From my new apartment.

Rain makers are far above
The muddy puddles unreachable too.
Stuck in the middle,
On the nineteenth floor.
People look like ants
In different shades and textures.
Homes are rectangular patches
In blues and greys.
Wind is the only element
That my fingertips feel,
Blowing chirply or violated ?
My home doesn't belong to the scape.
A tall something in the middle of nothing.
Hushed tails of passing by motors below,
Whispering, killed by the breeze.
Picked up and positioned
Earned well it seemed.
This altitude, this detachment,
This difference of a degree.
Men pretty and tall,
Ugly and short.
Big and small dots,
Dots in dots.
Is this the beauty
And the vision that god intended
I wonder ?

Homeland.

Return is rejoiced
I look down from my ride,

To marks and blotches of a civilization, mine.

Trashcans and people many,

Some painted yellow black motors,

And pedestrians dotted.

The potholes like cake dishes

Full with muddy batter.

Waiting to be baked in the sun

A thrill I’m experiencing,

A longing to get trapped in the traffic below

To inherit a muddy stain or two

To smell the sea

And the muck too, inevitably.

In that foreign land

How happy I felt

When I said

I’m from Bombay.

I missed you home,
And now Ill merge in you.

First Impressions.

Sun please stop,
Your show of suppression.

You make the sea angry.

The poor coast without a fault of its own

Is being lashed upon,

A sentence of beatings for a lifetime

Until the crust of the coast

It Crumbles.

And it shall still continue.

Winds, must you engage yourself?

In this juvenile fest.

Who runs the fiercest and the fastest?

The sun is just a provoker

Condemned to eternal burning

Irritated and jealous,

Of the peace prevailing on the lands.

He is the sly fellow, the mean one,

And so rightly punished.

You must not listen to him,  

Let the sea be still.

Pray the wind dies down.

Or you get bored while I write.       

And so I’m not forced to enter the sea.

I’m a shabby swimmer
And you my first date.

Mr Dimello from Colombo.

There is this old Mr Dimello ,

He lives at 5 Rosemead place, Colombo.

A place of tasteful decor in wood

Stone, glass and marble

All aged.

Big windows spilling in white

And faux on the columns -fake.

A contemporary colonial setting

Befitting his wise age.

His house is full of antiques,

Shells and loads of books.

Old faded pictures,

In greys and off whites,

Of his mom riding a pony,

His dad at the club,

Their first car the beetle,

And their third dog, shaine.

The rooms are four

And a suite- his mom and dad’s.

The east room is early,

Bright with dark colors.

The west room in whites,

Lively and bright,

Failing all expectations from its name.

But the north and the south,

Are pastel patches-

Somber and soothing.

The suite is a secret,

Probably with a wandering ghost

Locked shut after his moms demise

Where moths and spiders live rent-free.

An old Englishman,

Seemingly slow and mute,

Retired in a sea town so quaint,

His thousand stories, muffed.

A surprising national capital

No rush no hush,

The laughter is loud,

And courtesy spills,

The dirt contained,

And a prevailing charm.

Dimello the army man,

Today in his chair,

A rather comfortable looking thing,

Looks around and fidget a bit

He thinks and then he gnaws,

On The end of his old specs wise.

The pretty resemblance of his self

And the city in which he resides.

Then he goes back to his routine,

Re-reading books and watering orchids,
And staying invisible in his large mansion.

Pleading.

And what are you looking at mister ?
You can have what you see,
I just want something in return now.
But how will you, in your uninviting posture,
And your careless luggage
Give me what I demand ?
You are all igniting and covered,
In a game of barter.
Hurry, only three stations left now
And the people few.
Visibility now easily piercing
Through legs and crotches.
Drifting to the farthest end of the coach.
All movements and hands easily tracable.
Give to me what I want.
For I let so many pass
So many who came that close.
Im being practical now.
Mark me and give me a hasty memory
Or an embossed impression atleast.
Relate to me and hear me right
Come to me.
I order.
I plead.

Pain Constant.

In love the sky told fables
In tattered chalky clouds
In love the lake resonated
In ripples far and loud
In love there were the butterflies
And in love the rains.
In love the treasured rainbows
And in love the pains.

 

Without love the sky all sallow
And the lake a dead kill.
No butterflies dance the love song trance
Only the boring moths still.
No love and the rain it pinches
And urges you to cry
The rainbows all forgotten
And pains proclaim the cry.

Pain forever accompanying
The happy and the weak
Pain the only constant
In solitude and in the beat.
Pain, O pain, the virtuous
The greatest friend there ever will be.
Id never wish for love or hate,
And shall only summon for thee.

The Compromise.

The atmosphere of love.
The revolution of the sane.
You have been summoned
By my entire being.
You have been evoked
By my every hair strand.
You pour desire,
From your every inch.
Wrapped on your skin,edge to edge
And an inch deep.
Resistance today is a failed institution.
I feel lost and wandered.
Hallucinating caravan of thirsty men.
In spirit and soul
And body.
Im not trained in words, fancy
And artistic love and expression.
I do not understand
These dabs of reds, and streaks pink
The abstraction, so subjective.
Give me what I ask of you directly
Your body.
Make me feel wanted.
Give me a prose.
In this famine and drought,
Even you shall do again today.

My Own.

These are not the shadows
Of the things that have been won,
These are but the residues
Of real people and things that survived.
Shapes dark and light
Defined and blurry
Pinching and comforting
Some friends and foes
Some wasted partners
Seconds of ecstasy
Hours of repentance
The forgery of emotions
Forced pity and sympathies.
The truth that killed
The marks that burned deep.
Its a fable worth trashing
In coats of fur and fawn
My story, my pain,my misery
Non moving and mediocre
Its all that I have.