Sunday, June 27, 2010

Sliver Lining!


The ceiling balloons with
tickles from a million
drops of passion giving
goose bumps on Her belly;
and then the let-out
in an impulse lasting
a couple of man-hours,
the moments of gold, worth.

In a thatched time machine,
near a tiny steam engine
huffing to keep me warm,
the spirited guard setting the tone,
fresh brew - his lady keeping me firm.
And those days under an open roof;
when kids played ship-builders
and dad played stone mason;
memoirs smiling from the mist
rising at the feet,
an hologram, coloured.
And I shiver in this sliver from yonder.

(South-western monsoon in Chennai, in June! Am happy with this unexpected splash of love. Aren't you?)

Monday, June 21, 2010

Cradle Chi

A drop, her warmth
running through my
tired spine - cracked from
the long, dry stand at work;
from the self-induced
burn for youth after work.

But a sip from the brew,
took me back to her womb.
The cradle where once I felt
the resonant 'chi' rise
from few good men and
those li'l ladies, the brides to be!


(There is something about that bottle of wine in my cellar at home. A sip from it and I am taken back in time to when life was simple - to my mother's womb. But why? Well the wine was made by my dear mom, the fermented spirit from grapes squeezed gently by the very hands which squeezed mine long back to reassure a teary-eyed boy that she will be back to pick me up in the evening after my first day in kindergarten)

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Nature's Call

Waiting out the act
of eternity, which shook
the very bare forms of lives,
the flattened domes of
the socially downtown
and politically uptown
district of a fishing hamlet
turned culture capital.

Men in checquered flags
hide in the midnight shadows,
shying from the yellow fever
which grips them all
with the setting sun yonder.
They wait... for waves
to rush in and douse the spirit,
sweeping dreams under the dusty carpet.

Cleansing through genocide,
her ways so crude yet precise;
leaving scars only on the
half-nude proletarians
of a muscle driven democracy;
led by a poet with shades
to hide his shame; yeah, sun-glasses
to keep out the glaring truth...


(The tremors from the earthquake in the Nicobar Islands reached Chennai too, waking up the average city dweller from his slumber. Men came out of their warm beds to the roads to wait... For what? The fore-warned Tsunami or to see the falling dominoes. Intriguing, human nature is!)