Answerless Acts

Let there be no music the next time we meet.

I wouldn't want other notes to distract
The melodies of smile that light up my soul
In these our quarries of programmes and codes
Where horns and motors now reign.

Perhaps we should find a new ruin for a meet
And meditate on soft-blooming colours of clouds
That paint our skies with 'what could have been'
As both of us dig for relics to be culled
To fence our memories all tight.

We only have episodes of one-day-long tours
That linger with same set of questions unasked
And count through the pulses of answerless acts
That end up with stuttering farewells.

My fingers are tangled in time's clotted knots
Where stardust is turned into pebble-mired sand.

Warmed by the sunlight you wove through your hair,
I have longed for the music of seas.

But even as I rush towards waves rather late,
I'm left with the surfeit of bubbles instead.

Strictly for Men (well...not all)

With pears and peaches and melons thus stacked
With fair, cream and brown and such varied shades
How should I not be distracted and feel
As bees in an orchard in spring?

Unseen in crowds, my veins humming still
I steal a few glances and measure through my gaze
Shapes that'll birth my Madonna on tracks
In these our office-leaving times.

Count me not pervy and trust the dear chef
Who loves the new teasers with lipsmacking grace.

Unmet Seasons

Perhaps our loves have their settled times,
When seasons of hope and destiny can meet.

We only had walks and talks among trains
That whistled through the pages of academic lore
And tangled with newfangled theories and more
In nights that had bustled with Eliot and Poe
Or poured over Rushdie and Ghosh.

At most we had shared some moonlit new songs
Or wondered at statues of immaculate grace
Just before crossing the road, clutching hands,
For a dinner of biriyani unmatched.

Gallantly we moved and breathed to the leaves
Chapters now lost of unspoken words
In lanes that are dotted with history's footnotes
With songs from our memory's springwell.

No one now croons along these quiet lanes
With melodies of Mirza in lips.

Shorn of all tendrils or blossoms I bide
And wait for the tide of memories withheld
That spring to my nights with joy now and then
And promise me a surge to time's missing shores.

Battling with waves I steer my ship straight
Till seasons of hope and destiny can meet.

From the Kingdom of Bhutan

Time rather crawls among these quiet hills.

Perhaps when he strolled along harvested fields
He was struck by the majesty of green rising peaks
That mock our flux with most ancient calm
And lost track of ways he had mapped.

Or perhaps gazing on snow-mountain caps
That hung atop valleys as wizened old sages
He had puzzled himself with their foreign lore
And therein was caught again late.

It even could have been the full blooming rose,
Or many other petals of captivating colours
That brighten these greens with fragrance and charm
And halt a man sharp in his tracks.

Even at night, when in cold-chilling dark
The wonders of day are quietly asleep,
The twinkles of lights from faraway folds
Meshed with the fabric of star-sprinkled sky
Arrest our gaze as magnets on top
And stall our progress too long.

Or may be just brushed by the buffets of wind
He stood with his curls or tall-tousled hair
And breathed in the whispers of God.

Time rather crawls among these quiet hills,
Here in the land of Buddha and his peace.