Other Shores

I know there are circles my friends
where you cringe to be joined to my name.
A misfit for so long, so well
I wasn't saddened or stunned
to know of your intents concealed.

Yours be the dances and drinks.
Yours be the groupfies of joy.
Chosen, I only could make
a grey little corner all blurred.

Unwell in brightest of lights,
I'll flicker as I do
in a dim little niche
and offer you a chat without guilt,
provided you call me at least.

Zen-like I walk along quays
and gaze at the untiring waves,
which yet sing of stillness of change.

What service in bringing too close,
currents that are meant to diverge?

So I float to the rhythms of heart
and leaving apart old sullen ways
search for new kindred points
glimmering on yet unknown shores.

Confessiones Ignorat

When the canopy of illusion is lost

The torrents of truth batter hard.

Ringed by the circles of distrust and scorn

And titanium shackles of hypocratic oaths

I am lost in the dungeons of solitude enforced

With too little light in my view.

I know I have built up these walls

But hoped there are souls that’d feel

A thrill for all they concealed.

All that remains are fragments of a soul

That no longer hopes to be heard -

Only the whispers in corridors of self

That roam through the chambers of skull.

To a lost friend:

I know I’d breached your trust

With deeds that cannot be undone.

If only you dared to forgive...

O what wonders we would gain!

To a classmate:

If only you knew the power of a call

And reciprocal gestures of faith!

In all of your trials I stood;

But lost when you found your bliss.

To a mistake:

I pity that the best of my past

Is tainted with your brittle words,

And antics of operatic stunts

That still keep on scratching my walls

With signs of desiccated pleas.

Memories in dialogic mode

Mingle and mash up in medleys of loss

And open up a canvas of inadequate lines

That yield only angles of shame.

But here are no great blessed eyes

That’ll scan my being to the core

Or with visions of multifoliate rose

Will uplift from dust my constricted soul

To rivers of sanctifying waves.

Here on the shores of waves warring rocks

I search for a flute that’ll calm all its rage

And gasp amidst currents untracked.

To another lost friend:

You were right when you said

I have too much that is locked

And too much with no access left.

But why didn’t you dare to batter them down

When you found all the hammers that I hid?

I know I am not sunshine on plains

Or a plain little frankincense dawn:

But aren’t there those who’ll warm to a chase

And pick up the gauntlet I left?

To an admirer:

My moralistic self is too much of a bore

And can be all brutish at times.

But still do I feel

The pulse of your dance

And marvel at the honesty I missed.

Bogged within rooms full of too many in masks

I’ve cowered behind armours of pose.

 An extended hand is taken to be cut,

A soft spoken word as sign of distress,

Modesty in speech as arrogance imbued

Lost within books as narcissism rife:

Such are the ways of life in this world

Which only knows opposites of good.

Yet on the overcast mornings of spring

With birds all aflutter in trees,

I gaze to the horizon of light dappled clouds

And feel in my breath a moistness of breeze

That blows from the seas to my shores.

And all of my cloaks of loneliness and loss

Lift up and leave with lightness of dust

And awaken the prayers I was taught:

“Let me be free within expanse of light

All beneath canopies of sky

Let me be free within branches of leaves

And atoms of dust and grass

Let me be free from vanity and lust

And all else that gnaws at our heart.

Let me be free from the nets of this world

And search for the peace among stars.”

Dastaan-e-Kashmir

A TRILOGY YOU WOULD LIKE....

Poems in Prachya Review

Footnote

Her lithe lissome figure
had flashed as a whip
and stirred all my senses ablaze.

But one little turn and gone -
as a footnote in eye's varied page.

Stranded,
I pondered on a fact
that few of our sages have taught:
depending on angles of sight
a footnote is greater than a tome.

Paris

The city of love has fear in its air
and winter has bled dire red.
The cafes along banks now murmur in grief
as laughter with hatred is sheared.
Poised on the edges of unforeseen dread
Seine too has halted its waves.

But no more the silence of lambs to the blade!

Let petals of love now sharpen as steel
and blaze into fires that save
and multitude of free thinkers march
to the ruin of barbarian hordes.

Silences

As I unlock the door, they peep
from the corners and wait.
Then tiptoe as shadows
and knowing that pills nor potions would help,
curl up in bed
with coffee that is salted with tears.

But I have no laws to expel
cohorts of silence that roam
all through my empty little rooms.

Holidays

Life's all aflutter outside:
busy little feet are rushing along streets
as wheels keep on moving
and engines still bustle,
all towards throbbings of life.

Coffee in hand,
I spectate and chuckle to myself -
the holidays, the holidays are here!