Renewal

You might have heard me sing of love,
When all your hopes are lost and gone,
While time has moved silently,
Shrouded love with forgetfulness.

This love has become the truth,
Now to be sung from rooftops,
For the near and far to wonder,
What makes this love so special?

The earth celebrates the touch of rain,
With many fresh green sprouts of life
That peek through the little space
Found on walls, floors and ground.

You are like rain that fed the earth,
With positive thoughts and beliefs,
With rare dreams and fantasies,
Hardly said aloud or acknowledged.

It's the piece of earth in me
That loves the rain of your memories.

A cup of coffee

Ernest Hemingway

It was almost five decades ago,
Just before your 62nd birthday
That you played with your gun,
To write the end of your life.

Blessed with words by the muses,
You stood before their altar,
Writing and tearing out pages,
Till the best words did emerge.

Your life is a curious tale,
For every lover of your words,
Who wander upon your books,
Never to leave them again.

You did not wait for the fall,
To turn the green leaves yellow,
Only made the morning news flash,
With scattered bones and brains.

Your love for hills, the blue skies,
And words will remain forever.

Patience

Many repeat the words of old sages,
When they want you to acquiesce,
For crinkled ladies advice is easy,
To be as patient as mother earth.

They know not the daily struggles of love,
Battles fought for an ounce of freedom,
Several days when life goes topsy-turvy,
Outside and inside our safe homes.

Why can’t a woman live her life?
Get angry, be bold or her own self,
Without fearing who’ll think what,
Or get what she wants in life?

They say the world is not equal,
For they value sons than daughters,
Unless in old age when they need,
Someone to take care of them.

Furious words the old sages give
Any woman who dares to dream.

17000

The sweet face looked sour, pained by the sheer irony of life,
Of having to face the small steps that led to a huge success.
Like a wounded lion, your face crinkled with wordless agony
As the large crowd howled and roared with huge expectations.

Clouds of expectations that could lead or crumble the spirit,
Hovered over the sad face, struggling amidst the tension.
The early disappointments at dot balls silenced the crowd,
Who could not see their little master beaten in any game.

Still life came in quiet strokes that swept across the field,
Gracefully as ever; the characteristic of an unbeaten master,
Who has strove hard to ahead by thousands and thousands,
While the stars and the sands watched in amazement.

Finally, you have given an answer to the doubting crowds,
A page in history that records the strife of a winner.

Wake up with the sun!

More than usual,
There is a need
To do something
Different ,
Out of ordinary
On a morning
Like this.

It's a bleak sky,
Hints of rain
Cloud the sky,
While I decide
To go on a walk
After a long time.

The roads are quiet,
City silent,
Signs of life,
Only a few,
Cycles on the road,
More walkers,
Regulars unlike me,
Who on a special day,
Has decided
To celebrate life,
With a morning walk.

Much is done,
Much accomplished,
On a day like this,
When I woke up early,
With the sun.

For Baby

My soul you are; my child,
My baby fluttering inside.

My days are full of longing,
Dreams of being your mom.

You were a dream before;
Now waiting at my door.

What bundle of surprises,
Wisdom, virtues and vices.

What a bond will ours be? 
I wait for time to tell me.

Unborn child, my little one,
Teach me again how to love.

Anger

There's a soul in me
Who hates to cuss 
And be cussed,
or even a single word
that flies from anger.

But there's a mind,
a little thwarted
a little violent
Who loves to break
someone's complacence.

on such days,my mind
Breaks out of silence,
thrashes the opponent
with bitter words
quite unexpected.

a little remorse felt,
but more satisfaction
at raised eyebrows
that show surprise
and a little awe.

Flower

Riding on a Full Moon Night

The ice-cold fingers of the full moon,
Could seep through the windowpanes
And caress this small self that moved
Across the state on a large vehicle.

The city lights shone in the distance,
Ships and islands glittered in my view,
While I sat in the bus dreaming of you,
And thought the moon followed my path.

The journey was unpleasant and sad,
To see if life could change from despair,
But wherever I went, the full moon shone,
In a life that was spent in your dreams.

In those times, you were like a deity,
Whom I worshipped night and day.

Goodbye Again

For you, no words are enough; no goodbyes enough,
For you were always there besides the River Green,
Looking at my small and big steps with lots of pride
For all these long years from early childhood.

Now you are like a child with a weak heart and mind,
That trembles and forgets who you really represent,
Still in your shaky voice heard over the distance,
I hear the same pride that I have heard before.

You taught me my first words and the first songs
You sang in that hoarse voice, your many boatsongs,
That later formed the wild rhythm of musicless songs
Written in a language you have forgotten to understand.

Now, all you know is a strange language of goodbyes
That makes my heart tremble and grow old so early.

A wish

One wish can travel far
Or wide through time,
Whatever the day might be,
A wish that was never made
Aloud with words.

One wish with love
Uttered in silence
Before the altar of souls,
Can bring peace to you,
Wherever you are.

I have heard that you're gone,
Far into the unknown land,
Where I can never reach,
With my wishes or prayers
Or with loving messages.

May be it's another lie,
Like that one said
To win an epic war,
One told out of spite,
Just to bring tears.

One wish can travel far
Or wide through time,
Whatever the day might be,
A wish to bring a smile,
Wherever you might be.

Childhood

Where have all those days gone, those of laughter
And of tears, when beside the huge river green,
A childhood was spent in thousand creepy fears,
Taken out of my grandmother's long night tales.

Where have all those tastes of childhood gone,
Mangoes plucked from the neighbour's orchard,
The sweet bites of freshly cut sugarcane stems,
Along with jaggery sweets from next-door kitchen.

Where have all those big dreams of life gone,
Playing doctor with sharp pencils as syringes,
Of travelling around the world in eighty days,
Of being Edmund Dante or the Musketeers.

Those childhood days beside the river green
Are now long-faded photographs and memories. 

Brilliance

What learning can books give once you lose your head?
Once you lose your head to the voices inside your head,
The conflicting voices that opine for and against,
Each and every action and emotion in your mind.

For whom, will you turn to when your heart speaks,
In two languages, one of desire and one of fear,
Hesitating between the two like at crossroads
And shudder at the thought that your life is gone.

Gone with the web of thoughts that doesn't exist,
Gone with the lack of concentration this state brings,
The original you is buried somewhere someplace,
Somewhere in the past when brilliance shone.

All you can ever do is make a show of brilliance,
When your head is empty; just like others do.

Silences

The silences formed her nature;
When for others words came easy,
For her words were clumsy, gauche.

They came in left-handed strokes,
At inopportune times and slashed,
Through many hearts like knives.

That’s not what she had wanted,
All she wanted was to bring smiles,
And show people how she cared.

Instead she watched others do it;
Bring smiles and wipe others’ tears,
Or soothe a lonesome broken heart.

Silences remained her language until,
She was loved; made to laugh aloud, 
Forget her tears, with loving words.

Sunset

We sat on the sands watching the sun set,
Splashing many hues from a vibrant palette,
What shades of blue, grey, red and orange,
Etched against a mass of blue ocean.

The waves beat against the sandy shore,
While crowds gathered to step into water,
Toddlers and children, laughing wildly,
While we watched and took in the scene.

Now, many seasons have come and gone,
The shades have become only lovelier,
While the light of love that once was there,
In your eyes have faded with the seasons.

No words are enough to describe that light,
Or the brilliant hues of the setting sun.

Empty Pages

A page a day was a dream,
Except on space-less Sundays
Which had no blank pages
In my diary with green cover.

I bought this at first sight,
When this shade of green
Brought back to my mind,
The sheen of a river green.

This river in a distant land,
Shimmers in sunlight,
Flows with a graceful ease
Unlike these words.

For words have seasons;
They've dried up with years.

Blue hues

Everything is blue, this evening.
It's been a time of recollection,
To remember with sharp regret,
A broken dream from yesterday.

A string of unforeseen words,
Suddenly sprinkled on a page,
And in its shadows a dream hid,
Holding together its angst.

The blue of a showy bracelet,
Hung with minute stars and shapes,
The blue of the galloping waves
That cause you to tremble

A dream remembered upsets,
A heart that remained too placid.

Red rose

“Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early.”Doug Stanhope

You were like a bird who wanted to fly high;
But your wings were clipped quite early enough.
Your heart wanted and demanded freedom,
But those around you stifled you in four walls.

For love was an addiction, his sweet words solace,
From the cruel world that blossomed your form.
Yet he could not liberate you from the four walls
That ate your happiness and killed you day by day.

Your innocent smile stares from a beautiful picture,
Your perfect face set against your dark shiny hair,
And a pair of glasses only one used to you can spot,
As you stand clad in red, a colour that you'd loved.

You could crumble those four walls with outside help,
But you chose to show your freedom to do it yourself.

27: Happy Birthday

When the multiplication tables were in
Twenty-seven stood for three raised to three;
Now it stands for the age of this old wine,
The spirit, inside a big barrel called me.

No humble words, the barrel loves to expand,
This spirit grows mellow people say (God knows)
Though it was only yesterday that I was a kid,
Splashing for hours in the mighty river green.

Now the wrong side of twenties beckons me,
For it’s a freefall that all women go through,
From where you slip into the 30s, 40s and 50s,
Wrinkles, complaints and hassles of old age.

A lousy bunch of thoughts on my special day,
That’s me on my twenty seventh birthday!