Oil Fields

What do all these words yeild, except the oil of longing

Buried in the annals of all the times we were in love

A poetry of sadness is akin to an offshore oil rig

Standing tall against the unforgiving storms of peril

Yet each verse I spin is sapping the black gold from the hearth of it all

Only to burn my soul further, kindling its pain and unease

If you knew it, you would feel its heat, empathize and be hurt

So I mask these verses in unintelligible words and metaphors

You could gloss over these, cast it into the sea of your 'un-wanting to knows'

I wouldn't fret, for the poems have no need of acknowledgement, not from you or else

But I would be mindful to thank you, above the others

They couldn't have breached the walls I had  built around myself

There have been a multitude of poems, at best a barrage of them

Most scribed around the feels of your mind numbing parting, or waywardness

Here I go again into the mindless seas of impeccable self harm

Drilling for more, and harming my self

Mounds of Eraser dust

I have tried to draw mountains and clouds, yet they look like your eyes

The valleys look like your lips parting in gentle words, in hues of maroon and reds

The river ends up rendered in raging untamed desires

The birds become your eyebrows, and seem to fly away

As the meandering roads go uphill, they seem like your gentle furrows

Of that smile that has lit up my days like a winter sun

Dawning on me, warming me to melt the coldness of my heart

That has frozen by the absence of your eyelashes on my cheeks

In trying to embrace this void of your absolute missing

I felt the sheets I draw on shall find me solace, I have tried

Yet each time I draw, it all becomes your face

I now sink in the dust of those countless erasers I have used to remediate

Meeting between the heart, the mind,the body, and the soul

"I have an interesting proposition", my heart says

The mind in its logical responses states "Oh Shut up"

The heart pleads further to speak, but the mind belittles it

I intervene as an arbiter, letting it speak 

"What if you remake me in wax?",  Said the heart in jest

The mind usually in quick dismissal is now in intrigue

"What difference would that make, dear dear heart? It asks

I am curious too and ask it to clarify this matter

"Hey, if I broke, you could melt me and recast," it said

"Then, you will feel I am renewed at pathos", it adds

The mind chimes in agreement with "Hey, that makes sense to me"

I ponder on the possibilities, almost daydream

The mind now made up, eggs me

The heart is now in tow to push for this remolding 

At this, I ask my soul 

    "Hey, what if you burn, wouldn't it be a conflagration?

The soul pauses a moment and asks for a few moments

"Well folks God forbid, if I should burn 

    The wax would feed my flames" the soul spoke morosely

The mind wanting to do nothing with this said 'I'm out"

The heart asserts "I am ready to face that for love"

I as the arbiter promptly prompt 

    "well the soot would make for great Kohl in someone's eyes

The mind is at odds and beyond pacification

The heart seems to run in glee over this acceptance

The soul is tangled for it knows this to be a terrible idea

I ease them saying "We could always write poetry after" 

What could I write anymore

Here we are at the same impasse, dear words

You rush in, yet you don't form orderly sentences

The mind doesn't want to order you into a marching

And I as a writer want to try and write on this too

Yet when the three of us are in such a predicament

How will any poetry arise from this at all, right there, that thought

How fanciful it seems, to write about having the inability to

So here is another spin on words, singing some looming meaning

I wanted to write about love, absence, the curdling feeling of pain

But these are written about so often, so much too

At this juncture I have felt it all, felt it over and again , become friends

Become an acquaintance to my own self, where I was once a lover

If you or anyone for that matter should chance upon this

Know full well that this is not a lament, but a woeful sigh

Of wanting to have been something akin to those bright stars

That shine on your heart in the nights, to soothe and ease

Equating to Abstracts

It will be morning soon, in another three odd hours

I shall boil the ground coffee beans, and make coffee, I hate coffee

I love tea, but tea hurts me like your void does

Quite the stress, double the anxiety, quadruple the Sadness

Scaling to heights, like a swift Sherpa hopping on a rocky trail

But it is a Saturday, there would be a lack of peace and quiet

I know so, for I seem to live in a sanitorium 

Institutionalized, amidst those who abhor niceties

One after another the absolute ghastly disarray

Compels me to fly, off the balcony like an escaping bird

I have sent many hollers, none resonated in this void, not her either

We both are teeming with passion, me towards and she away from

Such an anti Confluence, isn't the first 

I know the exactment of this sombre dullard ballad

I don't need a coroner, don't dig up the entrails of this love asphyxiated

Shiny Shiny Coins

Life, scattered in the world

Like a handful of coins dropped on the table

at a gambler's den

Drawing cards, posing as queens and kings

The aces stand distinct, yet only four

The joker still trumps all, how precise

Maybe it is what it has always meant

These rolling coins, they fall into the least accessible corners

Post winning them, one may need to search

That is too much of toil, far too much 

I refuse to slide my hand beneath old immovable shelves

What lies there! Who knows, mostly dirt and grime

Laced with previous winner's curses of the  inaccessible

I like my coins shiny, I hate those worn out ones

They have equal value, but they reek of  gambling habits

I hate gambling, I don't play cards either

Somedays I cry

I seek love, 

Only to find hate

I laugh at this plight

What was anger, 

    Has now become anguish

I live morose

In remorse, of disdain 

I promise to shield

Only to cry again

Somedays, I cry

I rather blame whoever hesitates first

Desolate and dreary, the opulence of misery

Gently loud, are the foot steps of a coming end

How much I seek the absolution of mirth

In shambles of what you laud as longing

Such uncouth is this stifling tomfoolery of love

You attribute so much to this farcical show

Each time I have hid from my could be lovers

I have remained undivided, how unlike now

When I pen words now, post intermittent ponderings

All it reeks is of your prolific abusive absence

Like drops from a sliced lime, leaching my counter top

Leaving it scarred, disfigured, prominently eroded

I fret not for those that find love, stay in so

No one does, for love is just substituted dementia

So I curse Madana,his bow and curse the mango flower too

For there was no need for this subterfuge  

The Client Security Manager's Ballad

Miles and miles of words lay spread out before him

His eyes seek what most seem to have overlooked

His mind is in a trance, of fact finding from  frivolousness

They are just random, yet they say so much

There is one that speaks of a misstep 

There is one that reeks of imminent horror

There is this oddity of what is to be confined

Yet someone has left a door open

He has no peace, till he finds every bolt

He will not cease until each lock is just that

He will dig his heels to bring about serenity

Amongst what should be process, what is insanity

Such is the life of the one who searches vulnerabilities

In systems and people, those that act as guards

Such is the life I love and live each day

From Risk mitigation, to compliance throughout

Star Fruits are Sour, but so gentle

I had been told a star fruit is sour, and when green

I have seen lightly yellowed ones, slightly sour too

Yet the fragrance upon biting into one

If only to be felt, not spoken of

The crunch of its fleshy insides, ah! The sound

Then the gentle whiffs of some flowers, unknown beautiful ones

And as the gentle sourness , seeps down the throat

You feel a union of tastes and feeling

I equate it to a beautiful morning 

Of summer, of hills, misty, and a gurgling spring

The simile of this fruit renders itself all too well

To those who see with their tongue and smell

The star fruit is aptly named, but different for each

To most the shape makes up for it's name

To me, ah the rush of its gentle hints of freshness

Is like a clear sky, in a moonless night

Hey There

I know you are struggling my friend, I think I know you

For it's been ages since we spoke, ages since we exchanged words

It must be difficult, to be amongst those that seek from you

It must be equally difficult for you to find yourself 

You and I have met at the crux of it all, have known us

We have found the peace of knowing, we have touched

We have felt the ramblings, the lull of our absences too

Knowing that, I have missed you, you may have missed me too

Since the past few, yet so many sunsets and rising 

I have wished to be reached out to, I have tried, often, to no end

I seek solace in knowing you are well, knowing you are in flight

I will wait at the sidelines, eager to witness your arrival

Ramble in the bed

What say, my heart? Does the day seem worth the waking?

What if it is another waste of a good nap time?

Such are my Ponderings

Between a frail wake, and my sleep overcasting 

But then the day summons my presence, my deeds are in need

I could lie in bed, lie to my self, think of dreaming

Only to find my sleep fade, recede, with the sun's glaring

Why should I, what is my purpose to? Too?

I could while away my time, think of a poem

Maybe showcase it, act like a show-off

At the end none of those questions matter

I could think they did, but the truth is they don't

The brain wants a coffee, the stomach it's supper

The evening is upon me, brunch time is past

The birds have flown back, the sky is in a red cast

Soon the moon shall rise, bring forth its fakery

Many a hearts have lived under its bright misery

I have denied it the pleasure of my undoing

My errors of judgement, my callousness even

I repent nothing, I am at peace

So maybe tomorrow, I will catch the morning breeze

Snakes in the Backyard

We have snakes in our backyard, hissy ones

Beautiful, stout, really bulky, lazy buggers

Diamond patterned and there is that beautiful golden

Hood, no spectacles, but quite a long one

Often when I lie on my hammock

In the warm nights under the gentle moon

I hear the slither, I hear the leaves rattle, the nights feel alive

I have often been bitten, yet never poisoned, how unlike

Snakes that go by Russell's names have a bad reputation

Why last week when the diamond back bit

I looked back at its eyes, and it seemed so gentle

It withdrew its fangs, and slithered back slightly

As if it's bite borrowed some of my pain

Gentle creatures, so purposefully birthed

Knowing when to kill, when to pacify

Unlike those snakes, they speak of love

Then walk about, spewing venomous words

Pain

When you stub your toe, in the middle of the night

Parched and anxious, in the absolute darkness

You equate the pain to a sudden fall

Like a thud, it hurts like a dropped rock

The tiny pinch, feels like an ant bite

The graze has the texture of a sandy beach

A pinch due to the closing door like a tearing cloth

A prick of a needle is akin to pushing a wall

The heart is better off in pain

Yet the pain I fear most is in my belly

It is an unknown, ambiguous, profound

Nothing to remedy, nothing to soothe

The pain of love is such a belly ache

Everything hurts, you just don't know what

Rabi Sunflowers

Amongst yellow fields, Glancing 

At those brightly bloomed Rabi sunflowers

She knows this winter will pass

When though! she sighs

At best this could, not

Yet she knows,

this time will go, for a better

She will be out by the fields, 

mid-harvest, ponder

Oil or seed, 

Roasted or feed

Then pick and choose, 

Or maybe balance

Recount the winter, harsh and cold

That had tried to curb, 

The promises these flowers hold

Then smile, hold a still yellow flower

Give it a few days, let it live by

Revisit and claim, its purposeful end

When though! she sighs

At best this could worst it won't.

An analysis of the poem

The poem "Rabi Sunflowers" is about a woman who is looking at a field of Rabi sunflowers during the winter. She knows that the winter will pass, but she is unsure when. She wonders about the future of the sunflowers, whether they will be used for oil or seed, roasted or fed to animals. She also wonders about her own future, and whether or not the promises she holds dear will come to fruition.

The poem is full of imagery and symbolism. The Rabi sunflowers represent hope and resilience, while the winter represents the challenges and obstacles that Divya faces. The poem also explores the themes of time, choice, and fate.

Criticism of "Rabi Sunflowers"

The poem is well-written and evokes a strong emotional response in the reader. The imagery is vivid and the symbolism is complex. The poem also explores important themes in a thoughtful and nuanced way.

One possible criticism of the poem is that it is somewhat vague and open to interpretation. The reader is not sure what happens to the Rabi sunflowers in the end, or what Divya's future holds. This could be seen as a weakness, but it could also be seen as a strength, as it allows the reader to reflect on the poem's themes in their own way.

Another possible criticism of the poem is that it is a bit melancholic. Divya is clearly worried about the future, and the poem does not offer a clear resolution to her anxiety. However, it is important to note that the poem is not meant to be a happy ending. It is simply a realistic depiction of life, with its challenges and uncertainties.

Nurturing My Woes

Oh! But to ravage, never to ease

In sudden surges, this wretched disease

The haunting memories rile my peace

Cemented and entrenched, is your soulful absence

In the parthogenesis of my pain and love

I have birthed countless torments, nursed them

Helped by your ever-present aversions

Of my reaching out, for words or sight

Then again, there is not you to blame

Even at it, you cannot be acquired 

For in moments where I seek a release

I have become you, in your craving

To Didi

Hey Didi, defocus 

The incident rays don't merge on its reflection

If it does, it only nullifies

Ponder upon the mind, not into

A third person's perogative defines thoughts

Be your third, for in first you sway and swirl

See yourself in the rising tides of the seas

Reach out to the extents of your reach

At that the words shall be further distilled

What remains is the solvent of your mind

Separated from the chaos of all the muddies

In thoughts sans the gradient

Au Revoir

I have sent off enough invites, some outright rejected, a few declined

A few accepted, a few were not home so were undelivered 

To those in acceptance and have read , please be there by the evening

I have penned, the fires, and the mires as my swan song

I need a lyrist, a flautist, a marimbist, leave the choir, I am in solo

As we approach the oranging dusk, I shall take stage by the banks

I have worn my favourite attire, overalls of my own verses of you, in prints

It could be unreadable from far, they are those read ones, just know

At the first tick of Seven, on the summer solstice this upcoming evening

I shall sing a song of her, to begin with, a fairly long one, of five minutes

Further to be followed by a minute of parting verses, strung in grand agony, 

I have a good lyrist I hope! to strum the agony just as deep

At the approach of the seventh minute, you shall hear a confession, another five minuter 

I could take requests too, I have been a bard of my own misadventures, but not this time

As the dimming lights reflect on my final unblinking,

I shall sing a gentle verse

Post which, I sing my final good bye, bidding a thank you to all those who arrived.

amongst the sand dunes

I had walked long and was parched

The desert had walked in my shoes

I had walked through it's heart

Under the gentle moon, and the unforgiving sun

I had walked through dawn, dusk, and dark

I could have died, had I been alone

For these are unforgiving lands, I've been told

You held my sight, you steeled my nerves

Always walking, often running on dunes

Keeping ahead, only a few steps apart

At the end of it all, I found myself arrived

I gathered the sand from my shoes in your old kerchief

I melted it myself and made it into a glass

Now as I drink from it, I miss your mirage.

Incessant Ponderings

Where have we found ourselves now,

Is a question I could ask,

                But to whom?

                Can’t be you!

                Neither me.

At the fleeting fragrance of percieved normalcy, 

I ask

                Is it madness?

                insanity!

                Neither of those.

Let me lie to myself, like you do, 

And to all those who fake love

                I am alive.

                Or am I?

                How!

Then there are other musings

And moments of morose rhymes

                Ah!

                How?

                No.

As much as I have held my heart to contempt

you put me there

                Really?

                Me!

                Yes.

The Eighth Day

I remember Sundays

Ah! Those mornings with muscular pain

The aftermath of a beautiful Saturday

When we would be forge and flame, inseparable

Fridays would breed anticipation

Our anxious hearts awaiting the day's end

In our exchanges of gentle naughtiness

Of the long week that passed by fore

Thursdays were the raging currents

In passionate Longings, amidst rattled conversations

Hiding our eyes, as we exchanged our words

In the shys of our worded embrace

Wednesday would be the utter tyrant

When neither you nor me, would be at ease

In the muddle of the longing, love, and lust

You would sometimes wander away

Tuesdays were an absolute bane

Worldly tangles, driving us insane

I would light up a smoke, wish for your touch

Pacify myself in the utter dismay

Mondays were pure Mundane

I have often felt like drift wood at sea

Dead to the core, in our abrupt parting

Praying for god speed arrival of another Saturday

I shouldn't rattle, those fond nights

Between now and then, 

I see not much of a difference

Except the passing of time and age

Nothing has altered my mind in love

     Then you strayed, 

     Now you stray again

Yet, I was held in utter deep contempt

I consider it a gift

For I know it is what I would always get

In your search for an exact altruistic inverse

    You riddled my soul, 

    Rid me of the love 

    I held for the self

And all I have now are memories of your cherry red lips

   They lied so much,  

    To me then,

    To yourself now

Yet I so solemnly yearn, 

to drown in those sounds, 

lies be it, 

yet in your voice

Like a loom they spin so many tales

They hurt, Only me

So I reach out,in intermittence

Yet knowing it can, and only you can, 

As the sun set last eve

When you spoke to me last

You now know, I have had love, absolute, unfathomable

So for such I shall bind, and let you be 

be in peace as you wish, 

I shall not intrude, and reduce myself, 

At best to be an acquaintance

This way for love

There at Bertrand Russell's thoughts

Where logic and expression reigns supreme

Neither me nor my thoughts dare walk

I tread into Plato's effervescent ideology

It is a grave mental disease, this love

And it rhymes not in the lights of reason

In the volumes of verses from poets

The only visible streak is of chaos

I woke up, half past that

Between love and the kindling of words

What better than to be disproportionate

To love more than anyone could you

As the gentle moon of realization dawns

Brings forth the dark spaces between stars

I find my self adrift on stormy seas of lone

Alone, but not in loneliness from your thoughts

The fleeting time

Time is always fleeting 

Yet there is always its binding blinding

Tugging us away each moment

When we want to be amongst

At most, what i could do is wait

Wishing that time is kind to my yearning

Of a momentary conversation, to chance upon

When you and I weave us into it's threads

It seems another interval has come forth

Between our desire to speak, or hear

So at best is to bid, while in wait

For another chance to melt into words

The ink of words, yours, and of ones to you 

Is as fresh as the first star that shone bright

So is the fragrant anticipation of my desire

That rises, arousing my mind and ears

Wood Finish

The table is littered with scratches,and swatches of paint

I have often yelled at your callous treatment of it

You have wandered off into the woods, to paint

After painting one at my walls

I could use the turpentine and varnish you have stored below

And maybe use some of your colours to breathe life back

To the beaten surface, how much I miss its sheen, 

All it looks like is a marred memory of you without

What else would I do on a Sunday, I could ask

Than to mend all of these random anachronisms

I neither have no will, nor want, to discard

The reticent desire of wanting to hear you call my name

This table has known my name, often in your muffled voices

I could cast your teeth in plaster, from its edges

I want to also treasure those claw marks under

To remind me of times, of lust and love, of burning and consuming

The lifeline of Mumbai

I remember our walks, post work

Of mundane conversations and random ramblings

Amongst the ferry of unimagnative public buses, red and yellow

Plying people home from a work day

Some days you would alight off one

Other days you would board one, post meet

I have seen each bus with a different view

Love for the bringing, care for the leaver

When you arrived, you would have complaints

Of the tardiness, and the non cooperative fellow travellers

And then smile, planting a kiss, smelling of sweat and a day's work

They smelled like the rain, on a desert of your wait

I often have wondered, if the buses can ever feel my soul

For they brought me what a million Gods couldn't

They even took you back, safe and sound

I have for them often felt a debt of gratitude

The C42 brought me closer, the 494LTD would ferry you home

Sometimes it was the yellow and black cabs

I have often travelled those roads, stood at those places

Where you and I have breathed each other

Slumber amongst the flowers

I long to lie, in a field of lavender

I have heard often of how they smell

Kaas, why don't you go to Kaas? They said

I wish I could,

I refrain from answering why, on the off chance of pity

I need not that from someone, but my trigger finger is itchy

Sadly, the itch in it would transfer to my throat

I love flowers, yet my lungs are afraid of them

For my lovely, cuddly Rhinitis, visits me amongst flowers

A gentle whiff, so generic for most, often under appreciated too

Would be tantalizing to my mind and soul

Yet my mortal shell has a different mind

One day I shall lie down, smell those purple flowers

Then I shall not struggle for breath

And merge into their very soul

And such is the apathy of the self

Oh dear! What has transpired, in god's name has

The mind draws a blank, am lost in the thoughtlessness of absent verses

Like a river perennial, called so even late summers

Could I be called a poet, if I undergo a dry spell

I have always been ready, ready to scribble, and discard

But I have always had words, I always had you my dear words

This ungodly hour, of sudden gloomy Mumbai winter

I struggle to express, yet the mind seems to be in sonnets of voids

This void, unlike her absence, are a void of will

The sheer impasse, I am at between expressing and feeling

What would I an introvert do,  yes I know now I was

I have long yanked at her, that, it, this, them to help me feel

Today there is neither sun, nor any of those pronouns 

I feel as alone as the time I may have felt

Conceived, growing unwilling, awaiting my destitution 

Only to be cast out, by sheer force

To face further rejection, like from my mother's womb

Prominence

My fear, oh! My fear darling, you are the sun

When I float into the endless space, of my thoroughfare

you bite my heels, feeding me spoons of you, breaking my will,

Creating this frightening obesity

weighing me down, Stilling my wanderings

If I hide being a planet to self-distract, you cast a shadow on me

Asserting your arrogant might, laughing at my futility, mocking me

And when I transverse in its orbit ,Hiding my face,

locked at LaGrange

You scorch and freeze, tormenting me

The farther I try to run, the farther you can reach

I am locked in your pull, of bequeath punishing

Sweeping me in your winds, altering my existence

In your magnanimous megalomania,

Deconstructing me

 

Oh! fear darling, I have learnt,

There is no escaping you, nor is there such need

I shall float to you by myself, Bind myself at your orbit

Reimagine us as inseparable lovers

Spread my solar panels and empower me

Seeing Scents

This morning, at first light

I sat beside, feeling your breath on my wrist

Fluttering my desire, misting my watch

It felt like dew, on a warm winter morning

Every pore of me wanted you

To be touched in the warmth of your exhales

But I waited to bask, in the gentle glow of you

As the dawning sun light bounced of your skin

I whispered in my mind, for i was afraid

you could maybe hear, When my mind spoke aloud, and wake

Then I would miss, how a scent could be scene

If I had to explain, let me just say

Your appearance is what Golden Magnolias smell like

There is More

I have learnt to accommodate, travesty 

For often those we share confines with

  Hold back,

      For fear

      Unfamiliarity

      Nefarious too

It is not a gripe, I have held to, to each their own

Often you in our beautiful chance, willful meetings too

Have often been at war, with me, with them, with him at times

  Held back

        For present

        Substitution

        Anger

I have learnt to face adversity, of such musings

They were never far or few, persistent

Often nonchalant, with me, sometimes by me

In those moments I have learnt acceptance

  Learnt restraint

        For love

        Time

        Passion

In all my thoughts of you, gone and new

I have only found thankfulness

As reticent that I have been with rest

My heart was in admiration, adoration

   You left

       Admonished me

       Acceptable

       Yet Hemlock'ish

Yet, I have learnt, learnt to let be, what wants to

Love is, a dutiful teacher, mine a war general

As we spoke today, I offer my gratitude, wishes

   Go find

      Love

      Gentleness

      Madness      

Like I have forever with you, I learn more each day

On what and how, of then and now

Sans your blinks, that reminded me of passing time

I have learnt to accept all,

   except me

 

  

Well, that happens

Columbian coffee versus Chenin Blanc

Intellect versus Morose mooring

Neither would a poet debate

For either are a lovers dare

In the gentle wind of the dying fall

Where upon the leaves bid sad goodbyes

What do you seek to find

Wait a while, for it brings only winter

Winter muse, winter muse

Says the poet blinded by snow then

Neither fresh nor in a moody sway

Crushed together, in puddles of feels

Writing unbirdled verses of tame

Like those that have been, like the other poets I know

I sip from no cup, nor drink aged purple teardrops

I find my musings in beautiful despair

In her lovely eyes, and gentle dark hair

Not yesterday for sure

Who in their sane mind, who at all

Would dip their toes in the river, before noon

I have often tried, yesterday, today too indeed,

  I am but a lunatic

Looking for trouble, creating situations to pen

I distinctly remember, that gentle glide

Subsurface, the poking of this reptilian wanderer

It glistened beautifully, vanished quick

I tempted it with my feet, dipping my toes

I waited for it to swim forward, my way

It did for a brief moment, then hid below

Suddenly to surface right beneath, staring at me

Questioning my lunacy

It is but a wild beast, What reasoning is it's demand

It floated half way, without a blink

I reached out, as if wanting to be bit

It rejected my advances, my needy advances

What sense does it make, mother nature I asked

When even those that think by their hunger, turn me away

I realized this was where I used to sit

It was not yesterday though, but a few centuries ago

Paint the air Red, spray some alcohol

What is war, who knows, it can't be just battlefields

It could be words, taunts, silence, or all of it, in chain

You could bleed, not in literal, but from the heart, maybe soul

Yet if it hasn't killed you, most would not think it was a war

I keep my words in check, polish them,to gleam

They cut through the stuffy air, often surrounding me, 

It could be of ambiguity, even of desperation

And if lovers are not at war, who is

Aren't the soldiers much like lovers

Standing their grounds in uncertainties, for a wayward slash, a hail of bullets

One may not hear a rumble of tanks, but the rumble of absence, is as deafening

I have long heard it, to know

Now it is nothing less that an orchestra, in the backdrop

Fronted by a waving stick, the mind at best is the worst conductor

So the next time you bleed, check and heal, 

Scrape the dead skin, and set foot on new grounds

Look around, find those that you wish well towards

In a war, you are not the only one to be in torment

Hey, colour pencils? Maybe

Do you have colour pencils? Was an odd question

I couldn't remember if I had ever gifted those, for the life of me

Now that I wanted to send over a book, mandalas, complex and intricate

Like I would get an answer, let alone the gift be accepted

It was hours ago, that I asked, before my slumber

Post medication

When I woke up an hour back, it was odd

Like a train had hit me, runaway, cold and out of whack

Yet I had no answer, only an assumption of thought

If my question was even heard, or read

These notes that I send, they are oddly anticlimactic

Yet they seem strangely to invoke verses, some of grandiose, some generic black tea

 Nothing would make sense, if one would try to chance upon them

I wouldn't, either, be met, or spoken to some days

I have long known my notes, verses, or chatter

Doesn't ring a bell with those who matter

Role Switching

I have long not known, what I have been

Nothing less than an emotional leech

Feeding my self with the blood and tears

Of those whom I lend an ear, and hand

Maybe a better choice would be of a Bar Keep

Serving ale, wine, frothing and fizz

Then the outcomes of such stories

Would be an intoxicated, forgetful town drunk

Let alone me, my verses have turned many

From joyous Overtures, to miserable sleep

Maybe I have become my love, not you, it's the feel

To torment the self only to come back at me

What verses does a poet breed

Chaos seems to orderly be

Like seagulls fleeting the clear blue seas

I seem to be awash with paranoia

Petrified , post Pompeii, awaiting sleep

Synonyms or metaphors, are just pragmatic

Tones and demeanor are seldom seen

In verses that I spin, day in, day out

They seem to drift towards your neglect

Maybe the time could be turned, a tide too

Another instance, another dimension, another us

Yet The other me would be as profound

To love and be rejected, as right now

So I raise my glass, blow a kiss in your name, Spill some wine, Stain my shirt, 

A few blotches, indeed they would stay

Serving so well to forever remind

The day I knew, I can only love and fail

Ah Feby, My dear friend

hmm. needs a bit tightening as it is it reads like a confession poem

It seems, does it not, what more should it

For all these words and overtunes

Are nothing but a conjuring, of a mind gone awry 

And then you could ask, why Ritesh? Where has the will gone

It may seem trivial, aren't poets in love, or love that makes them 

And you would wonder, what makes me write, to your responses

Then to me, you could utter of how many changes I could make

Yet for all that, it is water under the bridge

Yet we keep at this constance 

Your feedback, my wilful deflection

Like deciduous trees, dropping leaves pre winter

Littering the ground, in its browning fall

There seems to be no end to any of this at all

So then Feby, tell me by brother

How else would I scribble, how else would I expunge

what is percieved normalcy, what really isn't?

I would be back at my pen, heart, penning my heart out

And you would pen a feedback, I would verse it too

Pondering in the Lost

I often ask myself

What more should, or could I endure

Often the answers are a few verses

Penned in the colours of my love, disdain

If the breathlessness wasn't enough, as if

To want to not breathe is the undercurrent

And floating above is my shell nursing

Catching a breath, each absent of your scent

Why must I endure, persistently, why me?

When I could close my eyes and fade

Should I, but then I couldn't remember you

So the next best is the night

To sit in the darkness of my solitudal calm

What could my heart have been 

What more should it have

Other than to be lost in thoughts you forsake

It sounds like a lament, yet it is not

A soldier goes to war, not to die there of

Nor does the rain seek patronage of lovers

They all do what the universe intends

So I question myself again

What more could I, what more should I endure

For in your arms is the dilation of time

When passed with, I shall know you

When passed without, I would become you

Jungle Safari

In the jungle rivers of my mind

Your memories are red bellied piranhas

In schools, devouring flesh from the bone

Safer than you, devouring my will from my soul

I often swim in these rivers

For they tickle and hurt

Letting the mind bleed in trickle

And no one to nurse the wounds

Not even your caress

I miss the farcical gentleness 

Your finger tips bring

Once the river runs red and slush

I fish at the edge, of this chumming

Hoping to catch one random thought

Feed my self with this grizzly love

my Inhaler

Budesonide, budesonide

What do you want tonight

Let me fill my lungs with your mist

And breathe, for my alveolis are in spite

Then when they ease and yeild

I shall try to find my sleep

Only to know, my legs won't see

How much time i have spent in lost sleep

They would want to wander

Uncontrolled, burdened, without a care

Parting my eyelids, like the Red sea

Only there is no Moses to cross them

To close

Ah my love, welcome you have arrived

My darling nemesis, my restless leg syndrome

At port

If for sudden lapse of reason

I utter a word of old wounds, fret not

They are not of a grudge, but of my cherishing

For they remind me of my vulnerability

In your gentle hands, that could breach ships

How your voice and sight melts my will

Like the hearth of the earth, mushing rocks

Burning away all that stands, 

Only to let it begin anew, such ferocity, such flame

And I remember those days over and again

Never would an ounce of my thought wander

Into the halls of wicked curses

They could for most, yet they are beseeched by love

For you, but dear love, my love is

Like a falcon's egg, frozen in winter

Never to open, erupt wings, soar on the blues

I float on the good times, to forget my mortality

I use the old hurt, to remind me of it

Into the soul, let me run

Ah! The mirror reflects Turquoise and Amber

A hue of red sequin, satin, of your worn

Did you hang them, for me to see

While you moan, cackle, glee, in ecstasy

It could torment me, I could be jealous too

But I hear your laughs in indecent utterings

It only seems to put me at ease

Of someone's touch, sparkling your eyes

Bringing forth stars, as your eyelids close,

Momentarily

Who is to say, who is to know

I have known the pleasures your flesh brings

I have wanted more, to merge our minds, burn

Was that anything less than extraordinary

In the scent of your exhales, like Persian oudh

Burning in the flame of our shared love and lust

I have smelt it, breathed it in, exhilarated in

Floated to lands far off, in conjugal symphony

I wish him well, even if he could feel it,

Momentarily

The bright end of a day, and many

I wished for me, if not me, then him at least

So that he may find, the stars in your breath

The twirl of hurricanes, as your nails dig in his flesh 

May his ears be filled in your lust filled words

As his soul burns in your passionate slaying

At that, if nothing feels the same, find me

I reek of love, I reek of lust, yet only for you

Find me away until you wish me to be

Yet i only wish that distance be kept

Momentarily