A Whore Called Maxine (2009)

There lived once, a whore called Maxine. In the bowels of every city she lived

A life feeding on greasy crumbs, thrown in jest at her by pleased guests.

A gentle hostess, Maxine let her guests fulfill any fantasies, feed on her

The way they wanted to and then leave when she was spent and numb.

No qualms ever crossed her conscience, or no persistent super-ego ever

Tore at her for choosing such means to an end. She was doing all that she 

Could do best. Please a hunger which no emacipated soul can ever quench.

Forced into mediocrity, raised in strife, throttled with competition- she is now a whore.

There was a time when people had relations that she had to keep. People had hopes that she Had to share. They had dreams that she had to see and 

Expectations she had to keep and live up to. Soon enough, the seasonality

Of these, drove her into the streets where at least the cold roads, the thick air

And the leaking houses are faithful. They show what they were, are and will be.

She sang. She could sing. In modest gatherings where people of principles

And values took seats of dignity she sang. Now, those figures of stature seem

Like insects and reptiles crawling up her stairs to feed. She is a good Hostess, our Maxine. Never placing their shining pasts on their present.

But, maybe thats the way with the calling such as this. You feed but are not fed. You dont judge, But are judged. You dont stop entries but are shown Exits, the moment the cold coins hit your Palm. Even love is scared to walk up Her stairs and ask for a glass of rhenish wine to replenish itself. 

As, unselfish he is... He cant bring himself to breathe her air, share her bed, eat from her plate And cleanse the body. Love is too righteous for that. Too Emancipated to look at her from a Height that is light years away. Her calling

That feeds her cats, pigeons and ducks cannot feed that crevice in her Bosom hungry for a Tinker of light. 

That light is not there... It isn't a light or a shining ray of unequited hope. It is

But a mere reflection pretending to be in full glory of values created on beds.

Just like the moon, ever shining but devoid of life from self, this is the calling

That she chose without help. This is life...

Jeremy the Bee and Icarus (2009)

Arms raised in a V. While the dead lay in pools of 
Maroon below. Poor Jeremy O' Delle lies in bones
While Eddie is the priest. Where do we have such
Commemorations everyday? Why don't we? 

Oh so many died! And so many more lived and are waiting
To breathe; Against pointing fingers and blunt, wicked
Smiles and gawking stares. The worm tickles in the head
Like a fly trapped in a glass jar. 

The buzz and the thumps are for Jeremys to hear. It says,
"Goooooo! Dooooo!! Liiiiiiivee!! Leaaaave and be on the
Outside... Please!" It begs. Coz the fly knows its life has
Been shortened by an overpowering thud of a hand.

How much does it take to take the first step and then
Run like hell?! Thats pricey... Hehehe! An awful lot and
Sometimes takes nothing at all. Run like a mustang,
Fuming with rage against chains and a 'need' to go.

But then, what fate did Icarus suffer? We are quite like
Him arn't we? The need to fly high on waxen wings ends
With a shattering drop onto the oceanic rocks- smeared
With red. So what? The pain lasts for a minute...

The freedom of those few minutes, gliding to the sun
Lives forever! Lets die. Let you and me die. I presume,
A death preceded by moments of pure freedom without
Silken threads and iron chains is worth trying...

Who knows? Maybe you will live after that. Maybe you
Won't. If we live, we shall keep dying glorious deaths
Everyday and sleep content in oceans or hills or
Woods or the open highways. And if we die...!

Aaah!! The death will be sweeter than birth ever was.
She will embrace you like no other and never let go.
Rebirths? I have not seen them... Neither have you...
But life we can. So, shall we now?

Or maybe later....

Not In Vain (2008)

The cornerstone falls in each lame word
Spoken or pelted in silence. The center 
Cannot hold what the purview of reason
Has shunned long back. Here, when I walk
The lonely streets, among the tall redwoods,
A whiff of cold breeze skims by exposing the
Edifice of conscience that was so nobly buried
In the sands of novel tranquility of the wind. 
Now, the wind just blows by the sentient grave,
Not stopping, not yielding and not breathing.

Like a passerby who has left behind a million
Breaths to but reach a tangible oddment that
Was carefully masked beneath the surreal
Gossamer. Taking the long winding road 
after the day is done, adorned with scattered
Leaves and home-bound gulls, my feet stretch forth
Searching for the horizon of the wind and the sea.
Then it stops. Shivers and stops dead. For
The wind does not have a beginning and 
Nor the sea has an end. I take the next bend.

There I see a cemetery of the brave, in lines
Arranged and a fitting stone for every grave.
I wonder whether the wind and the sea will
Have deserved a place there; a watery grave with 
Stony winds sleeping- a conjugal pair. At last,
At last will they meet in wraps of eternal rest?
Finally living, past deliberate hurts hurled at
The sea in that excruciating test. The wind 
Will kiss it and the sea shall bathe the place,
Having conquered at last His sadistic jest.

Finally unified shall the earth live and breathe
While a sigh, a mourn would echo in relief.
Heard in every hamlet, every town, in every woods
And parish and mountainous ground. The sea and 
The wind singing their strain, overflowing vales and
Plains just the same, "We have waited, have waited,
But not in vain..." 

Shuteye (2008)

Dead leaves, wandering flies in a quagmire
Midst the silent and motionless redwoods,
Fragmented sunlight bleeding through their
Leaves of silence and dust, eroding my skin; 
Squirrels hopping and flowers dropping
Marking beginnings and closures at points
Of one. Stone bench and gathered muck,
A slouching body- mockery of sanity...
Taking a nap. Swinging in and out of
Parallel realities and with the sun on red
Eyelids, hope and sanity hide and seek-
Taking turns. Family? What is that? Like
A thicket of stoic redwoods, silent and 
Inactive just expecting one to look up till
He is blinded by the sun? Morality, dignity;
Just the dot-like flies that live and die by the
Hour. Here, I take a shuteye just to measure
My sanity in scoopful, redundant heaps. The
Sun adds color to these images within the
shuteye and scatter these scenes of a memory-
Suspended and crucified in time. The wind
Blows and the water flows through dead leaves
And gutters making a gutteral noise of still. 
I jerk into wakefulness- the numbness of my 
Reality. The fingers burnt by the speck of fire,
While the smoke corrodes my breath. Smiling
I, take another one and quench a timeless debt.
The eyes are shut again and now, open with
Denial. All of the seven cast on my shoulders,
As the redwoods stand looking down on me.
Once what was the sea is now a meander,
Yielding nothing. Still, waiting for the wind
To blow over and validate its actions and fill it up
With waves of moisture from the clouds. In that
Shuteye, the collage of melting colors reprimand
And incarcerate the rigid meander sand. The
Bastard creation of nothingness that was thrown
Into this void of faces, just wants to live for once-
Validated. Proven like a theory and accepted like
A growing hypothesis; being nurtured over decades
And accepted. Sitting in the crucible of time under
Vigilant irresponsible eyes, I bathe and corrode
In the acid of stereotypes. How would it be I wonder
If I was born out of a meagre, inward shuteye? Would
I feel the weight of sunlight or the bitter chill of the moon?
Would I appease life with another morning candy or beg for 
Death at every noon? Wish I was a baseborn form,
A stringless life and a determined death. No 
Umbilical mother, or a redwood dad or bloodline
Diseased with thousand debts. Set me free,
Let me love, give me my wind in a treasure trove. Life,
One day I will be your maker and we shall meet, where
Death becomes you and the rigid strings- me. With 
Each shuteye we will be free. There... it rings again!!
All a mockery... A shuteye of my sanity!

Farmer- The Scarecrow (2008)

I cant leave that barren earth that I have watered with my blood.
I cant stay and build a roof on it as the crust is unyielding and dry,
Soaking in every bit of nourishment but yielding nothing but cracks
And dust while refuting any approach by scorching my feet. I chanced
Upon this land when it had gaping holes and caverns that needed
Filling up. I felt I could give it vital growth again and replenish every
Gaping fissure it had. After a decade of debts to myself while I tried
Watering, ploughing and harvesting I realized it does not want any of
That. All it wants is infinite life blood that will seep through its cracks
And lose their way into her dark and pitless chasm. The barren earth
Just wants one drop after another without any awakening, yielding or being
True to the purpose of supporting life and living  through a symbiotic
Growth. Instead, the crust transformed into a haven of weed now that
The blood flows without her having to worry about that. Earlier I ran around
Her stretch trying to water every feature, mound,crack and roads but now
That I am too spent to move I have impailed myself on a yard of wood
At the centre of her and slashed every last vein and artery so that the
Blood flows in abundance. I have assumed this last role of a scarecrow
At the center of my land thinking maybe, just maybe this time that pitless
Crucible will fill up to the brim, overflow and rise through the cracks
Till the barren earth is inundated giving it the purest color of all- red. No,
No, no! This cant be. The newly born weed is growing into a barbed forest
Of frivolities on her drinking the blood that trickles from my veins. While the
Irony is the earth is now the cradle of these carefully nurturing each root
Of every weed. There was a time when I sat through congregations of 
People who would pelt tears of pain for their lands were barren and won't 
Surrender the freedom of being all absorbing and seldom yielding but only
To weed and ferns and barbed thickets. I scoffed and scorned at them saying,
"My land just needs care and the understanding that nature expects. I know
I have all of these. It will be the land of utmost abundance full of vegetation, rivers,
Flowers and fruits. It will be a smiling face of symbiosis." Now, I am here on an
Equatorial morning with the burning sun on my carcass drying up every drop
Of red water and burning every bit of skin as they stubbornly stick to my bones
Unwilling to leave but unable to stay. The earth? It still is thirsty and wants more-
More!!! A scenery of an earth with an ever empty cradle at the center of itself and 
Nursing its once protective shell of freedom that does not have anyone in it while
The frivolous weed grows and turns the crimson earth into a grim, lightless forest 
Of moans and shrieks. Aah! So it is red at last. At least my pale eyes can see it or
Maybe imagine it while my torso lies impailed on the plank, sticky and dried and red
While my inclined head watches the thorny bushes take over that earth of possible hope
And liberation. The vultures are finally happy as my eyes, mouth, limbs and guts are
Now food! At least someone won't be hungry anymore and thank this 'selfish' crucifiction. 
My purpose is served...

The Return (2009)

What hungry Gods look down on the lesser, ant like mortals?
Gyrating and floating forms of limited minutes are reared into
Moving dolls with needles invisible. A sight sorry enough for 
The dead of Pompei to sit up and mock at such exploits...

Why call this life a journey? Just a disease, carnally 
Transmitted with a gift of guaranteed mortality! The journey 
Is in between they say... What journey, what fatal attraction
To the flame that kills the moth shining bright in its spectral aura?

The needles are then pierced into the wings of Icarus, while a
Self-proclaimed shaman dances in sadistic ecstacy of a pain- visible.
Whats invisible is then uncertain. Whats untouchable is undefined.
The journey is spent strifing with the inevitable, prolonging the end.

A few limited minutes, counted in years, months and days, even hours;
Slip away blemished by the could be 's and the should have 's which
You and me know so well. Climbing the cold walls of the alter its finally 
There! The palm of rejection on your face through the clouds. Its there...

"Stop! This is as far as thou shall ever pass. It is time for you to drown
In that mediocrity you came from. Be loyal to her, be gentle and kind and
Accepting to the fatals flaws, gifted to each of you- you abhorrent tragedies!"
A divine reason potent enough to let you descend into the fog below- one 
Rung at a time...

Fly to the flames oh ignorant moth and do know this- when you burn and
Time becomes eternal with pain... You have but trilions of sordid eyes,
Watching you disappear in the waxen, slithering flame, waiting their turn...
For they see death in you now like you had seen in those standing before
You in the queue...

The Heartbender (2008)

Quite often I run out of words during moments
Of sanity preserving outbursts. They don't seem to
Dance their ballet in my head which they usually do,
And at such times when the need to express is more
Than the drive to exist. Most often its a choky feeling
At the base of my throat coupled with involuntary and 
Painful spasms. Sometimes it spreads downward while
My head slumps down or backwards as heavy as a sin.
Eyes sometimes start pouring out like an acid factory
While I feel the fumes burning the lashes. The tongue
Becomes a dam standing in the way of a thousand rivers
Aching to dash out of a cave. At times the words break
Themselves up and intermingle with others to form
Meaningless series of anti-phonetic symbols. I remain
Tongue tied while my vocal chords burst with 
An anticipation for a release or a desperate prayer. 
Such emotions I cannot articulate which are to be
Understood and responded to but never uttered. Yet,
These days we have to do so, else its us who
Are gonna lose. Lose the dying cause, at least it is one.
Lose the sense of reason, but it is a sense. Lose the
Anatomy of desertion, at least it is a structure. They
Will not visit or come by when you stand a pauper;
Tongue tied, psychotic and paranoid, thinking about
What else can you lose and behold! You are ready to
do so. For its like a disease this habit of losing and giving.
I do not know how to exist in any other way but this. Then
Why don't I accept this vice of self-drainage and be at peace?
For you are a heart-bender, pumping it into life and then
Kicking it with pride. I was empty but you composed quartrets
Out of each beat that my heart skipped. You gave it meaning
And bottomless poetry. And when I read them out aloud
In a fit of ecstasy, you stitch my mouth and seal my tongue
Like a head-hunters prize. The heart beats still but the poetry?
Thats mute and sullen losing its rhythm. Will you ever know?
Will you ever miss? Will you never say? For you are
A heart-bender resolute. Swinging away and back again to me
While your center is a stable point. I wish we were like two arms
Of a compass. Fixed at a common point though stretched afar. 
That would have given Donne's valediction a consequence. 
Bend my heart my heart-bender but breath into me. 
Buy my sanity with your wealth of convenience 
But feel my skipped beats and make poetry. For you are meant
To grow in lyrics and freedom while I in you as a shade.
But let me yield, let me look up and let me breathe. Unstitch
My lips, raise me up and raise yourself. I will give you a heart
To bend but let me feel you- the heartbender!

Old and New (2008)

In the days of swords and glory victory was an achievement.
Wearing your green olive branch you stood on the podium,
Victory was as easy and singular. The peasant ploughed his fields, 
The miner mined, the warrior fought and the lover loved. It was all of one
And one of all. Either just or unjust, fair or unfair-
An easy, dual affair. Today its a matter of grey. The peasant
Ploughs and the miner mines; the warrior fights and the lover loves.
The rough hands never taste the fruits, the shovel knows
Not its purpose, neither does the warrior know his battle cause 
Or the lovers their identity. But the barren harvest continues, 
The senseless mining- relentless. Wars fought between 
Unknown foes and without reason while the Lovers love but 
The purpose they know not, the sacrifices they know not. Victory
Is but a plurality now, based not on toil but on reasons unrelated and intricate.
Simplicity in itself isn't as simple and life is a negation if it stands alone. Maybe,
The same peasants, warriors and lovers of old felt the same plurality and spake
The same thoughts. In a vicious circle identity lost its face and meaning lost
Its light from when they were born. Generations awoke to a degraded,
Derelict form of these and thus deemed them as mere ideals. As we died and
The new us lived, these meanings transformed into convenience, 
The children of tomorrow saw distorted images of what was once a sculpture.
The me changed to I and the we became us, the you became yourself
And identities thus lost. Now I the peasant plough my scorched fields, I 
The miner mine for a rich breed, I the warrior die for a selfish cause and 
I the lover love my impending loss. Oh how else will my children reap and mine
And fight and love? How else will they lose if the cause they know not? What will
They love if virtues they know not!! Will 'the man perpetual' evolve into a 
Parasite that thinks and thinks only when it needs and feeds?? Where do we lie
And how do we exist? How does my me exist and how my love do you?? You will
Find the answer my unborn child but when I rot in my grave and you look at it
With a detached and retrospective gaze. A mere ideal put in a glass case.

Lady of Jade (2008)

It is not always a good thing- this solitude. This gnawing

singularity of thoughts and feelings. Many seek its fruits

But others bleed, ripped by its thorns. They look like

Self-imposed hermits on a trivial journey full of sound and fury.

The shadow is never aware of the scorching sun

That burns the body, scattering it into a million pieces.

Neither are those who stand miles away thinking and debating

Its worth, its nature and purpose. Little do they know of

The unbearable agony that feeds on hope every moment,

Like a leisurely Sunday morning snack. The mirage often

Melts into an oasis coaxing to breath, allowing hope to play

Its ancient game of dice. A heave here and a slump there;

Torn is the mind in this fall of a rise. And when the sweat soaks

The sand, running along the cheeks like a tear. Feels like drops

Of molten sun adding color to a depthless void. The brink is reached

And the throat is parched. The limbs numb chasing

An elusive beacon that has borne you hither. Things fall

Apart as eyes do not see the lake, glistening with bountiful mirth.

Just a gaping hole, parched and cracked. A voice is heard

And the cracks open wide, beckoning and whispering sweet names-

A promise

Of an yielding shade, a soft corner in a frozen lady of jade.