Imagination

Let the charm of imagination fill your mind

Churn and swirl fantasies of every kind:

White crows, lion-faced men, dancing daisies

Walking jackfruits and good old gypsies

Every fancy and every dream

Build in the air castles of cream.

For the greatest gift of nature to man

Is the mind tripping bouncing along.

Are They Human?

Are they human?

Those that snuffed tender life,

Turned smiles of innocence

To contortions of pain and terror

Relentlessly assaulting her petite body?

Are they human?

Those drenched with venomous lust

With warped and twisted beliefs

Hate dripping hearts of steel

Apathy soaked soulless souls?

Are they human?

Those who pick on a child

To settle scores with adults

Sanctifying their vile acts

In the premises of the gods?

Are they human?

Those subhuman creatures

Packs of marauding predators

Cowards, picking easy helpless prey

Deprived and depraved of humanity?

An Evening Stroll

Against the pale-washed evening sky

I amble down the narrow lonely way

dawdling, breathing in pure delight

mesmerised

verdant green grown wild on either side,

dragon flies darting to and fro

as though in control of the skies,

birds chirping different fluty tunes

calling their mates to roost and rest,

a robin couple engrossed in making love.

Ahead the looming mountains beckon me

inviting me to probe their mysteries:

their countless twists and turns

vales, cliffs, boulders and plants.

A lone tree standing out right on top

teases me to give it company.

I feel an instant urge to hug the mountains,

they in turn seem to lunge forward

in an inclusive embrace

I feel an expansion within me

A thrilling tingling sensation

Runs as estuaries filling

Every cell, pore and vein.

A Tender Tryst

It cocked its head an impossible angle

and cooed in response to my questions

with its petite glistening winking eyes.

What may I ask are you doing

in the hot baking morning sun?

Have you fallen from your nest

between the AC and the wall?

Are you sick or are you injured?

Or are you exploring the morn?

I wish I could decode your cooing.

The hoot from my colleague’s car

 jarred the mellow chitchat.

Unwillingly I left her, unattended,

Harkening to the call of my job.

Returning late in the afternoon

I searched in haste for my little pigeon

only to find its wafer-thin body,

its life sapped by the sizzling sun.

Brewing Sounds

The ooze wells and swells

the womby head, gleams
with revolving images
swirls into narrow scripts 
suspended in eternal motion 
refusing to drip and splash 
running ants on white. 

A drop breaks loose
splatters shapes and sense.

Downpour

Streaking raindrops batter my bare body

With utter urgency, soaking every inch of me

Silently I stand in some kind of trance

My being dissolving in the cosmic dance.

Mystic Land

India, the ancient mystic mother of the east

has birthed and sustained myriad mysteries:

Every possible human thought stream

sages who deciphered the nature of reality –

Charvaka, Advaita, Buddha and sutras,

Ayurveda, Siddha and Kama sutra,

sensuality and spirituality side by side,

imagination stretching puranas that delight,

a hundred different flapping tongues ,

frolicking intricate ragas and graceful blending mudras

gut-rocking folk music and dances,

grains galore, spices special and strange fruits,

exquisite cuisines and a melange of cultural traditions,

rain forests, shrill shrubs, towering pines and fertile land

snow mountains, curling rivers, vast plains and arid land,

assimilating cultures and beliefs of other lands

influencing every other cultures’ thought-strands.

Diversity and plurality – the essence of our motherland

celebrate and preserve we must with genuine patriotism,  

unshackle we must parochial thoughts and nationalism

fetters of inequality, injustice and superstitions.

An Invocation to Darkness

Hello Darkness, my ancient friend

spread your coal coat end to end

permeate every corner, nook and cranny

destroy every sparkle of light and faculty

annihilate every form and every shape

erase every boundary and every scape

Let your torch of darkness burn and churn

Black in all its varied formless turns.

Only then will

fair cream company businesses lapse

wayward degenerate critical faculties innate

to differentiate and discriminate collapse

every comparison of good-bad, failure-success fade

maiming in the name of race, colour and caste halt

claiming some land as our bounty stop

quoting dead scriptures and tradition

with moribund swollen pride cease

debilitate imposing militant morals with zeal

or imploring god’s name with conceited glee

in whose names wars have been fought

pogroms propagated, heads hacked or lives lynched.

Hence Darkness, my constant old friend

shine black bright with all your might

So we can

lose our discriminative chatter

drop all our pretensions and truly be

so we can truly stand stark naked

so every sound is a newly born’s first cry

every touch is as fresh as dew drops

every smell intoxicating every nerve and cell

every presence a seamless extension.

so we can be

alive

throbbing.

So fuck off filthy light

stop those demented deeds done

in your name to sully its

and let Darkness reign supreme.