Lonely introspection

A TV running blank in the 

Empty house and the 

Incandescent bulb burning

Without purpose.

There's a stool. Two shoes,

That avoid eye contact.

An old telephone hanging

In the air by the spring-cord.

A man past his fifties has

Cut his face in half, holds it,

Like bowl of soup- to search 

Meaning of life with a spoon.

When the only conversation

All day has been a dry fart

In response to a cold sigh.

The loneliness like a-

Drop of sweat goes down

The trails of his spine to talk

To someone- only to get

Choked in the ass. 

Alas! Hips. 

Why can't you talk?

The Hand

My hand moves without

My cues like it has got a brain.

Its itch often hops on to scratch-

A compulsive habit of exploration.

It browses my back, brushes 

My hair. Reaches my groin,

Just check if everything is

Alright.

Duels with fingers of the 

Other hand, picks on the nails.

Sometimes reaches the foot

To dig into the toenails.

The pinky finger loves mining

It seems. A couple of times daily,

It has to dive in my ear to dig

Into the wax, which eventually-

Is rubbed off to the chair,

Wall, windowpane, or the table.

The other digits are no less.

The thumb and the forefinger,

Form an alliance to reach my nose,

Like a search party for missing 

Ammunition.

The booger that's found is rolled

Into a wad to be catapulted 

Towards the distal wall. 

And it coincidentally to hit,

A Housefly-

The entire species must have

Slipped into an illusion that 

They're on the movie sets of 

The director Rajamouli sir.

Lost Curiosity

The moon no longer
Follows me while I
Travel at night.
The rooms that lead
One from the other,
The curiosity is
Long gone and
These days, I don't
Get lost.

The trails on my
Palm, that often
Grew like a forest to
Build cities full of
Castles, chokes
Out of weariness.
Like the paper planes
Forgetting to fly.

Often not giving
What was asked,

Imagination like
Broken street lights-
Sulks in the confines
Of the blinders
Of the past and
These days I don't
Believe the fact
That I'm a spy from
The planet Mars.

Cat

My ex, she sneaks in,
Like a deceptive cat.
To pamper me and
Talk for a while.

With an emotional
Stirr of hopelessness.
I keep on asking her,
Why?

The conflict therein,
She lacking answers
To my questions.
My denial to face the
Reality- to hold back
Onto charred fantasies.
Which light up upon
Her instance.

This to and fro
Toxic communication,
In spurts.
Stretched well over
Three years.
Pervades my iron walls
Every time.

These days instead
Of shooing her all night.
I've decided to let
My rats bell the cat.

Though she makes
Noise. My rats know,
Where to hide.

Critics

I sit on the floor to
Mindlessly scribble.
The mosquitoes attack
Me like puny critics.

It's like a preventive
Attack by state agents,
To control supposed
Damage in the future.

Instead of putting my
Pen to work.
I keep flapping my
Notebook to crush
Them, between pages.

The blood splatter
And black pigment
Of the gut,
Smudge of their
Bodies..
Spread on paper-

Almost looks like
Unintended piece
Of painting.
Like modern art,
The meaning of which
Only the artist knows.

The abstract of it
Screaming, at me-
To take vows of
Silence and
Give up any form
Of expression.

But something in me
Waits for more colors to 

Draw better allegories.

And just then I see
A housefly come flying
Towards me.

Corporatization of a poem

The streetlights, 

Have replaced the place

Reserved for the moon
In my poems.

The gentle wind in the
Second-stanza had to be
Put to some use-
So the windmills been
Put up to generate 

A side income.

And in the groove of 

This verse you wanna 

Fall in-

The roads aren't tattered,
Reveries are marked
And named.
The question of getting
Lost had to be a
Guided miscalculation.

The straight trees are cut
To floor homes with
Safe bunkers-
The insecurities in
The penultimate stanza
Had to be eliminated.

The real estate boom
In the following stanzas-
The humble homes have
Been replaced by lonely
Apartment rooms.

The corporatization of 
This poem inflated the
Price per carpet area of
The words anyway.

So the predatory-loans
From China, that had

To be borrowed, are 
Gonna whisper Mandarin,
In the space between
These lines henceforth.

And if you're gonna put
Efforts to decipher
The metaphors,
You shall be called
A commie, to be put up
In a house arrest.

Helmet

To all my fellow bike riders,
Who have made an effort
To point out my poking,
Side stand.

Who, while coming from
The other side, warned
With passing glances,
The presence of the police.

The ones of help when
The tire was flat.
Gave a lift despite the
Trouble of a triple ride.

Even more to those who
Managed to hitch a ride,
By pushing it by one leg,
When petrol was out.

You guys deserve a
Place in heaven.
Like me who rode the
Bike without helmet.

Abandoned House

Door mats with no footsteps 

Laid for over a decade.
The thresholds deprived
Of the touch of any feet.

The doors that haven't
Lead anyone to any room.
The air, stuck in a corner,
Running out of breath.

The knives in the kitchen
Rusting away without the
Final taste of onions.
The taps, thirsty without-

The slake of water.
The furniture, with lost limbs,
The bells that refuse to sing
And the broken window sills.

Life is being eaten away
In this dust-laden slavery.
The half-life of this
Abandoned house is

Being measured by
Cobwebs, per square inch.

The audacity

The audacity of periwinkles

Growing up from the cracks
In the concrete walls.

The audacity of rats cutting,
The wires of ultrasonic repellent,
For the very purpose, it was brought.

The audacity of dogs barking,
Bulls openly mating and crows
Stealing rotis without our notice.

The audacity of the pigeon crossing,
The barbed wires to poop on
The fuelled up tanks.

The audacity of yourself in the
Mirror. The nation is in a crisis.
How dare you smile?

Whole

When I ride the bike,

At 60kmph in the rain,
I'm the head in the
Confinement of the
Helmet.

While I walk throwing
My steps against the
Blackness of the asphalt.
I'm the insignificant force
Per square feet.

As I hold this pen,
Trying to gather thoughts
To ram them against
This martyred sheet
Of trees..

I'm the illegible trace
Of the lines.

Coming up with heavy
Steps, tired.
Becoming the thud of
The door.
Spreading myself by
Becoming the bed.
Then the coldness of
The slow-rotating fan.

The mind goes numb,
The eyes slowly close.
The exquisite comfort of
The sleep invades-

Now, I'm anybody,
Everybody and nobody.
Only in the existential
Nothingness of slumber-

I'm complete. 

I'm whole.

Russian Chirps

All night he moans out

Of pain, my ailing father.

Then in the morning,

Stands in the backyard,

On his crippled leg..

Waiting for the 

Yellow-backed sparrows.

How he tells everyone

Who comes to meet him.

That the little ones

Visit him every September,

All the way from Russia.

He references his inference

To planetary motion and 

An ancient number theory.

But who cares from where

Or how they come right?

As he stands there 

Grappling with whatever

Life he is left with.

Forgetting pain with

A bag full of feed for

The migratory birds.

Maybe they talk to

Him in Russian.

Narrating the stories

Of Chekhov, Tolstoy 

Or Orwell.

For all the time he

Has served in the army,

Driving Russian tanks.

Even if he thinks,

This daily respite as

A therapy sanctioned

By Vladimir Putin.

There's nothing wrong.

Demise

In the final hour,

Her breath cracked like
An un-oiled machine,
Summoning strength to
Give it a final try.

Her eyes rolled around,
To look at whoever was
Present. Maybe she
Acknowledged everyone
One last time.

Then, I who sat, rubbing
Her right foot.
It suddenly turned cold.
When I saw her leg,
The otherwise brown-

Had turned yellow.
The kind of yellow,
You can't imagine but
When see, you know the
Horror of that paleness.

One of my aunts burst
Into a huge cry.
What was lingering in
Everyone's head was
A manifested reality.

The proper noun 

Grandma was, moments ago-
Laid there lifeless as
A body waiting to become
Fading memory.

On the third day when
The crows fed on the
Food offerings of Tithi,
It was as if a permission
Was granted to take her,

"Off our conscience."
So that we could comfortably
Push her to the realm
Of forgetfulness for the
Slow assault of time.

Surveillance

The wet stink of dog skin, 

Fresh ooze of crimson red,
Mixed in half-burnt soot
Of human hair.

The pitch dark of the
Night that hides the
Dry stare of imminent
Death.

The fear that creeps in
The thigh bones, the terror
Seeping into the nose
Through the thicked air.

Walking upright is an
Achievement.
Our Survival demands
Silence..

The bullets, as they hail
Detecting even a bit of
Louder thoughts.
Take these gags-

Suppress the muffling
Of those ideas.
We don't want you to
Die in this regime.

Heels

The pink sandals
With heels-

Every time I run down
The stairs.
There's something about
The pair.

The beauty, the curiosity,
The sheer deception
As they neatly sit there
Catching my eyes..

After weeks of 

This encounter-

A fantasy got around
The sight of them.
The imagery took shape
Of a fetishized face.

Then the fancy met,
The reality when,
My landlord's girl,
Opened the gate.

Ahh! The disappointment.

Never meet your idols
They say. The reality of a
Fantasy is often a
Disgrace.

Poet

The old photo frames,

With their tattered
Black and whites, still
Try to be relevant.

The fake plastic trees,
That sit in the showcase,
Mock the houseflies,
In an attempt to ooze life.

Dust ridden trophies
Looking down on the
Broken toys still seem
To be haughty and proud.

The dried flowers,
Stripped off of all fragrance,
Still peeking from the corner,
To lure the bees in vain.

And I'm sitting here,
Judging them all,
Trying to gather up all
Ill-fated words to prove..

That I'm a goddamn
Poet at last.

Best Letters

The words that hitch

A ride with the
Immediate simmer
Of thoughts.

Blown out from the
Rush of blood,
Illegibly traced on
Loose papers.

The words that readily
Manifest out of angst,
Without reasonable
Considerations.

The ones cursed
To brood in long drafts,
Often deprived of an
Address they're destined.

The best letters
Are often unsent.

Sometimes in closets,
Sometimes in bins and
In unopened envelopes..
The best letters are-

Often unread.

They linger in you,
Then in the air.
Then turn into shreds,
Of memories.

To live in you as a
After-taste of a
Long-lasting grief.

Sacked City

The empty jhulas swing back and forth,
Above the cold embers of half-doused fire.

The sunsets today seem to smother,
The whiteness of the lilies that want to be born.

The stony silence of the resolute men,
Melt away hopes of the little ones and

The grief of mothers pit against the
Distant peaks like wingless butterflies..
In an attempt to assuage the injured kids.

A vast expanse of dusk covers the torsos,
Searching for their severed heads and
The silence that covers is so terrible-

Even hyenas are shedding real tears for
Their inability to feed on the human Caracas.

And to the onslaught of plundering savages-
The God's beseech for forgiveness from the dead,
For not being able to carry out the final rites.

The dark is so deep, amidst the unlit pyres,
There might not be a dawn to the demised tale-

Of this midnight.

Apathy and Devotion

With the glut of prayers,
Temples are crowded.
The walls of the
Sanctum are tired.

The bells having worked,
Without respite, want to
Shed their weight,
On someone's shoulder.

But atheists are not
Allowed to be involved.

So every time, someone
Rings the bells to offer
Prayers to the lord-
Before they reach him,

They're being absorbed
By the walls.

Nauseated by the soot
Of the oil lamps,
The Lord hides in the dark,
Like a deaf commander-

In seek of rest from his
Seekers' relentless asks.

Intellectual Orgasam

As you unveil the face of

Another poem to me.

The warmth of opening lines, 

Hit me where they have to.

Your well-thought words

And metaphors, falling

In sync with my already,

Fired up dopamine.

As I'm through the

Third paragraph,

A sensuous little prick,

In my poetic mind and 

Frankly in all good intentions,

It's a little turn-on.

The symbolism, 

Evoking the memory of

Your beguiling smile.

The penta-tones,

Picturing your stout 

Bust and bosom..

While fondling with 

The softness of the philosophy,

The way it gets to the end.

It boggles me-

It boggles me but pardon

My language when I say-

How I want to fuck you,

From the back,

In that last paragraph.