Category: poetry

Best not Taken

Thud – will that how it will sound?
Breaking lazy monotony
Of a rainy evening
Ensuing a chaos

Miraculously
Things will be taken care of
Strangers will curse,
blame and pity
And so will
family, friends and colleagues

People who never paused
To listen or understand
Will dissect your being
For hours

Gaslighting the departed
Absolving themselves of guilt
Everyone will move on

Within a day or two or years
Presence of a life will be erased
Unloved life would be lost in vain

Is that all there is?

Pause and look up
Behold the bird
Soaring in the sky
Flying into the setting sun

Birth is never a choice
But when death seems at times
The trick definitely is to
Keep breathing

Wait for the moment to pass
Look beyond
Outside your window
There is a life that awaits
That wants you to live

Take the pain in stride
And marinate your life with it
The last desperate step
Will definitely be
The best not taken!!

Disbelief

We stare in disbelief
At life that slips away
Who knew just a breath
All that it takes to be alive

We stare in disbelief
At all the lives
Washed ashore 
Becoming nation's memories

We close our eyes in disbelief
When we cannot take it anymore
Confined in our safe homes
We turn into living ghosts 

We stare in disbelief 
As humanity fades away
We who love wars and winners
Are the tired vanquished lot 

We stare in disbelief
As leaders trade away our lives
And our deaths 
To build their empire of glory






Just Like a Driftwood

Don't behold me 
With contempt
Because I floated in
Just like a driftwood

I had a name
Born to someone
Isn't it enough
To qualify as a human?

Do not fear me
Do not hate my folks
Simply they couldn't afford
 - love, pyre or a grave 

They probably thought
Water should be my grave
Instead of fire or earth

River being the river
Did what it does best
Buoyed me back
Just like a driftwood  

I had love to give 
But there were no takers
In the land of hate 

River could have set me free
But it returned me to you
As a nameless corpse
To be counted among
The countless 

River will remember me
Even if you don't
This beloved river is
Our memorial!

#CovidDeaths

Waiting in the Dark

When will it be dawn?
I ask in desperation
Peering at the night sky
Stars too seem grim tonight

After the endless wait
There is a dim light
But, someone whispers
Hey, you missed the day!

What arrives is another dusk
Followed by the dark
Moonless night
Stars without their shine

Another endless wait
For the dawn
That never arrives
A dawn
That never arrives

Future

Fear looms large

Blurring both past

And future

Will we make it?

Random memories

Of a crowded bazar

Hot breakfast

A long trek

Memory of a comet

And night sky

Some dance steps

Old poem

All years melted

Away into tears

Music and laughter

Good friends

Gentle love

All locked away

Keys lost

Fear looms large

Palpable and real

But hey

Learn to look beyond

Seek beauty

And dreams

So many more

Moments yet to be lived

So many miles

Yet to be walked

There will be a future

A brand new one

Just like a new leaf

A place without fear

Just breathe in

And hang on….

Storm and Me

The storm has abated

Did what it can
Shattered my existence
Where do I begin?
How do I pick these pieces?
There is no ground
Under the feet
It’s all water
The roof over my head
Has blown off
Whatever I held close
Simply floated away
Some with water
Other with the wind
How do I get my life back?
How do I prove I am me?
How do I show?
Where my mud house stood?

It’s all gone
Either with water
Or with the wind
Did you hear howling winds?
Did you see the waves rise?
Those uprooted trees?
My uprooted life?
No, you wouldn’t notice
You were all locked in
Blind and deaf
Till they cleared it all
There is no sign left
Of howling winds
Of broken homes
Of my lost past
I too ask
Am I me?

amphan #cycloneamphan

Spin

What kind of a spin is it?
What goes around, does come around
Yet, its never the same!

Laws teach nothing is lost
Yet, much cannot be retrieved
The top is also below
A walk on the mobius strip

In a world so self-similar
Nothing is familiar
For – What is, is never,
What really it is!

What we know, is actually,
Only the depth of the unknown
And that bond also decides the drift

Stuck on a blue planet in a vast abyss
Where war literally is sold as peace
I wonder,
What kind of a spin is it?

Lost Humanity

Scavenging under the rubbles
She looked for humanity
It was yet another day of
Strategic bombing

They tried to flee in vain
From guns and grenades
And bombs
And landmines
And beastly men

Death was everywhere
In every form
It caught up with all
Even those who escaped these
Troubled shores

She kept scavenging for humanity
Under the rubbles
Of the wasteland
Many died
For the sake of few
Who wanted to live

It was a lost battle
Under the rubbles
She scavenged
For dead humanity