The Smell of a Rose Garden

They say,
turn off the screens,
slow down,
become aware,
smell the roses,
dip your feet in the stream,
let the little fish
nibble at your feet,
stare at the cat in the alley for too long
until it turns its head away,
sleep on the roof
and watch the flickering city lights
turn off
one by one.
 
Tried it once.
Sat on a park bench,
silenced the voices,
tuned into the moment.
For a couple of seconds
I even heard
the rustling of the fallen leaves,
and the shy playfulness
of young lovers kissing.
That’s it!
Reality
Checked back in with a thud,
like a slab of granite
crushing into a delicate ribcage.
 
I hurriedly open my phone
to check eleven unread messages.
 
Unsung melodies, unseen truths,
profane beauty.
Who can mute
the heaviness of self-imposed silences?

 
(Inspired directly by a conversation from the series ‘Sugar’)

to know itself

I am the sheen of the sword
I am the blood it delivers.
 
I am the snow
I am the mountain
I am the salt
I am the ocean
I am the planet
I am its shadow
I am the star
I am the splendor.
 
I am the essence
I am the illusion
I am the duality
I am the oneness
I am the ambiguity
I am the liberation
I am a million possibilities.
 
I am the muffled cry
of childbirth
the universe
comes into being
and the dread
of the ever after.

(The title is from a quote by Carl Sagan:
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.)

The last memory

It’s sand, dirt,
and something warm and sticky
dripping
into my eyes.
I see
parts of me
littered in the rubble.
Gunfire
continued.
I fall to the ground,
a sharp buzz
rings in my ears
as my mind shuts off.

Somewhere beyond the ringing,
at the end of the tunnel,
there’s a warm evening.

We were playing in the kitchen.
She was baking a cake,
or was trying to.
I threw her on the messy floor,
planted
a hasty kiss on her mouth.
She pushed me against the table
and doused me
in flour dust
again.

That evening
we chased a bandicoot in the yard,
laughed
until our stomachs ached,
drank vodka with cranberry juice,
danced, told each other
lewd jokes,
made love
four or four and a half times,
threw up
on the heirloom rug,
laughed again,
and stared at the sky
as the stars
dissolved
into the warmth
of the closing eyelids.
 
The horrors,
the giggles,
the peppery stars,
the half-baked cake,
an eternity.

 

Cut deep

Sailing
from one sky to the other.
The salt
licks the wounds
and heals.
 
Chasing wings
from one storm to the other.
The warmth
strikes at the very heart,
it bleeds.
 
Fallen angels,
temple bells.

Giants don’t matter

Tread gently,
tread softly,
without making a sound,
without announcing yourself,
on the sun-kissed sands,
on the wild grasses of the valleys,
on the snow-clad hills.
 
Let nature be,
let time be,
let will be,
you need not make a difference,
you must leave silently,
just as you arrived,
no grand schemes.
 
Laughter, tears, birthday cakes,
ink on paper,
talc on floor,
dust on shoes,
a life
lived with a full heart
from the first blink
to the last gasp.

...into a sky full of stars

The voices
in my head,
the quiet ones
the loud ones,
some thunder.
 
The quietest, meditative ones
sometimes
whisper into my ears,
wrap the lightning around me,
give me wings,
let me fly away.

Jatasya hi dhruvo mṛtyuḥ

From
all that chaos
and turmoil,
life came.
 
Death
silently
sneaked behind.

Yagnaseni

Born of the heart of ritual fire,
cradled by the tongues of fire,
revered as a blaze of unbearable beauty,
doted by her husbands
until bartered like an animal
for a game of dice,
dragged into the royal hall
by the locks of her hair,
the men present there –
old and young,
yearned
for a glimpse of that body.
 
Some held their hands down,
some clenched their fists in shame,
some swallowed the hunger.
The rage of her dearest
shuddered
the domains of gods.
He threw his mace
at the abductor
narrowly missing him.
The hundred brothers
and their cohorts
laughed
at the spectacle.
Layer after layer,
they rushed the disrobing
for the final reveal.
Every unspooling thread
held the suspense
of the profane.
 
She didn't pray for a saviour,
She didn’t wait for a miracle,
she didn't need a god.
She closed her eyes tightly
and fell inward
into the hearth of her first fire.
She unlocked
her female splendor.
That was not the kind of splendor
they coveted.
When the splendor
broke free,
it blinded their eyes
and charred the skin
that touched her.
 
She shone
like a thousand brilliant suns.
 
The spectacle
shattered
every shard,
every weapon,
every idol
in the realm.
 
She
was losing form –
losing parts of her
with every flicker.
 
Her dearest
got up from the cold floor,
like a mountain of breath and fury,
he moved toward her,
lifted her off the ground,
as her body gave way.
She curled in his embrace
like an infant.
 
Soothing
each fracture,
each unseen wound,
he carried her
into the sacred refuge
of the icy mountains.
 
When she woke up
at dusk
on the third day,
he smiled at her
and held her hand tighter.
Exhaustion
blurred the edges of reality
but her mind
survived
the annihilation.
 
She pulled him close
and murmured to him
about a dream
where she danced
with the fireflies
and battled
the blazing comets
in the sky.

The storm inside all of us

Pollen-filled winds
whistle
in the spring garden.
 
The hummingbird
hovered over the snail
and whispered:
I miss your Zen and calm.
 
The snail smiled
and replied:
On a dewy sunlit morning,
I crawled to the summit
of a mossy boulder
and whispered
between exasperated breaths:
I miss your Zen and calm.
 
The boulder smiled
thinking to itself:
How I weigh down
the tension and secrets
of the rumbling grounds
underneath. 

a little too drunk on a late afternoon

Wind in the hair,
smoke in the lungs,
mushy in the mind,
tight knot in the stomach.
 
I was pushing beyond all limits
on a remote village road.
Everything was a haze,
a purple haze.
The farmers returning from the fields
were drifting over the landscape
like ghosts.
 
It was a sharp turn.
A creature
or the mind’s silly prank,
strange and impish,
darted in front of me
from the thorny fences.
I lost control, thrown
and skidded across the road
on loose gravel –
each grain of sand
rubbing against flesh.
I was a bloody mess
in tattered clothes
and dripping warm liquid.
 
The road was empty.
I stood up
towering
against the sugarcane fields
and gazed
at a curled-up leathery ball
at the other end.
I dragged my numb leg
and limped
my way to the object.  
It was motionless.
As I approached
the seemingly weird
piece of relic,
it unfurled back to life
and disappeared
into the tall blades of grass.
I was a bloody mess
in a sacred space.
It was a giant armadillo.
 
The hunger pangs
and the sting
were getting too real.
As I struggled to start the bike,
the ghosts
evaporated into the afternoon heat.

An Inconsequential Life

He gave her a thousand bouquets,
sometimes carnations,
sometimes sunflowers,
but mostly roses,
bright red roses -
the deep color
of a prodded wound
or a racing dream.
 
He gave her a thousand bouquets,
near bus stops,
at telephone booths,
inside churches,
once in a graveyard
when she was grieving
her aunt's early demise.
Some were thrown in trash cans,
some were forgotten in handbags,
some were mindlessly torn apart,
petal by petal - as in a game,
some were neatly arranged
in a crystal vase
by her younger sister.
 
It was past twilight
on a late summer evening,
the bats were hunting
a rich harvest
in the humid air.
He approached her again
at the back entrance
of the local bakery.
She grabbed the flowers
from his sweaty arms,
pushed him
against the mossy brick wall,
stared into his eyes,
and waited.
He muttered something.
In an instant,
she kissed him
on his dry, peeling lips.
It was not a quick one,
It was not a deep one,
just long enough
to be called
an invitation.  
 
She took a deep drag
from her cigarette,
and walked away
into the darkness.
His eyes
followed the wisps of smoke.
He shook himself off
the camouflage
of the wall
and collapsed
on a bag of soda bottles.
 
The night sky
turned steely blue.
Her perfume
lingered on his senses,
weakening his knees.
His sight
turned blurry.
 
She went home,
asked her sister
for the crystal vase,
changed
into her nightdress,
arranged the flowers,
and played some loud music.
 
He went back to his room
after two hours.
He changed
into his pajamas.
Within minutes of his arrival,
his tabby cat
sneaked inside
from the window.
Clutched
between its teeth
was a blood-soaked bat
frantically beating its wings,
and bleating
like ominous sirens.
 
He poured warm milk
into a plastic bowl
by the refrigerator.
 
That night,
his spirit animal
put him to sleep
while narrating
a different version of the story.

Chamundi

She sheds her clothes,
swallows the ego,
rises above the domains
of mortality and reality.
 
She
delivers without surrendering,
she
becomes without existing,
she
unbecomes without exiting.
 
She’s the darkest dark.
She’s the iciest void,
She’s nothing,
and the glorious ever after. 

The night he threw everything out of the window

He was trapped
in the sweltering heat
of his one-bedroom apartment.
 
He would start his day
with a guttural sigh.
The weight
increased with every passing second
until it became unbearable
by late afternoon.
On lonely nights,
he collapsed
into the overwhelming gravity
of loneliness,
or quietly resigned
to deep slumber.
This routine
continued for decades.
 
The bandits of time
ravaged
his innocence,
inner peace,
and existence itself.
His questions
bounced off 
the stone walls –
never answered.
When his spine
was crushed under the weight,
he stopped asking any.

Last autumn,
a few weeks
after his birthday,
his friend
reminded him
he’s into his eighties now.
He casually added:
Think about this,
we’re the ancestors.
The old man’s thoughts
and everything that came after
hinged on that line
for long hours.
Sometime after dusk,
he went into the tiny kitchen,
made himself a cup of strong coffee,
drew the blinds,
took a deep breath,
and for the first time in his life,
stared amusingly
at the dance of raindrops
on the windowpane.

a glorious sunset

In his dream
he was riding a storm.
 
He and his machine
have been churning out numbers
for decades,
a blueprint of the origin story,
he told himself.
Greenboards,
chalk powder on worn-out brogues,
cafeterias 
strewn with stained coffee mugs,
loud debates, hushed conversations,
or pregnant silences.

One September evening,
the lone physicist
walks away from the office building
into the sweltering outback –
to the edge of a cliff
where the sun was melting
into the ice of the night.
His wrinkled, needle-striped shirt
was drenched in sweat.
 
There were times
when he stargazed
from his makeshift cabin,
marveled
at the singsong of the equations,
and the engrossing symphony
of the variables
for too long.
His swollen eyes
stared at the sliver                          
to find the missing piece
of a jigsaw puzzle.
This month, he
achieved a celebratory breakthrough.
As he put the elements together,
something was off–
off
by a ‘designed’ margin.
Something was too perfect–
so perfect
it defied reality.
 
He worked on it
for more than two weeks
searching for errors
but couldn’t find one.
The missing piece
could be an atom,
the immense pull of existence,
the endless forms of matter,
or infinity.
Every alternative
seems to fit
too perfectly.

He stood
restlessly
at the fringes of the universe
losing track
of time, sleep, and sanity. 
 
A heron
perched on a giant cactus
pecks into a lizard.
The breeze
and the afterglow
sweep against the nape of his neck.
He takes a leap
and waits.

Sunshine

He’s thirteen,
has the mind of a three-year old.
He doesn’t know much.
He doesn’t know much of the world,
its cares, its expectations - the shitstorms.
He sometimes stares into your eyes
or into a stranger’s eyes
and smiles.
He smiles for no reason,
no fear of being judged.
And when he hugs,
he hugs really tight,
dismissing
the petty stuff
we are scared of so often.
 
Three summers have passed.
My heart still craves
for the warmth of that hug.  
 
(inspired from a character from the mini-series – All Her Fault)

She wore yellow

He brought his little dog to the beach,
and everywhere.

First love,
the most rash
and indiscreet.
The whole world–
wings, waves, wilds–
paused to watch.

To each their own

The world
deserves your anger.
You,
Destiny’s Wrath.

Why is there something instead of nothing?

a miniscule something–
heavy, deep, and burdening,
hidden
among this vast,
ominous, engulfing darkness.
 
the enormity
of the scale of things,
the meaninglessness
of the scheme of things,
weighing down
on a fistful of heart.  

Gassy Afterthought

At the core of everything
is a little emotion.
 
Somewhere
beyond Orion's belt,
a dwarf star
burps.
The planets
and its many moons
take a step back.
 
The universe
doesn't mind
such social transgressions.
 
The star
takes it easy
and shines. 

A Perfume Called Pain

I don't leave home without it.
A dab or two,
applied directly on the skin,
sometimes
with notes of fear and self-doubt.

On lazy summer afternoons,
mute
to the supposed wisdom of the crowds,
the dewdrops
roll on the brow
as I let myself
douse in the sillage
until the deluge
sears the heart
slowly.

He closed his eyes
took a deep breath
and stopped.
My hand was on his chest.
I stared at the smile on his face
still there.
I stared
for too long
as if
denying
the encroaching chill
or stopping
time itself.
 
The pain
arrived
much later,
not in sudden spurts
but as a slow descent
suffocating me
and separating
my being
from my existence.

the crackle of firewood

There are memories
floating in the air,
there are memories
soaked in the soil.
 
Memories
that time forgot,
stubbornly etched
in the hazy layers of the mind.
They come back
as lies
spat by sharp tongues,
as scars
fading away on yesterday’s skin,
as false comfort
in a faraway hearth.
 
They come back
knocking,
to mock at our ugliness,
to strip us to our bone and dust,
to remind us we are human
after all.

Eye of the Octopus

We swoop down,
dip our appendages in the waters.

Some feel a chill down the spine,
some feel the warmth,
some feel the viscosity of red
and the carnage,
some feel the salt of the old bones
lying on the ocean floor,
Some feel the lump in their throat, 
Some feel the twisted knot in their stomach,
some feel the gravity of existence
drawing them in,
some feel the music,
some feel the symphony,
some feel the rhythm
from the beginning of time itself.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

We are not the originals.
None of us are.
These paths were trodden
by millions before
like crabs - the color of sunset,
scuttling on glistening shores.
 
The yesterdays
sipped from those streams,
sat on those sun-warmed rocks,
slept beneath charred trees of an old forest fire,
and stared at an indifferent fragment
of the Milky Way.
 
We are not the originals.
It's a burden
far too heavy
to bear.
Accept
we are perched on shoulders
of giants,
reliving those moments,
those ideas,
those passions
just one more time.
 
From such vantage point
I could see
the many before,
the many after,
from the beginning of time
to the final hush.

this magical wonderful blue

We
are products of desire,
self-aware beings
between two eternities,
riding blindfolded:
every wave
crashes–
a different passion,
every ocean
overwhelms–
a different blue.

The Ashes of Time

The ripples
swell into monstrous cyclones. 

Libraries burnt,
philosophies twisted,
the canvas
tarnished–
the bitterness
seeps into generations.  

With every betrayal of peace,
with every cry for arms,
we fall back
by many years. 

The cycle
starts again
with a clean slate,
hidden stains,
and a burdened conscience. 

The Enchantress

Even the mightiest warriors
who swung
their fiercest swords
and slayed
the vilest villains,
curl up
in their warm spaces:
by a fireplace, in a nest,
or on a lover's lap,
close their eyes gently,
and become
the most vulnerable.

With her slender index finger,
she traces her name
on his hairy chest.

Seasons of Death

She loves to savor the colors,
one by one.
He makes her swallow the rainbow
whole.
Her essence
is in the blades of grass.
His hunger
consumes
the wildness of the forest.
 
She hasn’t soaked
in exploding sunrises
nor has she absorbed
the delicate dance of a dewdrop
in a long time.
 
Her spring
reeks of death,
like the revolting smell
of a blooming rafflesia.
He sucks at her breast
at the midnight hour,
hollowing her out
from the inside.
His chokehold
over her existence
keeps
men, beasts, 
and dreams
miles away.

Her summers
are a different version
of the same tragedy.
But her feet
refuse
to blister on the scorching grounds
anymore.

Magnum Opus

The loop
is His masterpiece.
 
The loop
rolled
for eons,
folding into itself
like a mobius strip.
 
Across all levels,
even in our dreams
and the dreams within our dreams,
we must do everything right,
every single time,
without a mote of self-doubt.
 
That’s when
the loop breaks,
spits us out of the prison
of flesh and bones.

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.

Fading Lines

A strong wind
blows volumes of dust
to bury the bleeding torsos.  
 
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 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.

With a single, nonchalant swing
of the blade,
a thousand heads
fall on the barren grounds.
 
Time
dissolves
in the purity
of the act. 

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,
laid 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
sat on his lap
and asked him to tell the tale
of a towering dragon
that swallowed the sun
whole.

He smiled,
narrated about a time
when the silence of a deep forest
was interrupted by heavy rain.
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 bullets
of a thousand battles,
they bare it all –
their ugliness,
their darkness,
their scars
on the body
and 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.
 
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
the streets
of a small seaside town,
beamed 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 spirit
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 release
of the downpour
quenches
a primordial 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.