Here’s to them

Of the long talks and the longer walks,

The gut-busting laughs and nasty on-dits,

The jokes that only they understood.

Here’s to love, the sort that surely must

Have engendered envy; the sort that

Sometimes is surprising is even allowed.

Here’s to happiness, sorrow, anger, lust;

Extremes, always, hardly tempered,

Hardly neutral.

Here’s to what was – here’s to what seemed

Eternal.

Here’s to the good times, the bad times, even the worst of times,

But always times,

Always tangible, like live wires, like electricity;

Never dull, never placid

Or painstakingly normal.

Fresh-faced

Still hope there
Still dreams allowed,
Seems a while since
That was a thing
To be.

They're confused

They want to know why I prefer
To read
And miss the dazzling fleshy
Make-up pretty men and women
In orchestrated beauty
Onscreen
In CGI! With tigers and
Soundtracks and action and
Noise and vivid sex and
Blood-red blood and made-up
Glory.

But in my pages, the browned
Worn, ratty pages, my people
Live.
They breathe -- the dwarves and
leather-clad sex gods. They mimic
The voices inside my head.
The prancing young girl
Grows
In my mind's eye
To dazzling young woman, to mother,
To crone.
The men -- they're mine, they're created
But I give life
like God!
I draw breath from my being and
In my pages
They live.

And nobody else see them
Like me.
They know them, but my people
They're difference from other people's people.
My places are the same, but different.
My moats are bigger
My meadow is a different green and my busy sidewalk
Has different faces, holding coffee cups,
Striding busily.

So my pages, my worn, ratty
Thumbed-through volumes, my dusty
Shelves of Annes and Aidans and
Janes and Darcy and Lalithas and
Ford and the Millenn
ium Falcon, they live.
They live and so I live to live
With them.

And everybody else remains
Confused :)

History

Isn't just mad monarchs and their fallen kingdoms,

Conspiracies, lies, long-lost love and monuments past;

It’s lakes – and people giggling on their banks.

It’s the sea – and fireworks on the beach

On New Year’s eve.

It’s the sunset – and watching, rapt.

It’s the supermarket around the corner – and swapping credit cards

When the balance runs out.

It’s the scraggly mutt on the road – and taking it to the vet together.

It’s the roadside biryani spot – and a hurriedly-grabbed lunch

Before heading back to work.

It’s looking at a pillar, a pillow,

A tree-top or a tee-shirt and

Feeling a rush of memories

Of things past, but not forgotten.

The busy life

The world spins madly

In a rush of change

And in a whirl of excitement

And new things, new people

New me, new life.

The clock holds not

Enough time, but the body

Moves, incessantly, thriving

On the pace.

Loving it.

But the quiet moments,

The little talk, and lots of

Feeling, get missed out on,

And the old me misses them

Like the old me misses you.

That day

Forget the raucous rabble

Screaming slogans

Burning bras

Walking naked for

Support.

No one listens;

They only smile

Indulgently, at the little

Women, and their play.

It’s when you look

Straight in the eyes of the

Smirking passer-by,

Mis-direct the bust-aimed

Roving appraisal

And still the glancing

Hand.

It’s when you refuse to bow

To fear and fallacy

And third-party rules

Denying the right to

Your own life-choice.

It’s when you stand when

All would push you down,

Use your voice, your brain,

Ask for books when handed

Pans, reject convention

And grab hold of Change.

It’s on that day when Fear

Turns his ugly leer

Away from the darkened road, the

Lonely alley, the dancing shadows

Preying on your mid.

And it’s when the wrong is

Not “your mistake”, for immodesty,

Immorality, or simply, insolently

Being there, wrong place,

Wrong time.

Then, when your head is held

High above what they deem

Necessary,

That day, the woman walks

Free, among the rest.

The kiss

Ended too soon
Filtered across fevered
Lips,
And landed on
A quivering heart.

Waiting

Single mindedly,
Unerringly
Waiting
Unable to move
Or do anything remotely productive
Vibrating inside like a string on an instrument
When the screws are tightened
And the pick, or the bow
Or whatever
Hasn't been place to make sweet music
Yet!
Single knee
Pumping endlessly
Impatiently
Heartbeat galloping steadily
But surely, skipping here and there
Stuttering when the possibility
Of final consummation of expectation
Arrives.

Waiting.
Impatiently! 

Grabbing at straws

Serrating my fingers

Leaving them cut open

And raw, red,

Skin peeling off.

The strings of despair

Threats of chances slipping

Away.

Gripping harder

In a pathetic effort

To retrieve,

Bring back

The Perpetual Yesterday

Of yellow suns

and light.

Crumble Pie

Life crumbles
Very slowly around you
A gradual process
It transforms from
Unfairly perfect to
Ugly.
Polluted with pacifying
Half-truths
And the forced smiles
Of civility.
But the will stands resolute.
Because even when
You have none
For in the end our
Journey
Is a solo drive,
You have yourself
And you're damn good enough
For yourself.

Scribble

BRIGHT

As the stars which glisten

So deceptively close by

As the fat moon which sneers (peers)

From between ghostly branches

As the smile of the young girl

Picking Yellow flowers in a Blue dress

As a dripping ice lolly

In the Summer warm,

The thoughts of you flash by

Like searing lights leaving

Scars of hopeless wants

And a deep yearning

For home.

Geography

Back again.
The faces smile and wave
Acknowledge a friend
We're all sailors on this boat
Education,like it or not.

Different and yet
Familiar as home
The roads, that shop,
The juice bhaiyya,
The guy who tops up
My phone

The accent comes
Effortlessly
The intonations
The emphasis
The rolling of the "r"
Which is softly derided
At Home.

Distance is but a matter
Of miles-
But is geography
That bane of the Eight-grader
More than just a scaled map
Showing green nations
Divided
By thin strips of
Blue?

Or is it
An attitude.
Of now being
'Far away'?