O Dearly loved!

I wait,

Nervy, eager, in anticipation

Like the first birth of a child

Heart quivering to clasp him close

Nights bereft of sleep

Like a new mother

 I’ve waited unwearyingly though

My reward, a peck

Or even a firm embrace

Ah how my being aches to fasten

In my eyes, the poise

Of my dearly loved!

Wait

I wait for his arrival

Patiently, succumbing

to the inebriety that it is.

I know soon

Would hearts and hands reunite

But grander is the thrill that lay in

sheer waiting

 

Like the lips of a drunkard

who wait for his

beloved glass of wine

How will you know

the succulent

intoxication of wait,

if you haven’t loved?

Radha

The smile in her voice
deceives the pain in her heart
as he departs on his journey 
Yet, what her heart wants, 
She doesn’t let him know.
 
Her thoughts are painted with 
The sweet scent of his skin
Her desires, with the return of
The sweet song of his love
 
Oh loved one, she ponders 
if he would ever taste
This luscious love from another
Whose mind hums only one song?
 
The wistful music in her poetry though
Betrays her pining heart
As he traverses through the mazes
Yet, what her heart wants,
She doesn’t let him know.

Wait

Nearby but far away, is

my beloved, whom I can’t see

 

How laborious

To watch hours tick

Like unhurried days

How poignant

this nameless distance

Between Him and me

 

But can a love so deep

live without wait?

 

In the briny sea of wait,

dance the salt of love

In every drop

Mingling and melding

Indissoluble and eternal

Like Him and me

Moon

Haven’t seen someone this beautiful

I catch a glimpse of her rise at nightfall

She glides up unhurriedly

laughing with the playful clouds

that take on shapes of beards, bears, and owls.

 

So silent is she even when the world rattles on

The birds chirp about

The crickets talk aloud

But she,

bearing so grandly the light from her consort.

Eccentric

Can one name this eccentric passion?

That neither allows sleep nor waken

Or stay or even leave

Staying, burns. Leaving, kills.

 

For the heart cries and laughs

Wanting to cleave and shred

Into a million shards

to present to thyne wild spirit

 

This scream in my interiority

Fancying consuming thou

And not share with another

Even a child

 

Or a wild electricity

With which I’ll behead

and then proudly kiss thy face

and keep beside when I go to bed.

Children

Children, mine

but not mine.

Born out of another womb

But blessing was mine

For they paved my path to

nourish the mother within

I wept after goodbye

Craftily, so that they don’t see

Just like the clouds that day

With friendship and tenderness in heart

Sad, yet proud of the hope to see

Them, peak as human beings

I’ll miss the yearning I saw in their eyes

The naivety in their presence

And the embraces and tryst with art

Oh! They leave me with such uncertainty

Of when we’ll reunite again

But a mother also waits

So it’s alright.

I wonder then,

Why do I need children of my own?

When I already have

Children, mine

but not mine.

An ode to Mango

Bursting with plump nectar

Sweeter than honey, I say

As I chew into its desirable flesh

My poor mouth explodes

Into frenzies I’ve seldom known

Each morsel steering me

Into a fresh symphonic satisfaction

That can’t be discerned without eyes closed

I caress its every luscious curve

Between hitched teeth and tongue

And excited roof of mouth,

But before you know, juices dribble

And I slurp the last dewdrop, mulling

Why doesn’t this divine tropical fruit

last too long?

Slyly

Love, tender and raw,

I begin to taste

Between my fingers and

In my hungry mouth

The company of a lover

Flick of the tongue and pleasing sighs

The fragrance of golden champak

And a moon sliver that shines

Sensuous whispers and thirsty pecks

And lingering caresses on the spine

A secret known only to the

Trees that swayed that night

And not to the petty world

That obliviously would deny

The stealthy affair of energies

Unsurprisingly mysterious and unavoidably sly.

 

Vagabond

I’ve fallen in love

In love with a vagabond.

A fiery wanderer of the jungles

Befriending snakes and goblins

A wild one himself

Who drinks passionately from

the cup of moon all night

 

I’ve fallen in love

With a strange vagabond

Who refuses to put down roots

A wild tiger in search of none

Musical yet untamed

With skin made of ash,

I’d lavishly smear him on mine.

 

I’ve succumbed to his wild ways

Yielded to his charming gaze

There’s scarcely anything left of me

When his scent tarries around

Unpossessable is he

So I let him go, that vagabond.

Because he belongs to the wild.

Affair

The affair that lingers

Covertly, tacit,

Between leaves of poetry

and poetry of leaves

 

The affair between

Unhurried silent strolls

Downing unashamedly

the unasked, the unspoken.

 

Like the affair that springs

Out of strummed sitar strings

And percussion, with hands

That know its every cranny & crook

 

Or the affair that is abstracted

within polished red seeds

the old banyan roots and golden tulips

Or from the insobriety of the moon.

 

 

Little Jar

The moon plays hide and seek

With you and I

I would catch glimpses of her

While you plunge into my eye.

 

Her fragrance tiptoes

on the ripples all the while

As you and I caress the river

Hands intertwined

 

A thousand kisses and glow worms

Quiver between infinite time

Your finger traces the creases on my skin

No boundaries. No lines.

 

The glittery joys of your laugh

Ricochets in the silence of the night

I’ve saved the kisses and smiles in a little jar.

Just tell me where to hide?

Farewell

Travelers from a mindless world

Walk into a space sparsely common

Birds and berries give company

To the ears and mouths of these thirsty.

A beautiful unwilling countdown though

Flooded with laughter, kisses and hugs

And intermingling energies

To the last moment of an inevitable goodbye

when one has to leave.

 

But ah! How can one know they love, 

if farewells don’t exist?

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?