SHORT POEMS

PILLARS

Bones are pillars

On which I build my tower

For the eyes to scan the world.

BEINGS

Being a being

Is birth,

Death and in between

A little bit of life

BODIES

Anybody

Who is

Nobody’s nobody

Is

Somebody’s somebody.

NAILS

On my finger

On my wall

On my coffin

And on my cross.

SHELLS

Are cells

Where souls

Sleep in loneliness

Spinning dream spirals.

BABIES

She thought

Were cute and divine

Until she got one

And found

All shit and urine.

TASTE BUDS

At the base of the tongue

Bitter truths linger longer

Than many a sweet memory.

GRAVITY

Gravity is

Just a reassuring feeling

That, at night

We will not fall off the face of earth

When it turns in its sleep.

LIFE

Life is a dotted line

Between birth and death

In the passport application to paradise

To be filled in his/her own handwriting.

MORNING NEWSPAPER

Morning newspaper

Is a laxative

To be taken with hot coffee or tea

For proper bowel movement.

REFLECTIONS ON A WARDROBE

I buy clothes out of necessity

And she of vanity

Between my necessity and her vanity

Stands our naked millions.

AT THE OTHER END

Electric impulses

Flowing through the cables

Tickle me,

At the other end of the phone

Awaits a lonely lovely heart.

OTHER SIDE OF NIGHT

Under cover of darkness

Intertwined desires

Lay bolted together

Mass producing millions by the hour

To fill the coffins of tomorrow.

POSTMORTEM PUNCTUATIONS

Fallen apostrophe

In a comma

Trampled by trespassing letters

Raises question marks

On the credibility of quotes.

EVOLUTION

Dear Darwin

I lost my tail in evolution

My freedom in a revolution

And I am in a big confusion

Would you please find me a solution.

PHONY KISS

I can’t kiss you through the phone, dear

For fear of cross connection.

Unless I am lucky

I may end up kissing some dirty old man.

PHYSICS: MAGNETISM or PHYSICAL MAGNETISM

She has magnetic breasts

Which attract my iron hands

Once they come into contact

Nothing can separate

Short of an electric shock.

LUNAR ECLIPSE

My moon-

Forever eclipsed by those

Who orbited before me

And still remain

Suspended in space – Dead.

CROSSED FINGERS

I circle the world

With a stuck-up undercarriage

Burning up my fuel

And bidding my time

For a crash landing.

MAIDEN FLIGHT

Spread-eagled on the tarmac of time

Awaiting the defloration ceremony

My supersonic jets

Long for runway clearance

To take off

In search of imagined empires.

TIME LIMIT

Only 9 minutes

For you to say “yes”

Before this long distance call gets disconnected.

NIGHTMARE

Midnight

When you suddenly wake up

And find someone snuggling beside you

Don’t scream and switch on the lights

It is just me.

LEANING TOWERS

On baseless foundations

We built towers sky high

As it leans towards reality

False scaffoldings collapse

To bury you and me.

DISCOVERY

I saw

You saw

We both discovered

Each other – eyes closed.

MOMENTS AND MONUMENTS

Every tomb

A Taj Mahal

If not in grandeur

In the feeling behind.

ELECTRIC CANDLES

Candles are dearer

When electricity dies a sudden death.

Darkness is the same everywhere

In huts or palaces

Or in the chambers of the heart

It only matters, how you drive it out.

NEW NOW

If it will be

Like it was before,

Then what use is ‘now’

If nothing is new.

TIMING

Train whizzing past

You rising from the pond

I looking thr’o the window

All happening at the same instant

To catch a glimpse of a magnificent body

That I call, timing.

TIGHT-ROPE WALKER

Your enemy is vertigo

Forever pushing you down.

You fight with your pole

Balancing high above

Only to fall down

Never to rise again.

RESTRICTED AREA

Heaven is for Angels

Angels are never human

And humans no Angel.

POLICY OF LIFE

Sure

Insure

Insecure

There’s no cure.

I AM

I am

What

I am

Before

I was

What

I was.

AMEN

Coffin-bearers

Ready with hammers

Await the word “Amen”

To nail your fate forever

To be a name

On a crumbling tombstone.

A WARNING

Wait till I rise again

From my grave

To haunt your mansions

Your days and nights

Then you will remember and realize

What you have done to me.

COMMUNICATION

Is a two way process –

I send messages

And imagine

That you understand

What I have said.

THE END

A heavy heart

A heaving breast

A long sigh

End of all things beautiful.