Hail Mary

Through the umbrella the rain

Drips on my head and does not

Mind falling on a balding pate

That does not look like growing

Back again for all the herbal oil

Smeared lovingly on it every day

I secretly wanted to get wet like

This, not enough to catch a cold

Yet enough to remember it by ----

I have run out of drops meant

To prevent dryness of the eyes

Brought on by endless gazing at

The virtual reality images

That take the mind away

From all that is falling off ----

I loftily look at all those taking

Shelter before wayside shops

The Mary shrine is all lit up for

Her weeklong festival close on

The heels of the Mari temple fete ---

I pray to both when I stir out

And when I come back unscathed

Not without wondering when it will be 

When I have to leave and never come back.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Graveyard

Night falls asleep
When we walk
Through our past
Picking up the toys
We have discarded
Laughing at how
We could not sleep
Without them
How we did not sleep
Because of them
The stinging words
Don't sting anymore
The mocking faces
Now stand mocked
The risen have fallen
The fallen have risen
Still strut as if
They have never fallen
Dreams we had to bury
Rise from the grave
With a sad smile
Stand unhappily awhile
Before we wave them inside.

Waiting

The blank page
Waits for words
To fill its emptiness,
The bare blue sky
Will not mind
Even barren clouds,
The white wall
Wails for
A child's scrawl,
The lonely aadi wind
Knocks on doors, windows
Crying to be let in,
Dreams stand orphaned
In every street
Of the sleepless city.