Evening Count

My life remains coloured,
this season by the tired Sun,
who smiles on party mammals
warming up, merry indeed.

But the gold plated evenings
are not for me, never any more!

I was dragged out of this feast
a fine day, when my uncles
were not watching my back;
for I had a beard, and gloves
to fight, but I never could
punch the thug down and
now I sit in pain as
evenings turn to night and boys,
they laugh for they have
a new morn coming.

Alas, I have only tales of loss,
of those numbered pics in paradise!

Scent Percent Christmas!

The wise ones float and get swept
into a cone by the shallow winter,
letting the old watchdogs of
this Colonial Fort light
a bonfire to keep the native stings
away from their cubs, near the bay;
but the smoke signals usher in
a time for love…

Glossy ones on the beach path
get eclipsed by late noon;
for the humid Queen glitters
in a mat-finish; her powdered cheeks,
a gift with kisses from the Highland Lord,
whose songs let the bells chime
for the Anglo Choir and their Hallelujah;
it's time to rejoice…

And find joy in the blend from
Desi chefs with foreign rum,
the grains fermented with plum;
sweet enough to make you plump,
but kids, we swarm the baker's pride.
A slow jog and it's hard to miss
the dancers burning Santa, they're high;
a new life! From the ashes it's born.

A time for life with all its charm;
Christmas is here; ah, the infant's scent.

Bass Choir

Singing with pride, hear ye;
'em gay lot, fresh out of their
flooded flats near that
National Park where deer
cross roads to meet sleepy kids
walking their talk on strings,
stretched to its limits by silly calculus;
while men rush to get warm.

Their choir, led by fat ones a million,
the Bass, who can wait hours for food
and dive deep to stay alive,
then jump up to breathe and make love.

Tonight they hog the lights,
with extra spark from Sopranos,
who we never catch on TV;
the playback singers, feared
for they hum for the ghosts.
The Composer's proud - look
at Her streaks of joy shimmer;
the very tears that made them sing.

Child's Play

See! Led into this flower gorge,
afar I hear the falls and smiles forge,
from the fresh clatter of drops
on seasoned, polished rocks.
The spray tweaked my lips,
and the mist rolled my hips.
Lights! At a middle-school ground,
trees in uniform, a church West bound;
the papal's man rests in the South aisle,
while kids play ball, their tones a Nile.
A granted gift for they're loved,
it came back this noon, I'm wowed.

She! Her voice binds hearts in its charm,
and pulls 'em into a flow so warm.
To the window down the aisle,
where coloured frames bend for a smile.
The portal glues worlds four to one,
as I take that plunge and I won.
Innocence! The trip in speed of light,
through her pitch, on His glory and might.
I sob, then smile and run out wild,
into the field where glory is mild,
and comes packed in a vanilla cone,
laced in soccer n salt in an evergreen zone.

(It was Children’s Day and the service at Santhome last Sunday had a surprise - an innocent voice that took me back… to a playground near the Arabian Sea)

Shallow low...

I wish I was lost, playing
in that field way below;
breaking shackles, and the
rut from dreams of proletarians
and their bald-headed run
to office each morning.

The dark depressed pitch,
a gift, in a silver platter
by daddy dear to the
bastard, brought up
by pay-roll husbands,
canned milk and man toys.

I could only touch, just;
the manicured grass
and skim a few lines out
of it to feed my manhood.
For I have to leave, to scavenge.
Aye aye, boss I'm hungry!

Marilyn and I!

The Caress! I felt her dreamy eyes,
a twinkle in the blue wash
at the French window near my heart.
She the one, a Norma Jeane,
framed in her virgin flight,
smiling behind the gloss of
stainless glass. Goodnight,
her whisper a lavender whiff.

Norma! I hushed onto the
mist from her breath on the pane,
before I touched her finger
for a fleeting pulse; life's brewing dear.
Yeah, she let me blot wine
from her parted lips,
naughty; red from love,
black-and-white by birth.

Twelve! her soul opened
in my dream, in a skewed
sequence, one each through
the dozen ports of bliss my
host, the rolling stone,
gifted beside a warm bed
in his penthouse world
of cars, books and pals.

Marilyn! Indeed I cried;
for she faded as the shallow
quick sighs of Cupid turned deep;
a slumber near the queen, whose
knights left her squinting at the
selective lights of a silver world;
and prone to the sedative pains
of that mansion between dunes.

(An Ode to Norma Jeane; a tribute to Marilyn Monroe! Special thanks to my pal Sid for letting me peek into those twelve, strategically placed, time portals.)

Mist call

The pistons jest past
the rustic walls and
the old gate which
leads the hungry beyond the
red stones of the Mughals,
and to the red meat and chefs.

The drive turns the
vultures of the hot day
into vampires, who mix
blood with water, before
the chilled gulps, thinning
the flayed nerves further...

... Till that sleepy merchant on the
east wall start shedding light
into the happy hours; the soles stutter,
a slip here and a sway there,
and a surprise! A glide
through mist, an early winter call.

(A typical night out in Delhi after the rigours and figures of Commonwealth reporting)

Voluntary Flicker!

Ever-crescent her smile,
with a voice which quenches
thirst in measured drops.
She, the gentle one, lighting
the busy alley with a candle;
the voluntary flicker, a couple of yards
from the pigeon holes
where just numbers roost.

(Her smile was what caught my eye - a wary one, this volunteer, stuck in between work and pushy journalists at a Commonwealth Games venue . She manages both though, in her own pace, her own world - a world I only watched from afar...)

Holy Water

Sealed with a red band
of love, yeah the same
colour of life which once
nourished me into this world.

Wrapped in a glowing mantle
of white, yeah the same
warmth from the heart which
let me dream, let me fly.

Filled with care to the brim
with dew from that
unbridled river which once
steadied me with kisses million.

Holy indeed these drops
I've kept tight, saved for
the day the desert heat
burns a hole in my soul.

Hell Bound!

They were here, right
beyond those septic walls.

Chained to hunger and
to the bloated greed
of 'em dream raiders.
Hunters, with cellular whips,
and silver pieces wrapped
in contract right from hell,
written by the darkest one.
Oh... They were here.

Our conscience slimed from
the blood-stained modernist stokes
as the "slaves" knelt down to
pick a morsel from the
sweat drenched sand grains
of this "free" land - their mother land.

Yeah, the democratic irony;
they were here, right here.

(Slavery, bonded labour, it seems we are still in the middle ages...)

Come rain or shine

The trip, to iron out
the crumpled, peeled skins kept
hidden behind doors near a bed;
took me down those school lanes,
towards the beach.
A detour - drooling, then dreaming
o'er a common-man's car
at a rich-man's porch,
before a refreshing li'l shower
during the hasty retreat...


... From the jest of a romantic who dared
to challenge the flair and flares
of the smiling, late-afternoon lover;
best of 'em both for this pedalling fool!

Bile You Were Sleeping!

Few fermented paper cups,
emptied in stolen gulps,
and left to rot in a soggy pile
within a junkyard for verbs.

Sideshows of the miserables,
governed by demigods in war
across an ocean, for gold;
men are men, so says the idiot-box.

... Dying for bets while sleep-walking
through fixed matches of life,
laughing in arrogance while failing to
contain the bile from a whithered liver.

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?)

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)

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!)

Wrecked Smiles

Half filled immigration forms
and unfulfilled dreams
burn together in a mangled
pile of metal, plastic and
scattered pieces of His best
yet fragile toys so far.

Strapped in for the final surge of
G-forces before the first of
the many urges and splurges
of love and the li'l pleasures
of a small-town reunion;
lie in tatters now; a few metres
late and it was in smoke, the smiles;
gloom n shock and a wreck left for us all!

(The crash victims in Mangalore, may their souls rest in peace...)

Copulation Explosion!

When in doubt, copulate
with the first of the yellow
eyed ones in the dim
light of hubs where cubs n
funk and trance call the shots,
and red lights mark the spots.

Copulate, the art of need,
use and being used;
proving the theories, economic,
by market geeks for Sensex drives.
Useful for the Zen-sex jives,
this, the oldest of trades.

Copulate, indeed the need
of the hour;
Copulate, indeed the word
of the day;
Copulate, indeed the balm
for those sores;
Copulate, till you laugh
no more no less.

Copulate, the jaw-breaking joke,

in a night full of verbs,

in a room full of smoke,
under a roof tiled by friends,
to ease nerves and fly.
Copulate, don't forget yo mate.

The Drench Connection!

Why would I shy, aye fear?
There's life in your beats,
these drops softening
the wrinkles on a parched land
with something better than
the humid, salty trickle
its so used to from the
bare tillers of its skin.

Why read good old pain tonight
when ye feel the rain,
in a ride - slip n slide;
an enlightened sleepwalk
to a bed near the beach
where dreams await,
and visions of a dance as
angels above kiss my brow.

The connect made up there,
right where we belong;
in that spring of youth she loves,
while I can just sing 'em monsoon songs.

Sonshine on mama's day

This indeed my mother's gift
- from her days filled with
smiles adoring the might
of a man of love at his house.

The flickering candle a shy
witness to her passion;
no, she will never take no
for an answer; it's her womb praying.

And the baby gets the cheers
from the gathered lot at noon
to revel in the most glorified
sacrifice ever by a man.

Lord, the rebel gets the lauds,
his presence here as gift
for the dearest on her day,
rewarded with claps; wow!

Made possible by her hails
with beads to one virgin
and her smiling son in pain;
divine, blessed you are mama!

Cry n Dry!

Yeah, you glowed indeed as
waves of passion flowed towards
the naughty ones - boys and girls;
ah, the sensuous grace
during moonlit camps when you
gently flowed into their world,
a belly dancer from the heavens,
snaking to a divine tune.

Ageless beauty, why ye picked
the heartless of all to
bare your bosom; see
your cracked lips now and
the jaded mirror near your
navel where once the young
laughed at their reflected souls
before bathing in your depths.

You let them in each time they
knocked; giving them
treasures from your fertile womb,
gifts from the mighty warrior.
The nights when ye beauty
inspired all 'em poets who drank
wine and then raped thy beauty;
the damned who never loved you.

Barren, the dried springs
of life now as trucks from pimps
mined your virgin bounty
to build their bloody world
of false promises with concrete.
I cry, my tears not enough
to fill your dried veins with salt
to wash down the capitalist muck.

Where is your anger? The
monthly cycle when you swell
and flush the sins by tourists,
who keep their conscience and
passports safe at resort lockers,
right within the fake world built
by selling your divine flesh.
Yeah, I see death in your blue eyes!