The Winter Morning Rain

The dark ​corridor,

​which connects the ​bed near sunset

and the well​-​lit Christmas tree​ ​at Sunrise,

​is my library.​

​The half-read books ​reek of arrogance,

​today they ​exude the scent of rain,

winter rain,

​whose drops tease​ ​me

at the window,

​urge me ​to play musical chairs...

If only I was my daughter,

​or I were my father,​

I would oblige​.

I am neither old, nor young,

just perfect to be

trapped amongst dusty books,

uncertain at sunset,

jittery about sunrise.

-- Leslie

Dying Young!

Falling young

for the wealth, immortality,

exuberance n arrogance

of dying young.

For I’d beat time,

freeze it at the moment

I bent will n Iron

–oh, I could mend bartenders too.

I’d outrun rejection,

and the cancer

that would kill the

killer of men I am.

I’d live on,

laughing at the giver of life

I could never become,

what have I become, WHAT?

Pic: bbc.co.uk

That Boy in the Rain

Those three storeys,
shadowless today,
project the layers in the
story of that boy in the rain...

A man walks into the
square reserved for morning prayers,
midday chaos and evening jest;
to splash water on his soul,
to forget love,
to tear open his shirt, feel love...

From the heavens;
from the girl of yore; from you;
from the blonde across the table;
over candle-lit dinners;
or at a beach empty.
But, man he can't love!

He can only kneel,
in pain now,
his will slashed in war.
He watches, in dread,
as the boy fades into the mist
rising from a basketball court.

With that, poof, his memories mix,
into a dull grey Molotov cocktail,
then flow into the polluted gut
of a city of rushed dreams.

While two boys live, swinging, 
their moment drenched in lust,
a thirst for life, yes lust;
their clocks tick-toeing towards truth,
towards the end of innocence,
where they’ll begin to die!

Instagram: Pixeles_

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.