Same Old Stuff

My confounded muse can hardly explain,
How each mere sight will unleash those lines
That swim from the depths of my soul.

Rhymes that were absent for weeks shuttle back
And swing into new shapes and cling to her curls
With music that chimes with her smile.

So I conspire with time and implore with wind
To extend her stay in my sight; as seconds
Move on minutes and minutes to new hours
That whiplash my soul into shapes that are wrought
By agonies of unfulfilled hope.

Knowing none of this, she smiles and then leaves
Trailing my heart in her heels.

Unspoken

I'd rather be the tinges of light on her lips
Than spend our hours thus far.

Even as nectar that drips along stem,
In days that are drunk full of spring,
So would I cling as striplings of light
And flicker on her curves with abandon and zeal
With ecstasy of surrealist thrill.

Or would I tangle in truant little locks
And swing by with grace her forehead and cheeks
Which beckon as if shores to a sailor now lost
With songs that'll gallop through your veins.

Or would I dangle as rubies in ears
That dazzle my eyes among hot summer waves
And glow as if lighthouse in dark brooding storm
With light that'll shine through my nights.

These be the fond little hopes of a heart
That seals itself tight with professional keys
And speaks nothing more than is must.
Bound by the fishnets of duties and don'ts,
The artisan of words now discards his ware
And engraves his lot to an adoration blessed,
Distant and silent at once.

Storm

She stormed through my days,
Full of parched breath of March
With torrential timbrels of soul.
Roofed by the fresh-ripened dark bosom clouds,
I bask in the brushstrokes of diluted gold
And tune up my flute to her laughter that rings
As blusters of gales through these reeds.

Shorn of my calculated playthings on stage,
I spread myself wide, as an arid brown land,
That longs for her fingers to rain on those beds,
Where green little poems shall embody and sprout
With symphony of forests evergreen.

Shaken and stirred as palms amid storms
I gather my leaves in an evening now stilled
And wait for the lightnings of smile that'll strike,
And sparkle my nights full of flames.

Martyrs (In memory of a student killed in police custody)

Plucked,

From the start-studded branch full in bloom,

It falls among ensanguined waves that have borne

Too many of fresh-fallen gems.

Packed now with fragments of petals amid rush
My streets, they have moulded a lost autumn-look,
With nooks full of red fallen leaves.

These will no longer just sodden lie;
But flown atop waves full of much-needed rage
Will harden as crystallized shells that'll blow
And crash their towers of ivory and glass
With roars that'll singe sullen shores.

Even as throned powers revel now or gloat,
Petals and leaves do murmur in gloom
And plot their eventual doom.

Devotion

She seemed as if drawn by Raphaelite hands
With brows full of Egyptian grace.
And I the fond fool that has tripped in her wake
With stale little lines for her sake.

But how else to now face the surge in my veins
If not in verse I express?

Had I been a painter, I sure would've snapped
And etched a whole series to her self.
Or with an adoration fate too had shown,
Would fondle and mould, with clay her new form,
As if a new deity was born.

Stunned by the quicksilver glint in her eyes,
I lengthen my dream amid short little sighs
And hope she'll enjoy these antics perchance---
She who is worship and worshipped at once.

False Notes

I've longed for a morning of quiet such as this
When ears that are rattled by jangling of trains
Are calmed by the warbles of birds.

And now as I bask in the sunlight on steps,
With eyes full of trees blooming bright,
From corners of gaze leak shadows I've known
And act out in rooms, the scenes I've played
With costumes I knew not I had.

And even as I marshal my tools rather fast,
To build up my fence or cote, flat or fold
They leap over walls as masterless horse
And stride towards unforeseen fields.

Left without harness or halters that fit,
I'm stunned by the prospect of plays that'll come
And burn all my scripts up in flames.

The morning now shrieks with discordant hoots
As a blind owl gropes for its nest.

Meteors of Joy

She had looked rather neat, in bright tee and jeans
While waving and smiling goodbye.

And I just couldn't guess, the rapids that had hid
And gushed in her locks and bounced over unyielding rocks.
Nor could I measure the clouds she had probed
While she had flown from her cliffs.

Floored by the dimples that played on her cheeks,
I lost track of tempests her eyes had unleashed
When she had thundered her wheels along tracks
That bent to her unbending will.

But I who can master all forces in verse,
Have neither such gumption nor zeal,
As beautifying odes are shorter than heels
And wit always cheaper than gold.

Hence I'll write her in verse full of care
And list her with those other muses now gone
That twinkle in corners of mind full of clouds
And shoot supple meteors of joy.