Pygmalion to Galatea

Honestly my dear, try as I may,
I can't forgo this pubescent fixation on skin.
Platform or mall or tram bus or train
The eyes cannot rest
From the curvacious contours of
Full ripened limbs
That struggle with clothes
For an inch full of light
As I fixate on ecstasy of sense.

I'm not a monk in his cloisters, you know,
But a man with his senses all sane.
And hence they are spread over valleys and hills
Or occasional cliffs that call to my soul
Tempests of animals unleashed.

Choked with dull-dour dosage of grime
These little showers of fantasy I need
To stagger through my miles unshorn.

Call me a voyeur or pervert if you will,
I care not a fig for labels as these.
Shapes and forms are all them my ware
That I breathe into stones rough or smooth.
Hence shall I gaze with bold brazen eyes
And drink in all nectars of honeysuckle days
That ooze from the creases of dresses or skin
And moisten my chapped arid ways.

A fool for the flesh? Well, let it be.
If God in his wisdom has made thus frail
Angels on earth shall I see.

Sleepless in Saltlake

Yet another day now comes to a close.

Shutting at last my ledgers of pain,
I browse through the pages of hours of days
And cower beneath well-trodden caches of blank
That have clogged my disks with items unused
In drives full of untraceable malwares in heaps.

Trapped into unchanging patterns of same
I dread rather more the end that'll start,
These patterns at once from scratch.

Torn between fears of a withered old dawn
And sleep full of illusion of rest
I writhe among sheets with eyes open shut
And count my minutes full of sweat.

Fool's Pledge

I've burnt my bridges and no longer care
For feathers, that others
Deem, are not my own.

Jesting my way
With hammed brittle scripts
I'm fed up with the texture
Of motley and cap
And have broken my arrows of wit.

I'll no more now wait
With sermons or lore
For lovers or old men
In a world that is crazy as bats.

Damned be this farce,
And a plague on you all!

The fool's now a knave and gladly would go
In times that are tossed to and fro.

Muddled Mimes

I scribble through my contacts
And dribble for a call
As hours and minutes keep oozing along walls
With trails that are as straight as tracks.

Chugging with fumes as in outmoded cars
I rattle and scuttle
With cough, phlegm and spittle
And drown in the puddles
Of plasticised prattle
Where bathe our voracious
Much-lauded cattle
With briefcase and bags great or little.

Here among droning of newsreading bees
I turn to my headphones and quietly now block
Their humming with stereophonic locks.

Battered with cycles of clocks without chimes
I pay my bills late and muddle through my mimes.

[This one's dedicated to Jack...read his poems and you'll see to what extent the poem draws formal inspiration from his practice]

So Long as I Breathe...

Your eyes were a garden of spices my dear,
Your smiles full of unwavering dare;
And those your locks that'll rustle and ensnare
Have left their indellible foot prints on mind
So long as I breathe and care.

The way your fingers bid farewell that night,
The way your shadows had fled from my sight
Which vainly had hoped for one backward glance
Have left their unpardoned scars in my heart
So long as I breathe and bear.

Your dances in the rain or raging in vain
Your naughty little tricks
That rippled through my veins
With prayers will I enshrine my dear
So long as I breathe and care.

Your unfulfilled vows that torment my skull
With insatiate flames and ashes along valves,
And your unsparing wishes have unfurled
Serpents of hate that'll writhe through my heart
So long as I breathe and bear.

Jostling with spectres of bipolar mind
I leave my state to words that I rear
And refuge in shrines of ties that bind.

[The poem is inspired by the beautiful Hindi poem written by Aditya Chopra for Jab Tak Hai Jaan which has been translated into English by the one and only Shah Rukh Khan. My take is a tribute to the beauty of the Hindi original. See SRK's own translation here:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QO_ngT7TRSw/UFvw8tj0-iI/AAAAAAAAH_M/ipxausMaJms/s600/A3Sk6QPCcAAyDgV.jpg ]

Come September: A Prophecy

My house full of reeds on pastures of sand
Is shaken to its strings by the punches of winds
That'll leave no stones unturned.

Even as I rage against tremors on land
Or curse our skies with bootless old cries
The tiles on my roof will shiver and slip
Seeing as the clouds have gathered their hails
That'll shatter our statues of brass.

There in the canopy of soot-smeared roars,
Are waiting in wings all lightnings in store
That'll start rather soon their fire-breathing dance
And leave all my tenements in charcoals and ash.

Singing in vain my lyrics full of hope
That had weaved their notes with particoloured strands
I walk to the waves now seething in hate
And brace for a crash that is come.

Chronicles of Drudge

No, no I've supped full with horrors tonight;
Ghosts are all welcome to haunt.
Here in the backways of time's blind lanes
We tiptoe in fear among mudways of month
With feet that are unsure of zipcodes of self
In puppetry of shadows at night.

Wafting in breeze amidst crops that are dead
We dance our twists for vultures on air
That patiently will bide the shedding of our skin
As I moult between hours of midnight and dawn
Even as the circus is ground to a halt.

Believe I've tried all isms I'd found
That merely have burnt my saucers in store
And ashened my days full of gravels and grime
Which have built their causeways in heart.

Hence I'm fine with cartels of ghosts
And raise my toast to a montage of graves
With epitaphs of multicoloured pain.

Ground into powders in chronicles of drudge,
How else do I share my blessed bread and wine?

Nailed into shifts with fixity of time
I vanish into anonymous crowds in a rush
That gyrate in ferris-wheel of carnival of rust.