Shrouds

Those little girls did not go home

That day from school and learnt a truth

They could not tell anyone they knew

Think of the mothers who cannot fill

The screaming absences left behind

Heard above the wail of air-raid sirens

At night they wake from fitful sleep

Thinking they heard those little steps

Patter again like rain around the house

The full moon often wears her round face

That when it wanes there is a dying again --

Tyrants who weep that girls are in chador

Hardly wince when sending them shrouds.

Vow of silence

The seer wrote:

I am on a vow of silence

For fear of telling the truth

To a world not ready for it

To tell the truth and see it distorted

Like Chinese whispers till the words

Lose all meaning and sound

Commonplace

Or ridiculed for being a charlatan

Claiming to see behind the veil 

When the seen is all that is to be seen

And death is not a beginning but an end

Or worse to be turned into god and worshipped, the message all forgotten.

Trees

The mind said 

Keep your day out

So that you may sleep

And keep day and night out

While all the memories churn

Like the sleepless sea 

And come up with dreams 

That no fiction can replicate

All the trees of my landscape

I have befriended in my exile

Learnt the names 

My ancestors gave them

Count time by their seasons

Remain their secret admirer

Exult in their spring

Grieve when they litter

Delight at the green canopy

Against the blue sky

Smile at their shadows

Lovelier than their blossoms ----

May they weather all their storms

And outlast all the temples of kings.

Do not

Do not ask children

To be soldiers

In your adult unequal wars

In your Herod-like genocide

Do not make them keep counting the seconds

Mother lasted before she was counted dead

When the father too had counted himself  dead earlier

Do not make them sleep

In the ruins of their homes

Watching the sky where there

Was ceiling and keep staring

At stars till they moved away

Unable to look at all this darkness

Do not make them write wills

Leaving their toys to children

Who too may die as children

Do not do not do not do not do all that

Then you go home and put children to bed.

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.

Lust

In the dark
Colours lie awake
For the day to break,
Roosters sleep light
Cannot wait
Serenade false dawns,
The dream brings those
Who have vowed
Never to step
Into the house,
White chases tan
While brown blanches
Ochre darkens
With lust
Turns ogre
Finds the door shut.

Colours of desire

When we meet
We swap lists
Of what we have bought,
She looks admiringly
At my designer wear
Praises my taste
Envies my luck
At getting a rare shade
Extracts a promise
To get one for her;
Pleased, I seek her tips
For repainting my house
I tell her I liked her decor
The last time I visited her;
After making a fresh list
Of what was new in the market
And what we needed to buy
We take leave, heads bursting
With the colours of desire