thunder flashes

thunder flashes-- 
ghost of Caesar 
beside my bed

If you cannot win today

still no sign of clouds

at exactly fifteen past nine
a speck of sun filters its way through
an unclear pane
glorifying a minute portion
of the opposite wall

the umbra 
third eye of an unseen goddess
stays so for fifteen minutes more 
making the clown in the clock face smile
sardonic

then my door knob rattles
as a goods train passes by 

one naked lizard
the sole spectator of each episode
returns to its hunt 

finally the clown sermonizes
you cannot win your prize today

another day drops between
summer and monsoon

to paint you

to paint you 
a small house 
fringed by gardenias... 
to paint you 
alone in an autumn mist 

deep in sleep

deep in sleep 
a gray-haired vagabond 
at my doorstep 
---how many rooms 
---have I passed through 

hidden faces

pictures of me 
occupied with nested dolls 
how often 
do I open and close 
the hidden faces 

wild June

to think 
of a wild June 
to think 
of sneaking our way 
through tall grasses

3 haiku

thickening mist... 
your crafted promises 
still intact 


your touch-- 
on the rabbit-shaped lake 
a cat's paw breeze 


she offers me 
a morsel of her life 
autumn whisper

my hellish affairs

i recall bumping into an odd man
who posed as an astrologer 

my planets had all gone awry
and may a miracle by some occultist

put me on course

my dinghy had tasted salty waters
been ravaged by storms
as i set myself forth in mission 
after mission

hopping from islets to islets

what he missed out
was that in each harbor
I've perceived
the echoes of your laughter

the slit in my door

I hit upon
a slit in the wooden door
through which my secrets 
must have diffused out 
into the thin air to be breathed 
by sage owls in their nocturnal bench

you can place your eyes against it
and get a glimpse of a portion of a bed 
beside the window
where I passed my jaundice days
in isolation

if you notice it from inside the room
you'll get one half of a stair
and a bit of an iron railing
that stands erect from the world war days

How did all the years percolate
without my noticing

three feeble men
who point to my window while speaking
quietly among themselves

the wet glint

the wet glint 
in her eye 
quicksand

The man who left without saying much

She would always notice
the sad look of his attire

Weighed with thoughts 
his eyes
although elegant 
were fixed to the bright fake flowers 
on the mantle

He was a man imbibed by a gloomy rain

Words scarcely flowed from his thin lips
a hefty cloud has to lighten its load at times

His gray hair had the semblance 
of a ruffled sparrow unable to conquer
a headstrong wind

Mature lines were drawn over his face
a tilled land parched without a monsoon

Fingers jittery with excitement
a red-tail deer watching moonrise

He was more like the stump of a beheaded
banyan

She'd total the age rings
and each time come up with diverse counts

He'd sit there 
a frail man
nonplussed for hours

Till the evening guides him to its embrace

haiku

1.
gardenias...
attentive heads
at the nursery

2.
black cat
steals into my room--
the darkest corner

Changing Tanka

a  glass stallion

changes its colour

throughout the day

I recall painting you

verdant in spring