A Sigh

To extend its hands

To distances far

Love does not require a wind

Or any wave;

It can always reach

With no flute or reed,

But a sigh for the beloved

A FEAST BEFORE THE FINAL SACRIFICE

( There was no way for Gautama to escape Nirvana or

salvation )

Gautama,

You are the ocean.

A fathom filled with invisibilities

A mad thought in a sleepless night!

On the edge of madness

On the walls of pains

Vague lines conglomerate into heart-hidden pictures.

The thought that the roof

Of disappointment will fall down

Makes you laugh!

The heart filled with stony butter

Is valued better than water or soil or blood.

Knowledge of senses becomes the prison of thoughts

Truly, your depths have whirlpools

And your plains have tranquility

You and I should not have been impractical poets.

Mango grove, dinner table

Alcohol and meat

The pork lay chopped in colorful vases

You or I were not sad about the headless fish

A hammer in the hand, black hard muscles

And cowry laughter

The blacksmith was standing behind

You were drowning in the floods

Hidden on the dinner table

I wanted to tell that you should not be afraid

Of the rebels’ efforts; you too were a rebel!

Behind were standing the blacksmith and the merchant

We should not have been afraid in their murmurs

They might be saying that we should not glance at the lady

Dressed in jeweled attire

And that we should not think of her transparent sleeping

gown

Of course, desires should be suppressed

They want us to do that.

Blacksmith… merchant……

Groves…. and the tavern…..

They own everything

Remember:

It’s better to be channels not deep.

Oh! ATLANTA !

Oh! Atlanta!

We have nothing to be proud of

About our songs

Hadn’t we sung about the softness

Of the bed of the wrathful king

Who always remained a threat

With his infernal ways?

Golden gallows

Stood high in the courtyard

Our subject was the emerald studs

In the court yard

The path to the dungeon

Was paved with golden flakes

Our subject was the golden flakes


Oh! Atlanta!

We have nothing to be proud of

About our songs

The domes of the royal plaza

Were built high

Only after we reached here

The pond for the royal bath

With marble steps

Were dug

Oh! Atlanta!

They say

We did it!

Are you laughing?

Oh! Atlanta!

Why do you laugh

When we are mocked at?

Did you listen

Our grandchild

Was reading from the book

He was given by the princess?

How much right!

King dug ponds and wells

King planted floral plants!

Why? Why did your head fall?

With wonder and reverence?

Oh! Atlanta!

Why don’t you raise your head

Before Truth?

Why do you faint

Before the truth,

Stainless, spotless truth!

FAREWELL

Season of sufferings begins

Son goes to deserts,

What remains now?

She and me

Have to reach the ferry;

Coo as mother

And weigh as father

Tears must be boiled salt

Within the chest

Salt must be collected

And hidden in unseen cellars

Yeah, he is going

On the wings of a bird

Soaring high and fast

He must attain golden thrones

By the pains

Peeling all human bonds

Life is a war

Where hearts are withered

He flies

With a little salt on the twig

Of olive in his beak

He flows to attain something

Beyond love

Life is river flowing

From the hearts squeezed

Nebulae of hard cool

Heaps filling the eyes

He keeps smiling

Amid the piercing thorns;

He that was born

The result of holy rituals

And as the little butterfly;

Hearts go weak,

Who is to soothe?

Now we have only asylums

Or geriatric slums

With urchins as children

And dung as bed;

Go on, thou our son,

Go on to victorious eternity

THE SINGER SINGS

Words move fast

Over hearts

They chant life

And for life

Orchestrated by

Sighs and coughs

In the company

Of urchins and dogs

Words reverberate

Over streets

And crowds

This journey

On the long train

Of fabled bogies

Is short and fast

Fast numbers have

Great acceptance;

Steps tremble

The listeners are still,

Enthralled.

Seasons are ripe

Earth is charming

As ever,

Fertile with grains

Fruits, flowers and fauna

Singing is faster

Respiration is stronger

Palpitation fervent

Singer is moving

Fast unto his destination.

Theatre is modern

Walls are white

Shades are clear

Stains make images

Life is a shadow play

Singer sings

Animals run

Birds fly

Stags dart into pole

Birds fly into falls

Time is short

Take a shawl and weep

For today.

Dawn due

With dew and chirping,

Light peeps

Into the singer’s face

Calm and pure

And in trance

Singer sings.

Melody pervades

And fuses into silence

WRITING

Writing is not an evening walk,

Neither is it a dream

Burning in sleep;

Nor a wet thought,

Nor greed

Rising in the mind

Of a street walker

Or blighter

It’s not a wing fallen

In the city square

In drought,

Nor a scolding

By a Cyclops

That drinks

The glowing embers of sufferings

Nor a “for sale” lust

Within heightened walls,

Nor a smoky depressed sky,

Nor the hallucinated

Eyes of the opium eater

Nor a hiding

In mountain passes,

Nor legs chopped off

In the chill of battles lost

And won

Nor the hell-heaven fancies

After death,

Nor shivering hymns,

Nor faith fighting wars,

Nor the hide and seek games

Of those scrambles

For seats of power

Nor the nuclear fission

Of a thousand suns in the sky;

Nor the smile of a New Buddha,

Nor is it the humble mind

Standing enslaved

Before false masters,

Nor the ocean

Where those masters drowned;

Nor the red fill in hearts

It is a gift from the depths

It is a sob rising from heart burns

On awareness of hunger!

……….

(The rest, reader, you tell me!)