Smile

A childhood smile
Mirrored in two faces
In a new season of love

Apology

Who am I to give you dreams and then spread snow all over them? No one would do that if they are in their right senses. But sometimes, when nothing remains sacred anymore, there is a sense that comes with breaking rules and running away from multitudes.

Now, the words themselves have lost meaning I guess from the time I last uttered them; totally meaningless chatter full of nervous laughter that doesn’t make much sense. May be the Gods are cruel because I am cruel to you; or may be they are not.

Only time is judge as to the torture that I inflict on you by giving dreams one day and spreading it with snow the next day. Words don’t mean much do they, but let me say that I am sorry for all this mess that I make everyday! 

Closure

On this visit to my hometown, I was reminded of my last visits as I walked across the River Green. The river looked like a huge sheet of dirty green water while in my memory it was always a shiny green.

The last visits were on deaths; I never cried enough though I was carrying a cross and stood brave among the wailing women. But this time, though on a happy occasion, I felt the tears as they tumbled past on my return journey.

What all things I cried for I have no clue, the wasted years in search of a mirage, the lost opportunities, the life of strife and constant unpleasantness. But it gave me clue to a puzzle: that you might become for me a mirage that I will follow to destruction. 

Beauty

It’s a craterly moon

That gets up at night

Puts on some light BB

And steps out for you.

No luminous skin

Just some BB cream

That lasts through

The entire day

With kissable lips

From Maybelline

With dark eyes

From the same

It was a fool heart

That knew no joys

That put on all this

To walk around happy

There was no bloodsign

Of joy and desire

Only a broken heart

But only sore words.

But time healed words

And the moon steps

Bright and clear

For all eyes to see.

It’s just layers of paint

Painstakingly done

From BB, CC and DD

Not what you think

You are late my dear

As always to reach

For a craterly moon

Belongs to the sonne.

Prayer

Can’t still this crying heart

That cries along with an innocent,

One wronged, accidentally,

One who wears his heart on the sleeve.

This heart cries everyday, every moment

For I have sinned against an innocent,

One who hasn’t learnt the ways of the world

One who wears his heart on his sleeve.

For seven long years I have not prayed

Nor moved these lips to silent reverence,

Whatever religion was only for comfort,

Not since I lost love on the way.

A right signal read at the wrong time,

My dear, it was only an accident,

But one that showed a clear heart

Untainted by this world of false love.

Can’t bear to see your broken soul,

Your sad face and lost happiness,

That tortures me day and night, so

I take up my beads to pray once again.

Secret Passions

When I first saw you I thought you looked familiar but I couldn’t place my finger on it. But in time, I remembered that it had something to do with the songs in another time and space, though lost and gone. Your mannerisms could bring back a secret passion for a quiet matter-of-fact friend. Without my knowledge, summer turned to spring and heard a new music from your heart, one that couldn’t understand nor could listen to without being led away from my real world. So turn back, clench my fists and try hard not to let the enemy of temptation enter my fortress. But the world around has not been blind either for there are no secret passions anymore but only hearts that crumble with every smile, real or fake. 

Appendage to Bacon's great aphorism from "Of Studies"

Reading maketh a full man; Conference a ready man; Writing an exact man and Raymonds a complete man

Mentor

When I looked at the Christmas lights that year

It’s your special message that I remembered,

Then I thought of choosing a right gift for you

And couldn’t find anything good enough,

Then on advice from someone I thought wise

I gave you a diary with so many paintings…

Don’t know how you felt about it; free gift

It was but my friend admonished me so much

But I guess it had nothing to do with my gift

That you who were so dear went so far away

So far that you are more like a mirage than real

More like the taste of dreams from childhood.

I called you my mentor when you were around

Now eons later I still wonder if you liked my gift. 

Night Fears

A dark curtain of a night fell from across the river green

With huge trees that looked like demons to a five year old.

Then almost twenty years later they came back as crossroads

And having to face the worst possible mistake in life.

The nights that followed were all full of fears of future,

Till you came with your music and took them all away;

But now that you are also gone, the fears are back

The intense loneliness and the few words once again.

You with your music could sweep all those fears away,

You with your love could erase the fears from the years

Yet you have made the night bleaker and darker,

Wringing away the life that throbbed in these bone cavities.

The nights of unknown fears of future were much better

Than these nights of fearful knowledge of separation. 

Dying Young

It was always there in me, this thought of dying young.

The tales of talented youth dying much before

They found no use for  their eager dreams,

Kindled a desire of blazing out like a forest fire.

The ones who had done so were many to count:

Long before they reached the age of thirty-three,

Jesus, Shelley, Keats and my own writerly father

Who left so many manuscripts and diaries.

Now, in my thirties, I wonder what made them tick,

What went in their bodies or minds to make them sick

And no longer afraid of lightning or busy roads,

Fresh cylinders or changing a light bulb all myself.

Sometimes I think I might die of laughter or heart-attack

From reading twisted truths on my students’ answer sheets.

Future

The life of hopes and ambitions is not the life you live,

From the cradle the baby is taught to dream and hope

But when the dark and light of youth decide to fight,

It is often darkness which wins and leaves one lost.

For the ones who have won and moved ahead of others,

Who do not share the burden of your past sorrows,

Who measure you by their own measures of success,

Your dreams are a reason to poke fun and laugh at you.

While you plod against life gathering the missing pieces,

Often having to start again after losing so many times,

The victory that would have tasted sweet in dreams,

Being like a mirage that eludes only you every time.

Yet some day the dark would give way to the dawn,

And if God wills, it will be an everlasting sunshine.