, cool breeze
under the starlit skies,
the flight of migratory birds
under the starlit skies,
laughter, unfiltered laughter,
unfiltered light,
skin.
Unfiltered light on skin.
Sweat on skin.
Chocolate on skin.
Specks, flecks, freckles on skin.
Gloss on skin. Lipstick. Love bites.  
The curves, the folds, the pores.
The stretch marks.
The goosebumps
around the areola.
Ice on skin.
Lube on skin.
Menthol.
Thrills under the skin,
thrills on the skin,
titillating,
cold thrills, cheap thrills, chills.
The moans, the smacks,
the hush, the whispers.
Youth. Transgressions.
A life lived.
Blink of an eye.