Premonition

We dream of those we want to see

Of places where we want to be

What is this train we are regularly late for

This maths exam we are never ready for

Sometimes the faces are of strangers

Are they one or made from many

Who passed us on our way day to day

But to whom we had little to say

If dreams are often life-like

What of those real-life occurrences

That can only be called dream-like

That night when we were about to sleep

I clearly heard my brother call my name

The voice came from the backdoor

What was he doing there at this hour

When he was supposed to be at home

Five hundred miles west from here

No one was seen when we went to look

The telegram soon followed of his death

After being falsely accused of theft by father

I still think he came to bid farewell to his sister

Even if no one knows if we live thereafter.

The last one

In the class the blackboard

Turns silent when wiped clean

The children pretend to be quiet

With their eyes talking to one another

The teacher battles to shepherd minds

That wander over imaginary pastures

To be in the moment is hardly learnt

Till the last moments are upon us

Dying is nothing new as the poet said

Do we remember the deaths before death

The time when we lost what we thought we had

The child we could not be for long

The native city we had to walk away from

Though the past came running after us crying

As life moves from one death to another

The last one is like the ones that came before.

Cacophony

 The drunkard sleeping under

The tree he thinks he owns

Because he sleeps there

Protests the birdsong

That wakes him early

I have heard him quarrel

Before with his past

In a particular order

The wife he left because

She wanted money all the time

The friend who owes him 

And refuses to pay back

The enemy who thrashed him

When he was unprepared

And has it coming soon;

This is something new

Complaining of the clamour

From the newborn crow chicks

Impatient for their first feeding;

"Can't you let a poor man sleep

When he has to drink to do that

Do you know what the prices are

Am I stealing this stuff off the street

Like you do for building your nest

If you keep up this racket every morning

I am going to come for you with a gun."

I too talk to the crows when alone

Like a child confiding to his toys.

The tippler pours himself a hangover fix

Targets the original sinner again

And finally goes back like Caliban to his dream. 

First loss

This crow is flying about

With its own feather in its beak

Much like me holding on to my 

First milk tooth when it fell

And trying to put it back fearing

The ridicule of peers

I had seen being ridiculed;

It was a rite of passage

To cope with the first loss

To get it soon buried

In the backyard

Helped by mother

With a generous sprinkling of milk;

Mother has now become a framed photo

Quietly receiving her monthly oblations

So has father who consoled me

With the fact that teeth for grown-ups

Replace the ones we lose;

Every memory is a memory of loss

Of what we lost and what we have not.

Silence

Look at the silence

Of the sky

When it darkens

Before rain

Listen to night fall

Over the city

Fighting darkness

With its lights

How can we go home

If our work is not done

...

The parrot's feather,

I picked up on the terrace 

During my evening walk,

Was green and white with

Maybe a touch of blue

From affinity for the sky,

I kept it for a while in my hand

Wishing I could fly into the night

And be remembered as someone

Who vanished as he wished.

...

Silence is taught

In corporate ashrams

If it can be paid for

Sometimes with life

Someone's silence 

Can be bought

If cost is naught

What happened

To the silence

We fought in school

That we soon learnt to

Turn off and on

It is a deafening silence

When the falsehood is brazen

When the godman speaks

Truth falls silent.