Responsibilities

Kite that flew freely, tearing the wind

must have beamed for its freedom if it had a mind

what does it see when it looks down?

Breathtaking beauty ahead

or the freedom-snatching string that lies beneath?

Tell me! Why do you fly high as your pride? 

Why won't you reach the sky with the string attached?

Won't you choose freedom that has a string?

Do you need a string that seizes the way?

To live is to fly: flight without a will is death!

.  .  .

Time's tale

When I was young, I heard them say

That the time would tell all tales.

As I looked at the peepal tree that stood,

They said time would tell all tales.

Now a branch of the tree is broken,

Majestic is how it stood for hundreds of years.

How many of us must it have seen?

The time told all tales but never the tree!

When I was small, the place was full of flowers.

Green on the evening grass is still the best.

Sun rose from the west; people never became flowers!

Now there are only tamed trees; what tale did time tell?

Back then, there was a road that led nowhere.

Road by the tree that people seldom took!

Always full of bees and butterflies; not anymore.

Where did they go? Only time can tell.

.  .  .

Seasons

Blue sky splattered with white clouds

The bulk of blazing suns over one’s head

Flowers swinging with dry hot winds

Festooned nature printed over one’s eyelid.

When did the blue sky turn to silver grey?

The wind blew strong, and windows rattled

Swinging color took to air for a stray

Showcase of light and the sound that followed.

This silent rain, these dripping leaves

Thousand coffee mug over one’s window

Shoot and sprouts against tiny ripples

Soothing monsoon breeze across the meadow.

We live in a place that’s not the same year around

Winter is cold, foggy, and white

Brown red yellow leaves on the ground

Borderless sun, formless moon for a sight.

What did the butterflies in our garden do to us?

Why do we search for one in a faraway land

Whether we live the life we want or s/he have

Whatever we choose to believe, will it be bold?

.  .  .

Life's path

I dreamt that you dreamt about me

Strolling along life's little path

Chasing, running, and dancing to the melody

As I was walking to the end of the world.

.  .  .

Love and Friendship 

Where do we meet again? In this life or the other!

On a sandy beach beside shallow water

Finding one other to the rumbling of the sea

In the eyes of a gliding kite, who can foresee

.  .  .

Take my heart a swift

How far you have come 

destined to arrive at this moment.

Beyond the seven seas and beneath a thousand trees

Our friendship has to be now and here 

At least, this instant, we are near and dear

Your departure is inevitable, take my heart a swift

Give my love to those wherever you drift 

Convey my love to the needy, the fortunate, and those who grieve.

Sail our boats to bliss, where life thrives.

.  .  .

Chance!

Tiny twinkling fireflies scattered across the blue velvet

Popping up in succession as blue grew to silver gray

Betoken of hope, in lightless word, to a lifeless heart;

These are majestic fireballs of greater magnitude

Lightyears apart, floating in unfathomable emptiness

Do they all support life? Or at least one among them?

Is it just this greeny blue rock with a white scarf?

What do you think? is it an accident or was it a will?

Of all the countless possibilities, why this in particular?

Billions of trillionth to one is still not small enough

Of the chance that we ever came to life;

Let alone the chance of crossing paths!

.  .  .

Mantheheart

Let the truth be told, I dare;

Truth is not until it is stripped bare.

Let heaven cry cause we know it by heart

All the hell to pay until we depart.

Not sure if it was the paradise we lost,

Was it just the fantasy of a juvenile past?

If one seeks to be that crazy child

Reality brings him back, horror and wild.

Future is where our desires lay.

Past is where all the memories play

What is Present but this disregarded feeling

Of delusional reality, of times zing.

Sweet little time breaks us down to rot

Some are smart enough to know it some are not.

Falsely convict ourselves for our demise;

Actions are entangled, we fail to realize.

Growing up is not easy, not easy at all

Acting as if we know what we are doing is a fall.

Nothing ever gets easier; nothing ever gets simpler

One has to get smarter and stronger.

Man, the heart, there she goes!

Hope, humanity, and benevolence blow.

do not let your heart shatter in empty spaces

let it be broken in beautiful places.

contempt and content are self-impositions

victory and defeat are the two restrictions.

Manhood was overthrown by the manhood

 Let us drink to the brave souls that ever stood.     

.  .  .

Colors of joy

Imagine dea! A canvas with lush background,

Profuse colors of joy spattered throughout

Only that the canvas is all around you

And colors wiggling as the wind swept by

Budding scarlet roses to blooming yellow ones

Oh! How can I forget the half-blossom pig pink?

Fragile structure surrounded by fragile petals

An attempt to hide love in her bosom 

A bud in the bloom! Aren’t we all?

From pollens of the white rose to white pollens of the red rose

Buzzing bees and the fluttering butterflies

Magenta swinging like it was high with light

Different shades of pink roses on a branch 

Life and death! Played out in one stork

How majestic! Poets heart bleeds

Bleeds not of blood but of beauty

Who couldn’t hear the silence that was broken

By the winds and bees or perhaps by the distant rumbling 

.  .  .

Colors

As the sun turns to Mars orange and the clouds blood red

Sky couldn’t have grieved more for its beloved's departure

Lava orange to tangerine, to dissolve into destiny violet

To bring upon Azul Marino, such a beautiful lamenting!

Why was the ocean saddened, or was she being empathetic?

Thalassa blue of her lining was foaming white

The twister blue of her belly wouldn’t just go deep blue

But camouflage of Eldorado, Tibet, silver jewel, and whatnot

wouldn’t it be just gloomy blue to question the nature of our reality?

For a girl in love, waving to her partner, only to relive meeting him again!

To dream all night with such fantasy, to endure this departure.

Like a rainbow of magenta, Erika, cyan, plankton, Sundance, and white

How sad! Sad indeed. A poet can never know.

.  .  .

Winter poem

Looking through the leaves and branches,

A little plant looks dramatically glorious;

When laying under it, for the shades.

Or perhaps to look into nature's eyes.

As the winter's sun turns West,

And the shadow bound east,

Slowly yet certainly, the rays hit the toe.

Lighting it up as a peach lit within.

A falling leaf that got carried by the breeze

Distant calls of different birds,

Silhouetted flight against the blue sky

White and saffron butterfly that flutters by

Time passes, but the poet doesn't stir

For there is much to look, in and out

Like, silence and sounds of December's noon

To be lost would be a glorious boon.

                                                                       .  .  . 

Thoughtful

A shadowless night, under a dying star

We sang “till death do part us” though we hoped for a “kingdom come”

Oh! We dreamt, dreamt of a butterfly that flew,

Flew not up nor down but right in to us!

To touch the soul, if ever there was one.

On a high tide, over the white sandy beach

There’s a baby turtle that rests,

Rests, not because it is tired but because the world around it is.

It blinks at unfathomable mystery nature made us to be.

We saw a tigress sitting at the top of a mountain

In pouring rain, drenched yet untouched;

Waiting, preying or perhaps meditating!

Who could tell for sure?

We never asked, she never told.

If flowers can hang from a tree,

 then why can’t we!?

Scarecrow stands alone, never devoid of solitude

Except perhaps when crows come! Or do they come?

He stands listing to the hot winds and cold breezes

Never complaining, never contemplating.

.  .  .

To Love, To Learn

Born with a symphony, just a bit left in our chest      

 O! right, we grow. How about our heart?

Slowly yet surely the symphony fades to death

Neither I nor you wonder why!

What is beneath this shallow case

Hate that is raged or love which is caged?

Wholly unholy cover to the desires of the depth

Body, some would call. I, rest would say.  

Should the depths of our heart be deepened?

Or the width of our mind be widened?

Alas! love is blind and knowledge is a curse

Which means must we take so as to sustain hope!

A chance once will be, to the chance one should take

To love, to know, to cherish our deeds

Let the discharges in neurons increase potential of your brain

Let the blood in the artery be the messenger of your heart.

.  .  .

Life

Why should the carnival of life be so desolate?

Stained with anxiety; who’ll help to immaculate?

Self that was self-taught was taught wrong,

To unlearn is to intone with the universal song.

We’ll have to find the spark that fills you and me;

Which pervades every heart, yet we can’t see?

How do we contain eternal bliss in this mortal shape?

Evacuating the elements might bring some hope.

.  .  .

Travelers

Who are you stranger? Who are you indeed?

A traveler, a seeker, explorer of worlds?

Do you visit butterflies? Do you visit bees?

Do you dare to swim across that glimmering river?

Which has flowed with the flow of time.

We are the travelers who tell tales

Of all traveled places, people and papers

We travel not to see but to experience

We are those travelers who travel to you!

Tell us O pilgrim, do you travel books?

Of thousand pages, of countless words.

Do you travel brushes, paintings and paints?

Do you travel to those flowers along the road back home?

Do you travel yourself, or at least do you wish to?

We travel to future, we have traveled the past

We are those who dare to go to moon and beyond

To stars, to clusters, to galaxies and more

We travel to find home away from home.

.  .  .

Renegade

All the stars that we shot, all the breath that fled.

Here I am, kneeling to the lanterns that are dead

Or should I say murderer in front of murdered?

Begging for mercy which will be declined!

Was it necessary? was it not?

Will there be hell to pay? Or hell to receive?

Will it really matter? Now that I’m gone.

What was done was done, or perhaps not!

If we to shoot again let’s shoot the poet

He has to die for the lie in his lines

Let’s shoot the moon too, not just the stars

Sinners we were, sinners we will be.

Let me sit at ease, my dear let me sit at ease

Neither to contemplate on the burned tree

Nor for the fallen angel who stole thee

But to savor the joke, that life made us to be!

.  .  .