Refuse to be Herd

Drudging through the mire of measureless night

I stumble and start and shiver to the soul,

Bracing for a fate that’s unchartered yet.

Writhing through the pain I wonder how long

My hands can hold our unawakened dream

And save from loss that unparalleled gleam.

And still do I hear the roar of that storm

That threatens to burst with fire and hail

And lay our crops to waste –

Smothered into molecules of unredeeming hate.

Still would I sing and bellow through the bone

The voice of a man with a mind of his own.

Soul Survivor

Batter and bruise and roar all you want
Bear your fangs and pierce through the bone
Do all that you can to pain and gain,
And rack my soul with fire and coal –

I will not bow, I will not roll.

But settled and safe in the fort of my soul
I’ll smash all your bolts and grab your gusts
Till all your fury is spent and must yield
At last to a soul that dares to be lone.

Youasis

Steaming down the noonday blaze
I merge with silent crowds on street
With sweat-lined faces, charred as coal,
Wading as through sea of sand.

Then like oasis Magic-born
Your face appears and pouring shade
Thrills me with that sweetest voice
As like dreamt of nightingale.

At once I chime with speechless song
And throb with bliss of breathless days.

Memoirs of My Missing Muses

I

Just a hurried glance or two,
As she waited in that shed
Searching for some bus or cab,
As I watched her through that rain –
Painted as by learned hand:
Gentle strokes of sparkling joy;
Fading at last in some crowd,
Jostling for that absent inch.

II

A puzzling pause is all we had
While we crossed the dim-lit lane
And briefly gazed as strangers would:
Sharing by some unknown tryst
Moments no one else can have –
A sharpened look that also said
How sadly tired she must be.
And then the fadeout into stairs
Which I know I shall not climb
But outside still, I linger will
For those sharpened hazel eyes
Who I know can mesmerise.

III

I caught her lovely fragrance once
And as I turned I only found
In that crowded market-place
A fairy clad in perfect white
Shining bright with gentle grace.
Its not often that you feel
In your soul that sense of peace
That she brought me there and then
In that crowded market-place
Ringing loud with voices hoarse.
And as she glided out of sight
In that searing midday haze
I just felt as though I had
Offered then my deepest prayers
Fragrant with my morning bath.

IV

You can call me what you will,
But only those who know can tell
The charm of bare and marble hands
Which by casting spells on you
Place you in some soothing trance,
Lifting burdened souls at once
Into a realm of languid ease
Kissed with springtime southern breeze.

So I watched her bound in spell
As she sat and took her notes
In that forlorn corner seat
Where my gaze was always fixed.


V

I met her in that twilight air
When those hues of dwindling day
Dance in western skies at once
As like nature’s Holi fair
And saw her weaving sunshine through
Flowing locks of silken hair
As they caught my heart and tossed
In some rill my fears of loss
And then flew me who knows how
In that land of melting hues
Where with lilting dulcet tunes
Love and life and laughter rules.

Still in days twilight blues
Yearning for those dulcet tunes
All those moments pass me by
As through music of my sighs
She keeps flashing by and by
Weaving sunshine through her hair
In that fateful twilight air.


I can go on longer still
Noting slightest glances all
Which like jingling festive bells
Made my heart then prance and leap
Throbbing with that unique thrill
Beauty’s bliss can make you feel.

So in days of barren gloom
They all flow and as in dream
Light up corners of my room
With that matchless loveliness
Which men keep on yearning for
As they knock on heaven’s door.

Haunted Hours

I tried my best to scrub her out
From all the lanes of vaulted heart;
But who knows how the faded days
Come back through the mists of time
And with flashes of my past
Drown and flood my lonely trail
In those lanes that call me still
Through the secret wisps of night,
And light up darkened halls of soul –
Montage of my fractured frames.

I pounce upon the remnants all
And flush and burn them as I can,
Though the ashes flowing through
All the streams of laden heart
Merge and mix and churn in soul –
A darkened blot that will not go
But gnawing through my foolish heart
Leave me always maddened by
Restless ghosts that will not sleep,
Jangling iron-chains in dream
That makes me daily sweat and scream.

If the dead old poets knew!

Churning and churning in layers of pain
I hear the songs of thousands slain
And jangling all my nerves with strain
Hungry vultures rush again;
Followed by that roaring flood
Smearing all this world in blood.
Hapless orphans cry in vain,
Tearing helpless hearts in twain.

Beware, beware it rises now!
With pent-up rage in both its brow,
And with restless pounding strides
Greater prey and mayhem eyes,
As it wanders through my land
Dried and patched with seedless sand.
What immortal force or mind
Will its ceaseless hatred blind?
And with softest blissful tune
Weeds of human heart will prune?

Tangled up in knots I lie
Finding neither how or why.

Mourning Raga

Put out the lights and softly pray;

For nothing that you may say,

Will neither make much sense

Nor the slightest difference.

As he that now stands apart

On that distant shore

Will no more walk with us,

Never, ever more.

Mourn him all who loved

And dwell on extinct bliss.

And those who did just hate

Must now hold their peace.

Let’s hope his kindred soul

If it does exist,

Finds the rest it could not get

And does in joy persist.

We can only do our best

To end what he did start

So that he would live through us

Both in life and art.

While Still Afloat

Floating on the weary waves
I drift along in hoary haze,
Searching for some verdant shores
Where I can my anchor drop
And in days of sunlit songs
Drown in mirth and chilled up brew
With some people smiling bright
Who know by heart the tricks of trade,
Of how to live with love and laugh.

Somewhere far a fin of shark,
I think he picked my trail of blood.

Hasty Sketches

Hasty sketches flicker past
Merge and crack and fade away.
I search and search for finite frames
But all do break and broken lie –
Mangled forms of ancient truths.

Round and round I dance about
Breathless, gasping, weary clod
That palely crawls and creeps beneath
As if to…
As if…

Then sudden comes the fitful push
That hurls beyond the gaping cliff
And all the dingy grime and sweat
Fruitless fragments all in all –
At last embrace with passionate sweep
The dread unasking brooding dark.

Report from Page 3

We scoop up all the knives and forks
And slicing up with wolfish ease
Place them as the grandest dish,
In this feast of gentle folk
Where with questions ‘how’ and ‘why’
We know how good or bad one is
And shoot with surest poison pitch
Names of all those still unhurt.
.
Today was quite a hefty meal;
A shameful case of one who had
Sold his heart for dollars’ sake.
We chopped and chew and ate with zest,
Leaving not one bone to rest.
I wash up hand and face and then
Wipe off all the trace of stain.

Yet the glass on wall does ooze
Blood and robbing all my peace
Conjures up some unseen feast
Where my bits of carcass lie.

Trembling every night in dream
I drink hard and vainly scream.

Mr. Biswas Comes Back Home

Moving straight in darkling lane
Faced with windows
Locked up all,
I search in vain
In regular pain
A kindly face to peep and look
And light up darkened roads with smile
So that I in vacant rooms
Leaving halls of guilty glass
Cook me up some fragrant dish
And dine with dreams of what could be.

I check the mail and take my bills
And drag me up the stairs which burst
Into shouts of “why so late”
And tell me what to buy from store
On my way back from the work.
Sagging into worn-out couch
I gulp it all with glass of juice
While the doors are slammed and shut.

Cringing cold in calmest bed
I fly and plunge in open sea.

A day of rarest mundane peace

Away from all the noise and fuss
Where no wounding question cuts
It floats along the gentle breeze,
Fragrant with that charming mood
When all things work as just they should –
A day of rarest mundane peace!

Which flows through heart in crystal streams
As like golden springtime dreams
That fill my heart with restful joy.

So in hope with words I try
To catch the day that’s passing by
So that I can when I may
Breathe again the peaceful day
Which in days of clouded sky
Will glow like gilded butterfly.

Musings of A Muted Cog

Endless whirl of turning wheels.
To and fro
To and fro.
I run my shift
And motor on
Knowing not where motion takes.

Moving as the muted cog
Roll on I in silent daze
And script anew a thousand tales
As ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘why not’s pour
And drown me down in pelting rain.

Clobbered with clauses
I yearn for a stop;
Finding instead
Reams of the same.

Flattened in pain still do I dream,
To fly and soar and breathe anew
Into the bliss of sunlit blue.

Sharp the whistle blows
And blinds me in smoke.

Endless whirl of turning wheels.

0r
(After “reams of the same”)
I marshal my words
And weave through my text
Dreams of a dawn
Unawakened yet.