Evenings with coffee

I would say, you were a stranger, who somehow knocked against me accidentally somewhere along the road on a rainy day. After the initial shock had worn out, we looked at each other with wonder.

You sat beside me for a friendly chat sipping hot coffee in an evening air that smelt of freshly brewed coffee and newly baked bread.

You and me spoke of things that were trivial, irrelevant to every one else in our lives. That evening was followed by many, which smelt of coffee and bread. The smells became familiar but not repellent.

Strangely the word “coffee” brings your face to the mind. After so long, when I sit with a cup of coffee and a book watching the rains, I don’t know what I look at or look for outside the window.

This rain somehow brings up memories I cannot erase. The so-called days together were not very remarkable but stay afloat just like the smell of freshly brewed coffee and newly baked bread. So much that I don’t know whether I am sad or plain hungry!

Stepford

There were forgotten words and broken promises;

Hues matched, songs played and dreams shared

From a springtime of love in another sacred space

That comes back in full riot in your shining eyes.

A world that was lost for not being a Stepford,

With long hair, obedience or even a loyal heart,

A world that was built upon years of dreams

That this elemental water had lost in time.

In the meantime, our definitions have changed;

From two strangers lost in a strange dream;

Obeying rules and breaking no boundaries,

Going from day to day without any joys.

With you, I am a sun that needs to rise and shine,

That meets your mischief with a matching hue.

Independent

You call yourself a strong woman while you are as human as we all are: strengths, weaknesses, mischief and complete dependence on your significant other. But day by day, you feed on our frailties and paint yourself strong and independent.

In your eyes, I see myself as being labelled messy, irresponsible and different yet I know that it’s the same longing to escape this maze of life that’s in your heart as well as in mine. But at times, I laugh when I see that you are too scared to walk alone in the dark; while I have lost even my longing to lean against a loving shoulder. 

Gratitude

A tear

The light of your laughter,

The wonder in your eyes,
The pride of your work,

What all have you lost,

What all did the brutes
Wrest away from you!

 We will give you the tears,

We will remember your life,
We will keep you from slander,

But then what else can we give

Who have no power to return
What you lost- a promising life.

Togetherness

You are my want, my need, my desire, my everything,
My one addiction that I never want to give up ever,
May be time- the years, the months and the days-
Might bring about a change in this feeling for you.

But I want you to know that after all these years,
I want yours to be the shoulder where I return to
With the broken scattered pieces to be held close,
And put together with a few words of consolation.

I want yours to be the eyes that hold my bold gaze,
To give in without holding anything back from me;
I want yours to be lips that greet me in surprise
To give ecstasy when most desired without saying so.

While you and I enjoy our days of mutual togetherness,
I want your love to be the kind that stays around forever.

Purple Riot

This blog is temporarily withdrawn. You can however buy this e-book purple riot from amazon. 'One customer has reviewed the book:

"I liked this collection while reading it but I am not going back to it again.
The poetry lines are subtle, well-balanced and simple. The main themes are on love, women and life in general."

I wonder why the reader felt that I like women..:-)

the moon

definitions

Teaching

Once upon a time, for a short while,

Teaching meant trying to scream above

The aeroplanes taking off nearby

 And the trains that screeched past,

While in this noise girls chatted

On the much prohibited mobile phones;

It also meant counting own mistakes

And losing your voice by Wednesday.

Now it means being silent when it rains

More because it is impossible to talk,

And may be it disturbs the lovelorn dreams

That flit across so many dreamy eyes.

The rain takes them away somewhere

An my voice drags them here back again. 

Scholar

Two contradictory currents pull
This strange intellect
That loves to string words together
Or pull apart them in analysis.

The one that loves to string words
In wild garlands of ecstasy,
Is silent and rarely present,
While the other mocks daily.

The one that pulls apart words,
To gather meanings and rules,
To make wild guesses at context,
Never comes when needed.

One voice of wild creativity
That has no rules at all;
One voice of scholarship
That finds boundaries hard.

So this life remains still,
With a journal serious trivial
That rarely ever records
The failures of the scholar.

Peace

Healing

Magnificence

beauty

the unsaid

Strange love

How much time has passed since our last day of togetherness? Days of forgetfulness with complete involvement in work, when living in the moment was the motto; with nights of regret and resolution to gain you back and to take that first step towards you. But the walls of uncertainty and hostility were so many that even the sacred spaces were trampled upon. Fiends wore the faces of friends and intruded in your sacred spaces.

You eclipsed all thoughts of life or work. You reigned supreme in every conversation with friends. You were the only one that the heart longed for- one smile, one touch and that understanding made in silence. For that miracle to happen, how long have I waited! How many prayers my heart heaved before God, who have become a stranger the day I lost you. How on your birthdays, I have gathered all my wishes together and written word after another in my notebook.

Still with all the longings of love, I have seen how unreal these immature thoughts may be when I understand that you are nothing but a stranger to me now. A stranger whom I may not even recognise if I pass you in the street.

Forever Emerald: Wedding Thoughts

When she met her love on their wedding day,
She took his hand and said a prayer for them,
To be happy with all the good things in life,
To be blessed with the gift of many children.

Her heart whispered as she held his bold gaze,
You are my want, my need, my desire, my world,
The only one I will cherish till the end of this life,
The only one whose hand I will hold till I die.

I want yours to be the shoulder where I return,
With all the broken scattered pieces to be held
Yours the eyes that hold the gaze that meet me
Yours the lips that in gentle surprise greet me.

Her heart wanted him to hold nothing back, 
To stay till the end of their lives as soulmates.

Forever Emerald: Our Wedding Day

When she stepped out of her home that special day
She thought of her first baby steps in this courtyard,
Her flight across the place for many chores daily
Her mother's description of her constant persistence.

This is the ancestral home that I will leave behind,
To be with the man I love, adore and cherish forever
May be in the coming years, it will welcome them,
My children borne out of this sacred wedlock.

 Before I leave I want to take in the familiar scents,
The incense from the prayer room that fills the air,
The sweet scent of white champak that enchants,
The joy of mother's delicacies that brings you home.

This home is where my heart took a butterfly flight
Just when it got permission to marry the one I love.

Mine and yours

I had never thought that I would lose you to another. From the moment, your eyes gazed into mine for the first time, I knew that you will remain mine always. It was if a world had moved when you sought my eyes every time you wanted that first magical soul-gazing.

When I hear that you are no longer mine to own or possess and that you have given yourself to a single owner by tying the knot, I feel myself wince and once I recover from the news, I smile. A strange vision of you holding her tight in your embrace, of her being the receptacle of your fluids and your daily chatter, of your having children with her, flash before my eyes.

Why should I cry? I ask my foolish heart that set its eyes on you and decided to make you mine without asking your permission. May be it behaves worse than a teenager spending sleepless nights over its infatuation. But I, who could not even think of you looking in another's eyes with the same mingle of affection, desire and curiosity hear your beloved claim her intimacy with you, before me who has never possessed even a word of affection from you.

You are no longer mine to own, I recognise and I have to train my stupid heart not to think of you as the home to rest in at night, the solace during all troubles and the pleasant subject of horny fantasies. For you have a wife to embrace and is no longer a wandering soul-gazer.