Tears Beyond A Poem's Ken

All that I see
I am able to bind in verse

On a tapering rail road
A solitary shoe

From the clouds
The slow descent of sparrows

The eyes of an infant
Just awoken

Upon the burnished earth of youth
The shadows of rebellion

As white doves prepare to gather
The indo-pak border
Turning into a murder of ravens

Dreams that dissolve
At the touch of dawn

Upon the shores of the night
The cockle shells of truth

I don’t know why

But that moment of separation
Sits weeping by the steps
At the doors to the temple
Of my poesy

Poet's Mystery

With eyes brimming
With the mysteries
Of jungles old
He roams

In the vast expanse within
Above a river that reflects empty skies
He tosses the shadow
Of a bird in flight
And watches it float away

In every solitary path
You may meet lonesome flowers
Scattered beside his footprints

Across fences, beyond boundaries
His window overlooks an infinite freeway
Through this window
He searches for wonders
And so finding them, is lost in them
And so his time passes

He exists
Aware of every second, singly
Above its rails life travels
And below it death glides incessantly
This he believes, and yet
He can distill moments that bind them both
And are free from either

To fill the recesses of his heart
With peace
He holds dearly
To sorrows past

Through ineffable visions of darkness
He shoots shards of blinding light
And brings to life
Visions of his own

With naught but solitude as sentinel
He assimilates all life within himself

As the child floats
A paper boat

The poet
Floats heaven
In world's puddle

Happenstance

The river may owe its amblings

Of the night

To the leisure strokes

Of lunar plumes

Elated by the rustle of

Long dead leaves;

(To this imagined applause)

The koels may owe their song

To the bashful flight of clouds sans reach

The mountains may owe

Heightened majesty

To the breeze that plucks the dew

And drops it to the ground

The ants may owe

The thrill of the march

The graveyard may owe its

Deepened silences

To the wisdom of spent pyres

To its terrene love for the stars

The earth may owe

The ebb and flow

Of endless waves of grass

To thy visions

My poesy may owe

Its existence

Solitude

I squeeze life

And let moments trickle

As a swirl of emotions gently set

And I watch my story unfold

And earn my solitude

To draw into me

A solitary star

To dissolve within my eyes

A drunken breeze

In the silent light that

Transpires all around me…

As truth bubbles forth – silence

Runs unceasing

Random silhouettes

Rise as paintings

And melt away in a moment or two

Random queries, forgotten, old,

Having lost their answers,

Return

Donning the mask of freedom

The heart frightens

Delight and despair

At the cusp of solitude

The soul speaks an infant’s tongue

At the end of each solitude

The spice of a solitary leaf

Of the wisdom tree

Wafts inescapably

Beyond Poesy

I stand at the hairline of a hill

I almost touch the sky

I cannot fly, birdlike

I dwell in the midst of branches

And watch through the mosaic

I cannot flower

I stoop to pick up my pen

Unbeknownst to all, I crawl around

I cannot wonder, childlike

Upon grassy knolls I sit

Carefully, upon the grass

I cannot kiss, dew-like

What binds…

What it is to let go…

I understand, slowly

And glow within

I cannot shine, sun-like

In the sporadic interludes of an epoch’s slipstream

I perceive the human birth come full-circle

I cannot become whole, moon-like

To those who wished to fell me

I wish wellbeing

I would blossom amid

Those who would see me buried

I cannot reign graceful, God-like

Neither can you

And hence the world…

Must show fealty

To innumerable verses

Aladdin And The Magic Lamp

The sky is Aladdin

And the moon

His magic lamp

The lamp is rubbed often

By the snow-white fingers

Of the clouds

But the genies appear

Only on the ground

And the genies

Are all beautiful!

They bear that

Which flows from the heart

And through the pen

1.

The educated eccentric

Is excited

"The geriatric night

is poring over the

lexicon of the skies

through the moon-monacle!"

2.

And the granny who

sells her wares by the wayside,

"Now there's a fluffy white pancake

fried in the sky-pan downside up

by granny Sun."

And so granny called it pancake

And it panned the pan-like sky

3.

And the little boy

wished a wish that night,

"I wish I may

I wish I might

String the moon

And fly my kite."

4.

And the petal-soft heart

of the flower girl waned,

"I shall twirl my loom

from the passing clouds,

string it with starry blooms

And garland the moon."

5.

And the fisherman weeps for

The white fish those swim the skies!

"Who be that heartless fiend?

Who swam the milken moon-lake

And cast out the fish within?

Look at them thrash at

The floor of the sky!"

6.

And the tree-lover opens

The canopies of his heart

"The moon-tree's branches

Hug the sky

And sings to the starry-sparrows

a lullaby."

Night-time's clasp weakened

The corners of the sky

were streaked

with reddish clay

The sun began

to bustle about

And the people

grew busy getting lost!

The sky choked

at the smoke rings

of men and their machines

And aladdin...

fell back into his cave!

A Nightful Of Moon-Sliver

Between you and I

Is a moon-sliver

We wish to nurture it,

You and I

A pregnant sigh,

A questioning glance

...and the sliver is broken

The shadow of a stray thread

from your raiment whispers on its skin

...its body rustles

In the embers of our silences

The sliver is warmed

Dreams awaken, unbeknownst,

And colour its body with many hues

Some of your words, and,

A few of my caresses fell

by the wayside and melted away

The sliver disliked this

We understood

We drew each other closer

And the moon-sliver melded into our bliss

And as distances dissolved

And the koal night coalesced

It wore dew-beads and ecstasized

The bashful sounds of unpractised abandon

we spilled into the night

The moon-sliver listened

and laughed within your lap

And my bosom