Winter Tanka

1)
if you need
to live insatiably
you'll need thorns
not leaves, for thorns
have no fear of winter

2)
i see stars
being born from your tears
and wonder how
your guarded grief would steer
our young tomorrow

3)
the glint
in the eyes
of a squirrel--
a bright new day
for the blessed ones


4)
a chorus
of whispers
still haunts--
time never moves
for the saxophone man

Would you believe

if i say i can see buds bursting into dreams
and in one blue dream you are gliding through
cloud-ridden moonlight, and when i call
you tell me this is no time for words, then another
bud bursts into a summer sun and i find you
lost in a quiet haze sipping a melon sherbet
i ask you if you have noticed the archaic
fountain where gold-winged butterflies make
their nest and you quip there is hardly a reason
to look for relics as all winged marvels have gone
where falling cherry petals make a blizzard

if i say, since then the dreams have stopped
busting out, since then life has been a foggy path
without end, only a here-and-there glimmer of sun
which i mis-read as golden butterflies, believing my
poem to be the soliloquy of a yearning alchemist
neither is it the sadness of a commonplace poet
but rather a thirsty quest for togetherness

For Prince

You said there is blood in the sky
was that a premonition you said
you knew when it'll rain purple blue
when someone will take you out
from your hide that is made of rainbow
So when the angel came and beckoned
you in the purple rain you forgot about
the song on your lips and looked long
at me were there some words hidden

With meek steps you left as the worst storm
rattled my doors putting off candles because
the blood in the sky had to fall because god
had no reason to heed the call of the million
doves who cried till life went out off a billion
songs Yet its still raining still your voice hasn't
stopped echoing from mountain walls because
an angel called you amidst the purple rain

[ In memory of  Prince Rogers Nelson (1958 - 2016)]

Love Tanka

i can no longer
feel you, either by love
or by reason -
the end of a bridge
fading into the void

why must i become
the falling leaf
of winter -
lovers and flowers
blooming in the roadside

sauntering aimless
without you...yet with you
by my side
---a quick spell of rain
---paints a rainbow

Aokigahara - The Suicide Forest

1) near the forest
a dust-worn Toyota
lies abandoned-
a parrot shrieks overhead:
i'm comming, comming, comming...


2) the noose dangles
from a wild tree
a gush of wind
hurries through
deceased leaves


3) he nails his anger
one after the other
into a stolid bark:
you cannot rule the breeze,
neither the fire, nor the rains


4) not even a flower
buds here
to feed butterflies
this stoic world
needs no spring, no autumn

Poet

[ An ode to the poetic mind of Pablo Neruda ]

rummaging
through a jungle
of beliefs-
i run from house to house
chased by a raging bull


how do i
describe you
in words alone-
all the words in me
are 'stolen'


hidden under
a white brimmed hat
i read faces
bricks and lanes
burnt by Santiago sun


when the end came
six and half hours later
i was envisioning
the army searching my house
for a man named 'poetry'


treading on  a planet
snapped from all modes of return
the soil
coloured with blood
of perished revolts

One February we were selling love

the thrum
of a tranquil guitar
at the Beatles Ashram
we'll meditate
along with butterflies

***

what can you offer
to the morning breeze
the chorus
of four bright boys
merging with the fog

***

bloodied
by twilight
one black bulbul
tells you the tale of a god
selling peace in packets


***

freed
from the hubbub
of money machines
this spring we'd sell love
to the babblers

Pathankot

sound of gun salute
reverberates
amidst the silence...
home, they brought the coffin
home from Pathankot