Preparation

Pages of conceit, she burns,

before she steps in.

She deserts it all

to make room for Him.

Slivers of vanity,

she leaves behind-

everything that shan’t allow

to seep Him in.

All she carries with her

is unbending readiness.

And devotion,

her companion, constant.

And when she steps out,

she indeed, never would.

But what you knew of her,

shall be memory so distant.

Himalayas

Have I not seen mountains before?

Have I not been up hills before?

The cool beach waters entice.

The warm desert sands attract.

Have I not already seen it all before?

Yet, these Himalayas up North!

Great giants, snow topped!

Lending the horizon, a silhouette.

Ah, what do I say about these Himalayas up North?

Without a sound, it writes into your breath and eyes

a comfortable hangover within.

Don’t tell me I didn’t warn!

Once these mountains settle

in your breath and

photographed behind your eyes,

I warn-

you’d breathe and see nothing with-out.

Shambho

An ache breathes

in my dreams and paintings

to lay and leave my limbs on

these mountains mighty.

A visit ensued so.

And the dream, in part, conceived

without warning.

But warning I did need not.

My limbs didn’t tire.

Only my breath did.

Then again, unescapable.

The warmth of this ache,

thawed the chilly air around.

And the snow didn’t distract

my stride to the crown.

Then around the bend of the trail,

I saw.

Swathed in white snow,

He stood as striking as His abode.

A stubborn resolve

to reach Him ascended.

The fuel to my weary limbs and lungs,

just one burning word on my lips;

a ploy titled ‘Shambho’!

Traveler

A passenger she is,

in distinctive alleyways

and corridors of secret mirror.

A traveler she is,

amid paint stains

and tunes that steer her.

From airplanes that sally,

people, vehicles and thoughts below-

awfully petty.

A traveler she is,

and she knows the vacation is,

bizarrely temporary.

Flame

Beneath the fine shawls and kohl,

lives someone.

Flame-like.

Wafting in the air.

In immobility, this flame flickers not.

It is as still as still can get.

It is as fragile as silence.

And then the shawls cease to exist

Kohl too isn’t present

Kohl only embraces withdrawn eyes

and a voiceless mind.

Not even music dwells in it,

that otherwise is so incessant.

But how evanescent this spell?

Once again, the shawls begin to encumber

And the kohl starts to smudge

With the repeated blinks of

quivering intellect.

Tales of this enticing flame

You’ve only innocently overheard

I wonder where goes this flame,

when to the world you are dead?

Thoughts

On a platform I stand,

the ground glides beneath my feet.

With the gale I sway

and the ground I shun.

In this calm, there are words.

These words seep into and from somewhere.

Then come stories

that I dread.

Photographs I refuse to stitch,

soar in speed first like trains I have met.

I gape at each dispassionately

long enough

until they turn coy and drip.

Leaving me with a new one.

But I do the same.

Till my tongue retires

and my speech goes to bed.

Desert

Have my rituals become futile?

Has my pride surpassed devotion?

I lay it sacred, do you not see?

Not a day slumbered without it.

But now, of it I am being deprived.

Should this dispirit me?

Is this my cue to impede?

Or must this coarsen me?

But why do you not expel the ache?

Are you not deserting me?