Home

The hands falter now and the writing

Goes awry with bankers questioning

The signatures as if they were forged,

The kolams look more like a child's

No more would they delight anyone

Except sisters-in-law who resented

Your imaginative dotless handiwork,

The recipes have to be checked as

The memory can't be trusted anymore

Children do not like the cooking as much,

The world keeps receding out of reach

Though it is at the tips of your fingers

But being with yourself is truly being home

If the dark one who remembers the worst

Can be put on a leash and told to be quiet.

Change

The distance back is longer

Than it was and is difficult

To traverse for what we left

Behind has not stayed behind,

It has changed, given way to

What doesn't like to stay still,

There is not even a footprint

To show we were there when

We were there filling the place

With our presence and thoughts,

The inexhaustible hope must still

Be there in the air filling hearts

Looking to leave behind the city 

With no place for them and find a home

Where hands, not faces, are wanted

To go back is to find out that time itself

Never stays still and changes what stays

And changes what leaves for change.

Cosmic

We want to be everything we see

The tree, the breeze, the bird, the sky

We want to be them for a while and be back

Inside the familiar house that looks out,

The road turns right and disappears

What was seen is no more seen 

Must still move beyond the building

Seen still by the surveillance eye,

The mind imagines everyone is alike

Going back to the days they left behind

Seeking respite in the bursts of bonhomie,

Remembering is not the way we want it

The happy streets we like give way to ones

Where we walked the gauntlet of hostility

To be without a thought is to be spacious

Suddenly so very spacious as to be cosmic.

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

The deep

The hands are tired
From clappping
For those
Who leave little for others,
The throat is hoarse
From singing praises
To someone whose miracles
Include taking away
The little there is left,
The feet are weary
Of the mountain path
Leading to an empty shrine,
The eyes keep looking at the skies
Hoping for signs of cracks
The ears want to hear
The rumble of volcanoes in the deep
Which wants to give up the dead.