like a river
poetry
Sunday 4 September 2011
Lights on the hills
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Some of the poets I adore and their poems
For Jane: With All the Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough: | |
| I pick up the skirt, ****************************************************************** Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī) (1207 AD) Because I cannot sleep *********************************************************************** e e cummings i carry your heart with me i carry your heart with me (i carry it in |
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Tuluni
Monday 27 June 2011
Dreams like water
Today it rained
and i thought of you.
How you’d happily take out the buckets
the jugs and plastic Gallons
filling each with rain
all at once --
filling each like pouring fresh dreams
into an empty soul.
But you’re not here
And who will pour these dreams
into my empty buckets now?
I am pretending exceedingly well
like you were never here but
I don’t want to see these familiar things
that have your imprints, your laughter and talks.
This miserable world was not good enough
to keep something as pure.
You’ve left ,
You had to leave
but these dreams of you--
like flowing water--
will they ever cease?
Chasing Sunsets
...and here we go again chasing sunsets
our eyes, the roads, the rain, the evening, the rice fields, cameras and clouds
thirsty for a glimpse of the last glowing moment --
a display of an arrangement of elements,
that had never happened
that will never happen again.
Friday 23 July 2010
like old cotton shirts
Monday 26 April 2010
Impromptu poems
Poona under the Moonlight
Everything strangely still.
Buildings square and pale;
windows square and dark
like monstrous eyes and mouths.
Moonscapic bald hills, electric poles and nameless trees.
Not a sound,
not even one stray dog rummaging trash bins,
or a bandicoot in the sewage;
or honks of autorickshaws.
An empty rocking chair
with creased silk-like cover of its cushion
sat so stiff
next to a motionless swing
tied to concrete posts above the balcony.
Orange light from street lamps
that wore helmets, curiously seems
to blend with the moonlight
illuminating hundreds
of feather-like Neem leaves
arranged in perfect symmetry,
suspended in space, waiting…
or just
being.
Pyramidal Ashoka trees
towering tall,
leaning against each other
like old friends reuniting;
outside the walled lawn;
calmness seems to
branch out
from the lush foliage
of the Sorrowless Tree.
A synagogue’s top with reddish light
below the half-moon glowed;
roofs of temples and museums and mosques
and churches and shopping malls stood close.
Somewhere in the distance,
the ruins of the old Peshwa palace
with its elaborate Dilli Darwaza,
and its lotus pond and umbrellas
and trimmed gardens
must be silent for a while,
at night,
without visitors in protective sun-duppattas
to trot upon its cobbled floors
searching for hidden passages.
The surrounding hills stretching
as far as the eye could see
shone a dull pinkish hue on the edges
where land merged with the sky.
Glittering lights in varied colours dotted
the streets and buildings of the city--
a grand Churidar Kurta
embellished with sequins and Swarovski crystals.
Off-white cracked walls
of modern houses
built on sinking sand,
wearing the swish-swash marks
of brushes dipped in dark
repairing cement,
grotesque at daylight,
appeared completely transformed:
at night,
ancient runes and Chinese pictograms
imprinted on Puneites’ walls
sprang to life
transpiring old secrets
of an old city of kings and warriors
to me,
in the balmy, jasmine-scented night,
under the moonlight.
A perfect stillness –
mute, trance-like and eerie.
An impossibly flawless sky –
cloudless, half-mooned and starry.
A momentary musing
under the moonlight
of a brief visit
to a new place,
before the smoldering heat of the day
and the chaotic schedules of life
destroy it all.