Castle in the Air
17 Dec. 2020
Every heap of
Broken bricks
Is an invitation
To build new castles
In the air.
Hue and Cry
12 Jan. 2021
What’s the schism?
Reclaim the prism
From this mindless mayhem
Of endless misprision!
When did colours have an you and I?
The palette is no projectile.
Higher or nether, none around.
Worse, or better, have you really found?
Louder or paler, you are right to prefer.
All or colourless, Earth cannot proffer.
Black, white, or in between –
Pick or peel them. Colour isn’t skin.
Perjure them too, for colours are not words.
Pluck or pound them. Colour haven’t a heart.
Fellowship
30 Jun. 2021
I foraged the forest for faces,
They forage the forest for fuel.
I followed to capture the sadness,
They obliged with a sunny smile.
Lessons
29 Apr. 2019
Don’t read
The forever
In each thought passing.
Read each instead
As one of passing eddies
Petering out
In weakening spirals
From each core
Hit by a hailstone
From an asteroid
In the process of shedding weight
In a shower of meteorites
So as not to bruise
Our forbearing planet’s
Succinct
Touchiness.
Nandini’s Song
23 Jan. 2020
The road is one:
In quest, or in protest;
Straight or crescent,
Darkling or iridiscent:
The road is ever one.
In tryst, or retreat,
In sickness, health or grief,
Over moram, mud, or sleet,
Or tarmac mastic;
Over foliage flaccid,
Or yesterday’s feast
Festering unstemmed;
Under my feet
Trudging, or surging;
Inside my head
Tangling, disentangling;
The road is but one:
The one forward.
Pearl
17 Aug. 2018
I met a lady waiting to die.
Waiting … because she is through with the rest …sorting papers, saris, pots and pans, her husband’s life after.
She knows.
She worked for a holiday planner which has lived to see a hundred and fifty.
She doesn’t have to have read the gentle poet from across the shores.
Death has kindly stopped for her too.
She is teaching me to live.
And how to die, when time comes.
Without asking why, without even a sigh.
With a faint smile playing around her skull face.
She told me she was ready.
‘But what to do if He won’t come?’
She has earned her name – Freedom – she thinks.
Her extended Voluntary Retirement.
I met a lady called Pearl. Spotless.
Like the pleats of the sari she would wear to work.
Like her pale, fair face, and a gait that Byron serenaded.
Like the neatly parted hair gathered back in a neat bun.
Like the bead-like peals of laughter that still light up her pale features.
She is now a faint voice flowing freely from her slightening frame.
I hug her bones. She hugs me back.
And she gives me life.
The Golden Mean
21 Jun. 2021
Good days bring the hope of flitting bliss.
Bad days bear the yoke of remembrance.
Middling dull days see me toil in ellipsis:
Indifferent of hope, reaping thankfulness.
The Specialist
11 Sep. 2019
I clear all the clutter
From every desk,
Every shelf
Every corner
Of everyone’s
Cabinet of existence.
What to do though?
I never have the heart
To throw their clutter
As though it were litter.
So every desk
Every shelf
Every corner
Of my cabinet of existence
Is neat clutter.
Dare I throw myself away?
Thumbnail
29 Jun. 2021
They do like to tease you.
They just love to hurt you.
Know not how else to reach you.
So they simply “dislike” you.
They come on tiptoe,
Like those elves of yore.
Their barbs they bestow,
To stand out, no more.
To them it means nothing,
Yet their spite is unsparing.
They want you to carry on,
Yet say it with a thumbs down.
They come without faces,
They come with no names,
They are your loyal seekers.
They are your dear dislikers.
Yet let us linger a bit,
Lest due credit we omit:
They but stem the flow.
They but help you grow.
We Deliver
08 Mar. 2019
We deliver.
Usually without fuss. Or tomfoolery.
Without exorbitant charges compensatory.
Could be something fancy, snazzy or jazzy.
Or everyday ground reality.
We deliver the gene to posterity.
We deliver new delicacies from the pantry.
We can even deliver virtuoso pedantry,
When called upon by discerning authority.
We were groomed for competent delivery.
And for wearing appropriate livery.
Yet so used are we to our roles facilitatory,
That we see it not as the Cross of Calvary.
We deliver
On the onus of cementing the family.
We deliver
On the promise of keeping harmony
When relationships get perilously rickety.
We like to think we deliver
On never letting go of humanity
Or of our own alert integrity,
And it is mostly so, with surety.
Yet if we want to avoid complacency
And prefer refreshing clarity,
We have to say, our empathy
Sometimes shrinks from our own sorority.
What’s in a Name
05 Mar. 2020
Fellows, peers, strangers –
Pray desist,
From touchy comparisons.
My name and I
Are mere namesakes:
Two souls, real unreal,
Drifting in each other’s
Trail;
Two clowns
Hanging by each other’s
Motley tales.
