Live here. Live in my half hearted consciousness.

In my dreamwalkingness tiptoeing out.

Live like a violin I wanted to play

In the Mozart I had wanted to be not long ago.

Live here now, in my black and white,

In silence and in the solitary walks across

Roads crossed, paths intersected, bends followed.

Live here like a dew drop tiara; resplendent

Like the Kohinoor, imperishable like spirit

And crown this solitude in this unbearable light.

Live inside the mirror on that wall

Like a reflection from my past.

Live in the shadow that we form together

Thinning every nanosecond.

Dimming by the beat of my heart.

Live here. Live in my words now, pregnant at ease.

Live in the song of the sailors and in doldrums.

Live like a sad song in the prayers I made

Live like a candle and then in subterranean times

Live like the Universe and supernova

Live in growth, decay and burning out!

Who needs isolation anyway?

My swarming consciousness asked me

Who needs packets of solitude

And silver threads of subtle conversation

With them in cold winter evenings?

Transient

Blow north wind

Freeze my blood, lock my bones

Stop my heartbeats. My eyelash

Shall not flap, the raven black eyeballs

Shall be trapped in transitory vision

Quiver not lips.

Blow north wind.

Your gust drove away my slumber,

Pushed away my anonymity

From cobwebs as I died of arctic brutality,

Unknown and unseen, away from the hearth,

Fire eluded the ice inside.

I was dying, slowly and unquestionably.

The spectra blurred. The luminosity

Of eagerness of wait dimmed casually.

Summer came.

Oh summer was late in my garden!

Scraps..here and there..everywhere

Scrap 1

hear?
hear that voice call out my name,
from those edges.

see?
see that albatross
flapping wings in the firmament

see?
see that skylight
and cobwebs
sticking around

messed up
patched and thatched
poetic existence
that brewed from
coffee, window and conversation
nicotine too
and
reeling under the pressure
of tomorrows

if only there weren’t any today.

that rickshaw puller there
has a today implanted
in every tomorrow of sanity

the tiny wildflower bending
its neck under the autumn sun
has a today too
full of scrutiny
and surveillance of the garden
and the endless blue above.
and tomorrow it may think of
butterflies and mossy bricks
which make her home

history will decay
as I observe
revolutions and reformations

and the rickshaw puller
and the wildflower
in the crannied wall
will never be there
in the history of kings.

let them be here
buried in love, labour,
curiosity meshed with
midsummer’s madness
in the abundance of geography;
let them be here
used up, recycled and then
reused again,
in my self contained
self made eternity!

Scrap 2

Leaves.
Summer leaves.
Green, yellow, flaming red
Like the lava flowing,
Crisscrossing its way
Like the endless stream of history
Oft repeating oft silent
And full of dark remorse.

Season of blue.
Leaves turn greener.
Soaking pieces of summer’s strength
In madness of rainclouds
In the periphery of blue mountains.

And in autumn redder still.
Radiant and crimson
Blushing in the austerity of age.

Winter and whiteness.
Pale morbid listless
Lifeless.
Bits of losses strewn in blank verse.
Nothing.
Nothing remains.

And the cycle then. The sea gives back what it takes.

Come back green and yellow and red
In flaming red.

Burn me out. As you had burnt death.
Growth, water and decay.

Stop!

Stop here. Stop now.
Stop by this evening
Stop inside this night's womb
Breathe not, sigh not.
Stop and live in my journey
Of thousand years,
Of scents and sounds,
Of flames and radiant fire
In your eyes and my vision.
Stop in youth and age,
In abundance and in obscurity,
In the light of light,
Aurora Borealis and in twilight!
In the fathomless deep
Of the darkness that drips
Sigh by sigh,
Breath by breath,
Sweat by sweat,
And where in every drop
I find a poetry rising
From distant ashes of Serbia,
War, destruction and civilization.
Carcass of my faith
Falling redundant on the face
Of annihilation.
Rise again O brother!
Rise in those waves
That created my rippling poetry
Of another land, another time
Another day to be.
I breed of life, I smell of the ecstasy
You found in sea shells.
I love myself. I love this reflection
Of what I see, of what I dream
Of the hourglass from past,
Of the mirror from future
Standing tall on this grass of present
I chew some. I leave some
And when I ruminate
I ask you to stop.

Stop here. And feed me.

Jasmine

Jasmine,
Jasmine,
In your
Fragrance-
I drown..
I drown
My sense.
Jasmine,
Jasmine,
Shall I
Pluck you?
Will you
Be then,
Mine?
Scent, heart
And flower-
Aladdin
Will be
Your poet
Always..
In our
Self made
Bower!

Then,
Flower,
River
And wine-
Poetry,
Lovesongs,
Sophocles

All mine!

shall i love you....?

shall i love you
as i love the touch
of your fingers and
the smell of your skin
in coffee and tobacco?
the sweat trickles
down your brow
and it meanders past
the rough nape
and merges swiftly
in the shadow we form
together in its mediocrity.
shall i love you as the
nightingale loved the rose,
the rose loved the prince?
and the prince loved
the sunset always.
shall i love you sweat by sweat
breath by breath? and then
with the tiny prick of the thorn
and the tinier drop of blood
like a purple sunset--
shall i love you like a twilight?
ever now and never then
and shroud you in my
momentary brilliance?

Songman

Songman

You sang in subterranean times
In orange and blue and earthen colours,
Of wind chimes, church bells;
Of de ja vous and happy evenings,
And sadness of the grim layer of bricks
Forming the contour of cobblestones
Of my street, where I played the Pied Piper
To whisk away your frenzied dreams
That died on your lips while you sang.

You sang again while raincolours
Gathered dust and the bends i took,
And the blue through which i meandered
Remained cluttered in abstract half hearted dreams
Of the seven seas; and the utopia somewhere
I was about to discover in some alien Greek morning.

You sang again when the tartars came
And when war begot my time
And poetry died a thousand deaths
Like my love songs to sunsets, twilight
Rome and kaleidoscopic evenings.
You followed my untraced footsteps on sands
And waded through waterlogged streets
Of the unexplored virgin i called my kingdom
And you called it Heaven.

And it is soft
Like autumn breeze
And it is like the river
And never cease.

And I may fail
In wooing spring
E'en though lovesongs
Of Far Away I sing.

Lemon yellow and tamarind dusk
Aeons of ages and evening skies
When I was an encapsulated memory
I lived there, as I have lived many times
Amidst ocean blues and opaline hues
Of twilight colours swirling subaltern times
Cries and screams, distant broken and
Half hearted gush of dreams
All perished and faded in october sky
In solidarity of blocks of silence
That separated them as always
And where I rushed my absent footsteps
To look for a lonely corner
And play the flute once more
To beckon you in those distant dreams
Once again, oh once, my love
In tepid remorse and deathless hope.

with you within
without you with me
i rock my cradle
i rock it gently
hush. hush my baby.
sleep.
sleep
a little!

Limerick 1

Once upon an indian standard time
There lived a bell that loved to chime
And when the Indians slept
The ghanti sadly wept
For late night ding dong was a serious crime!

retribution

heal slowly
in tamarind mornings
when they sleep
lost in forsaken dream

heal slowly then
while i trace
your footprints
and carry your body
across the end of history

heal then my love
and finally retribute
the pain, yes all of them
while healing me
then heal me
heal me!

the tryst

a drowsy film wraps days
and sun burnt afternoons
my somnolent gaze fades away
in the nights to come.
away from earth’s alertness
and dreamless walks
time builds up like a tombstone
around the grave of days long ago.

she took me home once
when I was a careless stray
on cobblestones, the urban lights
on my disfigured nonchalant shadow
tracing my forsaken dreams.
she sheltered me again
when I was walking silently
along an echoing shore
where the waves whispered my name.
she had fed me when I was hungry
ravenous as the next beggar
starved of the delicacies of life.
she washed me, cleaned me
till I shone and sparkled
like a shimmering dew drop tiara.

we grew together as we inched closer
breath by breath, sweat by sweat
corps et âme together.

au revoir! Goodbye we bade
on the sands of Egypt
like the mighty pharaohs bidding adieu
to golden mornings of desert sands
with promises of lives beyond
the seven wonders.

the hourglass still holds her memories
shimmering and sparkling against
the contour of past and future.
now that I am reborn,
uncontaminated and untainted
in rootless nomadic freedom
i sense her once more,
in my countless heartbeats.

the colour and the season

there were some leaves
and some more green,
a dash of verdant,
valleys sloping down
spiralling up
and halting then
in midsummer dreams.

then a few shrubs
unkempt, uncared for
since ages long ago
and for years to come
they shall be, they shall be
springs lovenest,
with colours strewn
all over marigold mornings.
transformation of green
she said, smiling.

and i believed her.
in my pulsating wisdom
i knew she was right
she was, she was!
didn't she tell me once
in westbound prophecy
that colours were what
she was waiting for
since methuselah's times?

the thinning of time
lifted the crimson veil
of sunsets and dusks
in november skies.
winter, ah, winter
was it then when i held
her palms, moist in the colour
the butterfly left
in her dewy fingers.

a few roads

there was a road
and there was another road.
one led to eden
where they wanted to go,
last paradise lost
the touch of human agony
mortal fear and immortal hope
vouched its beauty;
green and more green
and life amidst it
and a few packets of ruins
and ashes and debris
of all that was
and all that would be!
then there was another road
a little crooked, a little commonplace
waterlogged here and there,
muddy ochre on which they walked
carefully measuring each step
footprints on wet earth
to be sought and followed
by those behind!
ah!such beauty of ugliness
such addiction to tempest
and rainforests, dense and smoky;
such love for the journey
such fear of losing track
time and again.
and when they woke up
to bright summer skies
and sands of kalahari
they knew they would
walk again
meet again
on a third road
never walked before.

Here I am seated
Amidst endless seas
Beneath the blue dome
Within the bounds
Of careless freedom.

Here I am washed
By your absent dreams
Which held promises
Long ago; not here,
Not now.

Here I hold sway over
My estate on rubbles
Of million dispersed 'I's
My fragmented self
scattered like quanta.

Here the leaves gather
and salute aged Nature
Around my dusty feet
Finding comfort and peace
In autumnal austere strength.

Here I pick up rags
Of silhouettes and shadows
And string them with dusk
And evening skies
Of nomadic freedom

Here we separate, branch out
And then bond like one
Amidst green foliages
Of shady cypress and
Tall Eucalyptus trees.


Here we isolate and mourn
The death of rootlessness
And slowly, unwatched
Away from scrutiny and eyes
The gypsy heart grows.

Measure

Tell me now stranger, if I serve myself

In delicious ambiguity on your platter

Would you taste me bit by bit?

Would you gulp down my consciousness

Of eternity in seconds to come

Ticked in time by magenta sunsets?

Tell me now, tell me a little of your forefathers

And how you metamorphosed into the strangeness

That I see today, that I see now.

Tell me how you lived and how you laughed

And how you loved--

Tell me all of them scratch by scratch

While I measure myself.

Tell me tales of the seagulls

And how they flew overhead

When you embarked on your journey

Of ten thousand miles across light years

And seven seas’ ugly lonesome nights.

Tell me about the northern lights and the winds

That blew my slumber away in dreams to come.

Tell me now, for I long to hear them

From your lips, from your eyes.

Your voice creeps into my ruggedness

And wakes me up; stirs me down

Like a cup of freshly brewed coffee

That is how you taught me to measure myself.

And I measured this stark consciousness

Dressed in satin and silk from the Far East

Elegant as the regal attire, delicate as the dew drop tiara

And I measured myself and grasped the meaning

Of the wondrous look in your eyes

That I am priceless!

there

the nightscape erodes
as minutes tiptoe in hourly silence.
time begets time.
the rugged pile of consciousness
is at its brightest and wakeful best
at the phantom hours.

this is not my world.
this is not my reality.
this is far far away
beyond silent waters of blue seas
and dusky evening sky
away from sweetness of love's symphony,
miles away from agony,
away from angst, pain, hopelessness.

this is where i am elevated.
feel not heart, fear not mind;
think not, see not, hear not, speak not.
this is where everything stops.
your wheel ceases rotating
my cliched existence
amongst piles of mundane everyday.

here you are not my lord.
you cease to be my fate.
i, finally, take up the reigns,
i am your destiny henceforth.

i know i have realized this before
i have spoken this ten thousand times.
uttered them in solitary pristine glory,
alone, many times.
in childlike wonder, in blind resentment to you!
this is also unique like the ones before.

Countless

How many streams must I cross

Before you learn to swim across

El Nino of turbulent times

How many roads must be walked

How many of them should intersect

And lie love locked till you hear them

Calling you from the depths of my eyes?

How many flowers should be born

‘to blush unseen’ and how many of them

should garland you when your sensitivity dies?

How many times should I rock your cradle

So that you sleep peacefully amongst rubbles

Of creepy lonesome nights?

How many rain clouds shall it take

To bring in monsoon for you?

How many times will the church bells chime

Before they cry ‘hallelujah’ and kiss

Your footprints compassing the new journey

That you embarked now.

How many love songs shall it take

To wake you up?

How many lullabies to hush you to sleep?

How many deaths shall I die

To live your life again?