Category: poetry

Chains of Liberation

You ask “Why don’t you dance with joy?
There have been infinite invisible chains around my feet
I never knew that I was supposed to undo them one by one
I kept them all ‘as gifts’
I waited for some loving hands to undo them
I didn’t know I have to undo them myself
One day you came along
And laughed at me…
You reached down my feet
But ended up adding one more chain
Now I struggle to undo them one by one
Only one of them can’t be undone

It’s the ‘chain of liberation’
Which you gave me as a farewell gift!!!

Bare Foot Joy

Making, flying and chasing paper kites

Bare foot

Running across the crowded streets

They seem to soar just like the kites

Kite runners look happy

Across continents their joy is same

For the moment

They are free just like their kites

Riding on the lightness of the moment

They behold pure joy

The joy that eludes

The boy across the street

Sitting in the car

Staring through the glass window

He is a prisoner of luxuries

While poverty has set others free

They run like wind

Through narrow lanes

They hop across building roof tops

While the other stays glued

To the smart phone screen

Sun kissed

Blessed by the evening breeze

Our kite runners seize the moment!

Ah! the bare foot joy

That eludes the little boy!

Strange

Strange is the light that blinds

Strange is the light behind dark shadows

Strange is the joy that inflicts pain

Strange is the love that teaches to hate

Strange is the life that must end in death

Strange is the meaning that is absurd

Strange are the dreams that cannot be real

Strange is the reality that is a dream

Strange are the clouds that don’t bring rain

Strange is the regret that hides the pride

Strange are the journeys that never end

Strange are the words that defy the form

Strange are the doors that never open

Strange is the religion that robs the faith

Strange are the bridges that separate

Strange is the war that is fought for peace

Strange are the journeys that never end!

Juxtaposed

Man against man

Man against women

Women against women

Man against Nature

You against me

All of us are juxtaposed!

One defines other

One ends other

One begins other

On a dark night

We seek light

On a sunny day

We look for shade

Light and dark

Day and night

Love and war

Life and death

Juxtaposed!

Sad seeks joy

Happiness

Sadness

Juxtaposed!

Broken against

The Whole

Nothing can stand

On its own

It needs the other!!

You eliminate one

Other loses meaning

Yet the fight remains

Eternal!

Juxtaposed

One belittling the other

Forever!!

Other

Peasants will rise
They will sing
They will protest
They will take bullet
They will save democracy
While we will fret
And intellectualize!

Educated middle classes
Don’t you worry
These whom you ‘other’
Will save your jobs too
They don’t need you
But you do
To reap crops,
Cook your food
Cobble your shoes
Tailor your clothes,
Build your homes
Clean your homes
Toilets and cars too!!

After the revolution
They will still come
And assume their lowly jobs
While you will rot in your guilt
Or die with a foolish smug!
History textbooks will talk of them
But you will be mentioned
As the ‘other’ who let the system down!!

#saynotohate

Time

Time is wrapped
We move forward
But yet in circles

A new beginning
Another New Year
All dots
On the circles

Time is a trap
An endless wrap
Moving forward
Yet in circles

Histories repeat
Dictators return
But tyrant
Time
Beats them all

Let us not despair
No one colour or
One faith can
Rule Forever

Light refracts
Even through
The Prism of Religion
Into a Rainbow

All mighty forever
Will bite the dust
As children of soil
Will rise yet again

Time goes in circles
Some look ahead
Forgetting the wrap
Others who look behind
Fall in the trap

There is no way
Back into the womb
Only death awaits
Ahead

Time moves forward
While moving in circles
Maybe Sisyphus is happy
For he knows
The clock ticks…

Strange Imprints

As the night falls

I wonder what

Set the pace

Of Time

It moves

Freezes

Goes back

And forth

Yet always

Arrow of Time

Points always

Ahead

It circles

Around the

Life and Death

Beginning

And the End

I look at the stars

I look back

Millions of years

Wonder how do they

See our history

Unfolding

On a tiny

Blue Dot

Strange is the

Arrow of Time

Pointing into

Nowhere

Ticking away

Turning

Itself into ashes

Rising like a phoenix

Yet it always

Moves ahead

Stubbornly ahead

Leaving behind

Strange mute imprints

A sand dune there

Or a mountain here…

Silly Significance

With her chin-up
And chips down
With spring in her feet
She trots on the globe
Our blue dot
But she is not alone

There are billions of us
Totally lost
In the humongous mess
Of hundreds of imagined worlds
And faiths
And the great sense of propriety
All trying to be right
By proving others wrong

Kudos to us for
Throwing out the baby
– our sustenance
Along with the bath water

All self similar beings
Trying so hard
To advance their race
By killing each other
The sheer madness

We still love to imagine
And believe
It’s the sun that sets
Or rises for us
Instead of –
– that’s it’s we go
Around an axis
Downside up
And upside down
Along the elliptical

Planet doesn’t care
Whether it’s dinosaurs
Or only us
Neither does the Universe

Feeling all self-important
With bloated
or deflated egos
With the chin up
Or chips down
We continue to seek
our significance
In the grand cosmic
Insignificance

But does it have all to be
So dangerously silly?
by pitting imagined worlds
Imagined selves
And imagined gods
Against each other
And against Nature!