In love

I’ve fallen in love

With the winds that refuse to

Warm by the sun

I’ve fallen in love

With the greens that sashay

Like a ballet dancer

The clouds that tease the sun

The squirrels and good trees

That never grow old

The budding flowers around.

In love with the creepers

And the music of roots

The butterflies and ants

Carpels, a blade of grass

I’ve fallen in love

With the twigs that fall

To become later a leaf

Fragrance, stem and veins!

The birds! Oh the chatty birds!

Going about their busy day

I let my hair down

To let the winds caress

Oh sweet cold wind

Take me with you!

Thunder

Thunder murmurs in the far dark distance.

And you tiptoe to my windowsill.

Accompany, the whispers of the monsoon wind, 

carrying the fragrance of farms and crops.

I let you kiss my temple and lips.

But you teasingly trickle down my neck,

Like the inquisitive fingers of a new lover.

I taste the echoes and the musky scent of the soil.

Soon, I catch you by the hand and ask 

‘But first tell me- aren’t rain and poetry the best of friends?’

‘The best’ you say and turn towards the wind, who

hums us a midnight song.

Lunatic Love

Her heart fills with love

And overflows, spills and drips

From crevices of her

Like an overflowing water tank

On a rugged road

If you come in touch

You may indulge in it

With great ardor.

Her eyes try to catch a piece of slumber

But her heart waltzes and romps

The moon is to blame

Because her love

Is brimming like the

Sun’s stroke. 

It takes lunatic shapes 

Once in a full moon.

Stillness

How do I express with paint, the tempest

that she is, at the sea;

or even sing about Her fragranced

demeanor that bursts with raging liveliness?

How do I only offer lovely flowers to the

exquisite womb, that birthed me?

There is only no-thing I can offer.

So I offer Her my stillness.

Sun

I let the wind guide my swing

to the depths beneath the waves floating

Distant laughs and guitar strings.

Fallen brown leaves and broken twigs.

The sun drops its glitter on river skin

and between the tree leaves, its rays piercing

But as it sets, and the white glimmer turns gold

I realize, the sun goes nowhere. Only I do.

Moon

The light from sun, her raiment.

Bedecked with jewels of clouds.

Enticed him with the sweet warmth

of her curves on a bed of black.

He waltzed and sang in abandon,

the merry cries of her beauty and delight.

She danced and asked the clouds to disappear

to let him caress her hair that night.

Expression

This fire within, burns like a scream

and a drop of tear.

Raging fire or molten lava

leaving a fire trail,

quenched only by the

liberating hands of expression.

But then how shall one express

the sound of bottomless silence?

How shall one capture

the cosmos’ spectacle of colors,

unless to grasp its dance and colors,

becomes one’s wild obsession?

Beyond

Oh world! be fooled not

by the music of my colors

don’t be awestruck

by the poetry of my words

fall in love not with the strokes

of my paintbrush.

Oh world! But do taste

the fragrance of it all,

for it comes from

somewhere that’s alien,

to know the fragrance

of the beyond.

Ocean

Of the Ocean, stories I’ve heard.

The magnitude of which, petrifying.

But so is the sky from here, isn’t?

What makes the Ocean different?

Perhaps it’s the same.

The Ocean could eat me up, they say.

But why shouldn’t I let it?

Aren’t I just a drop anyway?

So, like the river, I flow.

Thirsty flowers and fishes drink from me.

Sometimes, I hop on the back of a twig.

Sometimes, a leaf.

For a drop in the river I am,

flowing with the grace of the undercurrent.

Like the river, I surge,

in deep hunger to merge with my Ocean.

Take Me There

Take me there,

where walls are painted

in colors of dawn and dusk

Not with hate and blood.

Let me live there,

where vines embrace

the walls of my room

Nothing made of gold.

Take me into nothing

Where bodies don’t mean a thing

Nor does color or religion.

There, where lives a zillion stories, unheard

You may come with me there,

where silence overpowers

Only if you promise to be

without a word.

New Year's Eve

I’ve had my share of fireworks and bonfires.

Of midnight greetings and gatherings.

Alas! None drowned me in silence.

None put thoughts to rest.

So, this time around,

I slumbered.

No fireworks. No greetings.

Just like the other night.

Birds and flowers woke up the next day.

Just like the other daybreak.

At the last midnight, what changes anyway?

Other than the date?

Dance

Downing the grace of the Earth generous,

I bow in gratitude, at each thud of the feet.

I besought Her consent to dance.

A grand dance of death and its journey.

So, the breath waltzes with the heartbeat

and grace tenderly robs me off gravity.

Hey Shiva! I dance with ache too, in glee,

in the womb of the only dancer known to me.

Shambho

A blast abruptly roars

from faces and things

and everything on which

my eyes stumble upon.

As I devour your scent,

my lips murmur your name.

A name, like a mountain

that stands spotlessly tall.

A surge of colors

as I drink, flare up and flow,

each bleeding into another,

like a drug in an inviting glow.

Does one need any other, I ask?

When they’ve consumed

the loftiest intoxication,

named ‘Shambho’?