Still Around - A Year Later

Still Around, A Year Later 

It is 11:00 pm, after a long day

And have closed my eyes...

Intending to sleep,

Attending to each of my thoughts

As part of the regular rumination 

After a few seconds,

I see my dad walk down 

the stairs of our house.

He's at the main door.

It's broad daylight.

He walks towards me

in his usual gait,

firm and casual,

with no apparent pain

of his end years.

I notice the fresh blood 

on his forehead.

I know that this is 

of the clot 

that I discovered

so many hours later,

on the day of his death.

He asks, shall we?

I say, Yes, I am ready.

To be part of today's occasion

of laying our house's cornerstone.

~ 05Dec2024

Grief

 
A day or two later,
You are not sure if you are weeping 
You are not sure why you are weeping 
There are times,
You are not sure why you smiled 
at that old woman on the street 

And then,
You wonder if you ever smiled
at dad while he was still alive. 
and chidingly tell yourself...
What kind of daughter you were!
And sulk even more.

After a few days of not crying 
You think you have grieved, enough. 
Or at times, when you don't grieve,
You say, 
'See.. I told you. Grief is overhyped.' 

But, No. Out of nowhere, 
there are moments of 
'a very still life'
So much... that you wonder 
If there is still life.

Like, a few weeks later,
You are hurriedly paring the pineapple 
that kids need for their snacks break
And you don't curse but cry 
if when the knife dad had used was 
not sharp enough...

Now, no doubt. 
That is Grief.

~ 18Jan24 to 05Feb24

Sea's Handiwork

Waving to the shore.

Falling Rain Drops

On the red-tiled floor
I am lying flat, face up
with hands spread out
ajar like an open door

The falling rain drops
dot my resting body and
the rest of the terrace
like they've been
metered for pace
and sorted for shape

The falling rain
drops steady and even
like having passed
through a sieve

The falling rain drops
pierce soft needles
delivering divine nectar
through my skin

The falling rain
drops to take me to a place
devoid of cowering thoughts
and senseless pain

The falling rain drops
sing songs of relief
tapping into the void
and persistently find
the hidden words
in my dormant mind


~ Aug 17, 2021

The Fifth Monkey

There’s a tussle among the thoughts
Their quest is about
who must get thought about,
for how long and first.

These thoughts ace at striking me
just when I lay supine at night
They splash on my face
this handful of ice cold water
that I readily hold in my palms together.

I watch them in silence, and wonder:
how they flawlessly mimic
kids inside classrooms
waiting to run amok
at the ring of the relieving bells.

When I try to tame and distract,
there’s no harping or heeding.
Now I get it. No, they are not kids.
Like adolescents, they get better at it.

One after another, the adolescent me
fills the seats of the classroom,
and do just what they think.

While one of me thinks about
how much of a wonder a song is,
another one’s memory comes rushing in
fighting for my mind space,
and
I am already reeling out commentaries
about a recent song that
sets me on a trampoline
making me jump out of joy,
every time I listen to it, and
the other one that’s full of warmth
like a lover cuddling me
gently from behind, ear-to-ear,
resting their chin on my shoulder
when I am breathing in
the crisp, cold air on a breezy night.

Another of me now raises the hand
and recites an enticing analogy:
about the pleasures of finding
long-forgotten unsent notes
to a lover,
like that of seeing
misplaced, forgotten money
under folded, unused clothes.

A third one
points to the direction of my son
who murmurs, ‘no, I didn’t do it’,
in his sleep,
and makes me ponder
about how much of a bother
I have been to him.

Here comes version number four.
Who am I?
Where’s the missing euphoria, or,
was there even any such thing in me?
Guess I am just such a bore...

Around about the fifth hour
the fifth monkey sits up...
retching a papery white and blue
peppered with all these thoughts,
sweet and sour.

Like a good bout of vomit
throwing out the bad bile,
this poring act brought the relief
like the small pill that cures the ill,

And then came the sleep,
slow and still.


~ Jul 06

Did it Rain?

What am I hearing...

Gurgling water from parched spouts
Calming ripples of crowding water

Water splashing the rioting boys' faces
Soaked up dogs shaking the excess

Rustling plumes of drenched parrots
Flapping wings of taking-off pigeons

Hunger pangs of red roof-tiles
Hot soil slurping the pitter-patter rain

Thank you gestures of tender plants
Pendular heads of coconut trees

Cheerful birds flocking together
waiting to tweet their dusk prayers

Were these your visions too,
my beloved June Rain,
after you poured your heart out
on a dreary sultry crumbling evening?


~ 07 June, 2021

Colour Pencils

When you are dead meat
When you are battered
beyond recognition

When nothing makes sense
When your thoughts are incoherent
When written words are alien to you
When you cannot gather
anything together

When you indifferently reject
every redemptive proposition like
a badly written draft

And, when you have swung from
Unplugged to Headbangers
without second thoughts, and 

in a jiffy...

Talk to me, says the paper
Play with me, says the colours.


~Feb 2021

High Hopes

Sometimes,
I ask like a child,
Or out of audacity,
about what I wrote

Like the pegged ones
on the clothesline ask:
Can't you see?
I flutter so well.
Can you fly me
like a kite tomorrow?


~ May 19, 2021

Life in a Summer Bath

Sometimes,
Life becomes so meaningless
like a bath in deep summer.

You do it
expecting something
that's not even close to pleasure
But all you get is
frustration and regret.

Yet,
You go on.

Eventually,
dawns the ultimate realization:
that one must do their duty
Notwithstanding the outcomes.


~ April 06, 2021

Moonset

Dear crescent
That's setting in the west

Today,
I am like you in certain ways

It's just late evening
You've already retired
Thin, sinking, and fading
Your life's over for the day
You are bleeding to death
And no goodbyes to say

Yet, I am unlike you
In just one way
A hundred more things to do
But if I sat any longer
I felt I would just decay


~ Mar 16, 2021

For the Sweetest Song Ever!

O! Sweet song,
This moment,
Ask me who I want to love.
I would look at you,
Unhesitatingly!

You sound to me like
the sweet voice of my lover,
ringing constantly into my ears,
ever so mellifluously.
Look at the irony:
I've begun to listen to you dutifully,
though you sing in a language
that's a little strange to me.

And as I take you in slowly,
you dribble me in a shower,
raining not of water, but honey
I declare, I'll never be sane again.

When I make sense of you,
my love sees no bound
I'm in a constant state of ecstasy
I dance and float around, like
I've never been on ground. By now,
you've held me in your sway
And, I realize to my dismay
my senses have gone astray

O! sweet song,
This moment,
Ask me who I want to be.
I would point to you,

Unflinchingly!


~ Nov 05, 2020

Today's Moon Story

No blinding lights to pain my eyes
No buzzing mosquitoes to hug my elbows
A pair of white birds doing a ballet
on a night sky flooded with mindless clouds

Appreciating the perfect-half milk-moon
I listen to a playlist that makes me sway
and throw my arms up in the air, unawares.
With a spirited feeling song after song,
I levitate and feel like I've reached the skies.

Now, my fickle mind dances to its tune.
It looks hard at the moon,
and at the impulsive heart,
concluding that the eye calls it perfect
only when it sees more.

Quickly, the mind's resident debater retorts:
No way! It's the seventh day.
It is as perfect as the slashed half of
a swiftly darting ball approaching the sword
in the grips of a doubted warrior.

By now, the moon sinks low.
It let the wicked clouds engulf it.
Perhaps, it heard my fickle-minded words?

A disheartened me looks again longingly...
Soon, the clouds shrink and become
the moon's brilliant soft halo,
and revealing a perfect half
of shimmering gold.


~ Oct 23, 2020

Artist's Hope

I write, time and again,
about the sun,
and the moon and rain
like the incessant waves
caressing the sands
of the familiar shore
I write in the hope
that I can go on

But I still hesitate
to give it all, and
to take
that leap of faith,
the artist's hope,
of making a life
by creating art.


~ Oct 23, 2020

Breakdown Moon

The last few days, I've been
at the brink
of a breakdown.

Every night, I catch just a glimpse
of you from my terrace.
I shy away from you...
you, the red moon,
you, the fury face of night earth.

You try to goad me steadfast
out of this cruel mental slumber.
I can't help ponder, why, everyday,
I evade you, like
a desire I ought to have forbade.

All I seem to wish for, is
to forget to remember.
I stay glued to my inertia,
and grow the indifference,
like it's some indulgence.

The day I forsake
and shook me awake, I come
to see you a little longer.
I search you in the clouds yonder,
to tell you that I owe it you. Alas,
your fury face is not seen.

I persist and pace the night terrace
and feel each of the thirsty red roof tile
that I drenched hours ago,
waiting to sing an ode a mile.
I wonder, about how quickly, you dilute,
from fervent red to a radiant white.

But, today, your fury face is not seen yet.
Tell me, the shining,
when will I see you again?

~ Oct 08, 2020

I Witness

Our mind is an invisible organ that accounted for the sixth sense. It functions by taking inputs from the other five visible organs, that perceive and learn the world around it. And, we are complete, learned beings, if we witness the world with these six.

And, as I recollected the words of a scholar, I saw a shadow play today.

On a blanched sheet, there were images
of the crumbled, tanned tea leaves
brewing in a hot pot, and
letting the sweet aroma out.

These churning of wild thoughts
of the belligerent protagonist,
was as distasteful
as the bratty bile in the stomach.

It instigated the cool and the calm
to turn rogue and act rude
to those resting nonchalantly.

Out of the blue, amidst the rumbling,
emerged the roars of a hundred
angered ferocious lions.

And there were merciless episodes
of flashes that won't hesitate
to leave the eyes blind.

What started in one corner, spread
like thick butter smeared on bread.
In quick succession, dread tore down
the resolve of the disciplined, and 

instigated them to turn the scene 

into a messy riot.

Well, now I see it clearly.

Pregnant clouds have sprawled all over.
And just then, it broke it's waters, and
showered us down its beautiful babies.

They were welcomed into the world,
amid all the prevailing chaos, with
such a spectacle and drum rolls.

Thanks to the thundershowers,
for such mindful revelations!


~ Jul 15, 2020

Love and Separation

Love and death are two topics that I have lived with most, more by imagining than by experiencing it. I replay or think about it either intensely or immensely. Yeah, I agree that the usual combination is birth and death. But I would prefer to couple love and death, rather than birth and death. Though birth and death are consequential, in a way, love supersedes birth. As in, the event of birth is replaced by an emotion called love; and death by separation. 

Death, as an event, wields more power than birth when you weigh the consequences. You can prepare for an event called birth, but you are never prepared enough for death. However prepared you are and wait for it to happen, it always comes as suddenly, and leaves the shock of a slap on your face.

Love lies in a metaphysical plane, and can transcend time and place. Words of love can feel as real as the feeling of touch. And so can death be. You can very much love a person separated by years and thousands of miles. 

And with death, you can very much imagine and feel death and it's consequences, right from the time when just the thought about separation is implanted or etched in your mind. I mean, someone can live with you everyday, and yet, be gone and make you unsure of their existence.

~ Jul 06, 2020

The Illusionist

The sky's an orangish-red
Birds fly in time-lapse
Clouds float in slo-mo.
A stone's throw away, I see
silhouettes of tree-tops
fluttering in glee.

I ask, 'what about you', and
you persist me to tell...
'Imperceptible', I say and settle.

In actual, 'inaction' is what it is.

You make everyone move, yet,
you make everyone think
you are the one movin'
at every blink!

That's by far,
the greatest illusion ever crafted.

And, to say, you are the one
who rises in the east
is certainly, the biggest farce
in the entire universe.


~ Sep 20, 2020

Panacea for Oblivion

I am in oblivion, and
almost in a state of delirium
letting a world of suffering
be poured on to me

Now, there are two paths:
To go down the spiral
or to shake it off.

Though I have seen enough,
and know the cause and effect,
the pessimist streak in me
is urging to take the
path of self-destruction.

By now, I was ambling in the dark,
deciding which road to take,
whether to grow the flame, or
to let go of the hurt and blame

Enter the piano man!
Think it's going to change
the course of my fate...?

He was playing Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata, followed by
Pachelbel's Canon In D Major,
and over to Grieg
with his Morning Mood
and the beatific Anitra's Dance.

Just when I was settling in
came Schubert and Chopin
chirping the Swan Song
and Nocturn No. 2, and
I was surprised to change:
the pallor went to blush from pale
Just listen to Bizet and Bach 

play their Carmen and Badinerie!

By the time Mozart played
his Turkish March and
Piano Sonata No. 16,
I went home brainwashed
and feeling sanctified. Ironically,
Beethoven's closing piece,
Pathetique, wasn't so bad!

Rightly so, it was called: piano forte!


~ June 30, 2020

Your Voice

Pleasant as a chime
without fail every time
Clear as mountain stream
Real as a lucid dream
Crystalline as the evening sun
Calming as the gentle breeze
Divine as camphor
Sweet as honey

~ Oct 08, 2020

The Teacher

All through in our life
we have sides--of our own self
and see those of others

We take sides,
and want people on our sides.
We decide to stick with people
who happen to us by chance, and
when we were too naïve to decide
someone decides for us instead.

Strangely, these decisions make us...
like favours being returned

There are relationships in our life
that effortlessly define itself a path
and flow like a river.
And, there are the ones you pursue.

All said, the love in us, eventually,
leads us through our life.

Thank you, teacher!

For seeing the shades in the faces,

For having made those decisions,

For being too sweet and sticky,

For mending the cracks and filling the crevices

of all those troublesome years,

And to have tended to my growing pains,

For your wide-open arms,

For flowing into my life,

For having spent time on my side,

And,

For all the cheer and love you still give!


~ Oct 22, 2020