Cloak Work

The cold cloak I wear,
the one I drenched in sweat
playing ball in my last
Madras summer heat,
to mask the stench of emotions
which will rise still,
to make me cry tonight
when I step out
from one cell to another,
a measured move in life.

Wow, this is new from my man!
Novel also is this detachment
I wore to work,
but the attachments, the roots,
bring me down each time
I look up from my seat...
Memories, printed in RGB
on the faded, yellow ceiling.

 - Written on my last day as a journalist at The Times of India, Chennai.

Crisscross

I cross this strait,
once a day now.
Once upon... a life time ago;
it seemed like life, twice over,
the rush to find my space,
but the calling 
was never heard,
now or even then.

Morning, it was then,
the push for a young heart;
it is in repeat now,
but just half a tread at a time
for this another man in me,
noon it is now.

None to watch my back,
the burn spreads there;
sweat trickle and tickle
down the neck till it
becomes an itch
that drives me further,
a li'l farther, down that path
of no return...
Where I will lose the 
original sin in me to age;
and the will in me 
to the measured
words of an editor,
out of control, out at large!