Saturday, September 13, 2025

Fresh from the past

On a cloudy day the dysania

Is a given though the seatherny
Seems to suggest some days
Can be forgiven for their slowness
The distance of the native city
Vanishes and the feet stand by
The lake as the sun slowly rises
Making the heart feel happily warm
The childhood friend soon joins me
With his fishing tackle to spend hours
Catching sunlight and singing songs
That probably kept the wary fish away
Stern faces pop up now and then with
Gratuitous advice not to while away time
We laugh at them and time laughs with us
The feet return juvenescent and I am ready to
Enter the world with eyes fresh from the past.



Monday, September 8, 2025

Shading long-distance

The moon is being eaten by the earth
Or so it seems when its shadow
Takes away all the satellite's glow
In another city we returned home
Through almost deserted streets
From a movie during an eclipse
Had a meal against the neighbour's
Dire warnings and something else
Without any significant consequences
Tonight the slow-moving clouds cannot
Keep away and keep hiding the show
What shade is this, blood red or copper?
The flatness turns to spherical as my son
Keeps coming back to the balcony 
To capture on camera this cosmic line-up
The mythology of a monster ingesting
The full orb makes the spectacle more
Dramatic than it is but no less wondrous
Even when it is no more out of reach it is
As if we have now all made a landing there.


Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Tears are too human

The world keeps disappearing 

From me in little baby steps 
The child has grown up into
New times that I cannot enter
His room is full of music more
In step with the feet than the heart
The traffic races from stop to stop
In a pace faster than I would like
Destinations arrive too soon saving
Time I do not know what to do with
The distance grows and speeds increase
The slow feet cannot but be left behind
The garbage bins pile up with the useless
Machines are feted till they are outdated
Tears are frowned upon as too human
Night embraces all whose suns have set.

Sunday, August 31, 2025

A rainy day

I wake up to a rainy day

After a rainy night I left
Behind to chase absurd dreams
The clouds promise another
Idle day without feeling guilty
About putting off some chores
I watch the little one next door
Going down the stairs in raincoat
There her school bus is sounding
An impatient rush hour horn that
Can be heard all over at this hour
There are no more Monday mornings
For me to hurriedly wake up to meet
The rain falls a while and takes a break
Time has given a licence now to be slow
After all those years of rushing about -----
There's still time for the feet to cry halt.




Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Liminal

The evening light is blue and black

Between day and night lingers the dusk
In a liminal place of a thousand sighs
What has been lost is more than a day
A love is buried again and mourned again
What can't be tugs once more at the heart 
A desire comes begging and is sent away
Amid all the noise of the traffic a sense of 
Death and silence hangs in the dusty air
The signal is red and comes with a hearteen
This is a time of timeless longing and ache
But we can't stop for long and lament
While waiting for the light to turn green
This pang of grief must be primordial
What the caveman felt when the sun set ---
The city picks up and flees into the night.




Friday, August 15, 2025

Morning

The house is not awake yet

And the day is yet to stir
Between night and day 
This hour is best when
The world seems mine
The birds must think it's theirs
The way they clamour and cry
The milk is still on its way though
The smell of coffee is already here
This could be the time when the universe
Shares its secrets and answers all prayers
This could be the time when all dreams
Leave the minds and look to take shape
This could be when the mist disappears
And the deity stirs and rises like the star
Or this could be when peace comes unasked.


Saturday, July 26, 2025

The tree is like the sea

In windy July the tree

Is in unending movement
Like the sea that cannot
Stop its dance or chant
In my line of sight a crow
Is busy building a nest with
What it can find on the street
It often catches its breath 
While carrying a broomstick
Or dry twig, on my roomy ledge
The heaving branches make the 
Little airy home in the making, bob
Seeing all this frenetic realty trend
Another bird is buoyant, serenades
Its speckled mate, through the day and
Night, when its cry cannot go unheard.