Begin

To tell you how I feel within
from holding onto what I feel alone

Say to share what was mine to share
and to hold what was yours to do,
both of us lost and in a whirlwind of a life
waiting to hope for someone else to be,
that was ours to do...
Leading the lease of the orbit of life
bring to canvas the colors deprived
rising to hope what was never our dismay
clearing the skies of that dull grey...
Where am I going with these expectations?
Drowning in the ambiguous revelations

All in my head
And some in my heart
Tell me now, where to start...

That's a good life, that makes us sacrifice
It's a good vice, to not dew in pleasure
but what about life's hidden treasure?

Where is the love and why running to measure?
And what disclosure are we hoping to find,
where will we keep what will shall never take?

No reverie or partake
Never worrying to give or take


begin with what seems new
begin to what remains
hold on, where dreams end, reality begins...

Come..


I'm trying to stall,
a break, a fall
a season without your presence
big or small...

A moment without your thought within
a reason without your name
and the mystery that kept me sane

In the moment and in those behind
the meanings are empty and the solitude benign

In my wake and your words
bring me back what I've felt mine

Come, a morning waits

Come, the dawn's a waste

Come, I've missed your breath

On my skin, your taste
the feeling of breathing akin

Of being with you,
being chaste


Come, I'm complete with that thought

For long in my battles
alone I've wrought


Come.. be my savior
,
my saving grace
I'm holding on to be rescued this way

Come take over,
I've lost my way


Come in my hollow dreams,

be the color I've been trying to mean
be the hope that you seem


Come, light my fire
and lull my nights

Swim through my future
and make my present right


Come, don't leave me now
in bitter distaste..


Come, come far away from the maddening gray
beyond reasons that keep us away
beyond treasons of fate
that long to make us prey

beyond seasons that tell us we'll part
beyond a time when I'll be away

Let's move beyond things
let's move beyond time

Come to me in my sanity
and let me dream for life


Come...


Come back before I'm none..

Come back as anyone...

I caught myself...

Leave out all the rest
it's our faith that's been put to test
Candidly light
the spaces that have been darkened
by this light

In them amorphously dwell
shades of both heaven and hell

I seek you out while
within flaying you alive
While the truth is that
the fire rages deep within
without reprise

All it burns is all there's alive
like a pain that's cued for reprise
over and over, the soot of solitude
a thick mist of black and white

Falling from heights that were never mine
rising to levels stranger to my mind
Tumbling down is free falling
to the lows that were earlier appalling

Where were you, in hindsight
Where were the promises that
had to fishnet our lows

In losing and failing and
unimaginable derailing
I caught myself...

Castaway

Leading from a land
to a place without shore...

Running in oblivion
but circumspect to the core

Muddled in disbelief
and demonized by the cynosure
of this black

Heaps and heaps
of torn sand
waved upon miles
of unpossessed land

Tagging the mirth
of the vast emptiness along
like the barren wind
whistling for rain to come along...

Blur into the thin divide, the ends meet
and worlds collide,
words polite and thoughts aside

part between the gentle
and the maverick, cast aside

I hide in the blue tavern
where abstract was at play,
a coral stoner gazing at the still day

No feelings or words,
just emotions at play
dark and sullen
there the dandy lost its way...

A cry in the lone,
a gump in his moan
dithering but never shown
censored for those to whom known...


And then the 'happy, forever be,'
a dream that swells within every anomaly
sailing away to the place
before wailing away what was,
what it was, unsure...

अंकुश

उठते कुछ सवालों के साथ

बीते कुछ इरादों के सहारे

पानी में बहते कुछ तूफानों के बीच

हमने भी अपने इरादे उतारे

ज़मीन से फलक तक

खाव्हिशों की झलक तक

बिखरे कुछ पल, जो कल थे हमारे

कही अनकही और सुनी अनसुनी

और जो कह के भी न

समझ पाये, कुछ ऐसे थे इशारे

जाने पहचाने, अपने बेगाने

ज़िन्दगी के नजराने

और कुछ बेखुदी के पैमाने

खो कर मिल जाने

और कुछ महफूज़ ख़ज़ाने

आज ज़िन्दगी की कशमकश में कितने

अनदेखे थे और अब हैं कितने अनजाने

चुप रहकर सोचें तो कितने गम हैं

बाहें फैलाये इस अँधेरे में आखिर कितने रंग हैं?

और कह कर अगर जग जायें रातें

तो सूरज बन क्या कल जग जायेंगे...

इस अंकुश से हर सवाल तक बढ़ते सब कदम हैं

न आये आंधियां तो भी ज़िन्दगी क्या पूरी है?

दूरियां और फासले खुद से भी क्या उतने ही ज़रूरी हैं?

Love me two times

Bring out the wine tonight, let's not dine
romance is out of the window,
lets take out time to whine

Get off the shelter
and ring out the chimes,
holy mother of matrimony
chastise me of being divine

mundane prudence is my ardent ask
and being loved
for the way I'm tarnished
even on days I can shine

Love me two times...

Hope and behold,
after knowing what was never told
and between compromise and sacrifice
that takes all the time

Bring to dance your tears
tonight, the fear of loss, the dreary sight,
the might, that thrust, the vision at night
and then woke you through
till it struck twilight

Vision, daydreams and all that plight
Sing me the lullaby that blesses you good night

Love me two times...

Dress up for the times, good or bad
our moves will rhyme
from sauteed hopes to binging on time
till our hopes dash and fears collide

Let's ask for strength to move on in time
Love me two times...
Love me two times...

Waking up the dead

Dead in someone's wake
there you go,
you're not living strong

Keeping all there is at stake
trying hard to croon someone else's song

Holding onto worse to make legions of reasons
appear from depths of the apparent abject glee

Stories that you hold within
and the caricatures that only breed captivity

Discern the foretaste that it's out to control
translated into madness
even reasons take their toll

Nothing is fair, nor innocent,
I keep wondering
if it'd be
how, what, when it'd accrue

My sadness in these meaningless words
and the dead first passion
that was buried in this curse

waking and wailing, the bitter demise
of all that was there to hold

Hung from the sky a hangman's noose
swinging wildly to blow the gazer's fuse
out and out the will to die
slowly make the living senile

Glowing amidst a recluse adobe
withering the winter of despair
fighting the demons in the land
and the spirits in the inner lair

Holding onto hope and just that
till the breath is full of air...

Paint me a Busy Bee

My solitude did beckon me
My emptiness, fancy-free
No hustle or bustle I would heed
I'd rise each morning
and not think till wee
and there I'd be,
kicked back into writing prolifically

I never thought of days, really
How they'd end and where I'd be
So far estranged from meaning,
such obscene privacy

Sitting on my computer busily,
work to do, mails to see
And IM friends to chat hastily

Sitting back with my coffee sometimes,
a sip before it tastes like tea
Then the phone would ring
and keep ringing busily

The first to call, dearest of all
My mom...
"Did you make it to the office at all?"
My manager then would have a second go,
"What time did you come in?
How's the workflow?"
 
And slowly the day,
from here begins to take shape
They all want to know
what, when, where I will be

Available for what they need
I need to schedule that call immediately

Off then to the nearest hold
A quick bite, a grub, hot or cold
A quick text and a glance at the TV
What's happening there?
Another celebrity stamping his hold,
and the lot of us fixated ever more
 
Some more caffeine can't top that
Another cup and the day begins again

A meeting and a plan of action
Effecting schedules and curbing interaction
mechanical, mechanical...

"Another meeting, tomorrow then, will you please?"
"Sure, of course!" The need of the hour, you see!

A deviation then can seem like a curse,
like an emergency ward with a missing nurse
and can things really go more astray
living in a dream that doesn't begin any day
 
While in school, my teacher would often tell me
"If you observe carefully life will teach you poetry"

But, oh, this monotony rhymes with distaste
what was I thinking and
how is this professional if
deep within it doesn't seem chaste

Ah, daydreams! I just overshot my break
Get back to you again later

I've to go chase someone's dreams

While making a report a message beeps,
from a friend it reads
"Are you on for the movie tonight?"

Reacting with a "Sorry"
I feel almost wishfully apologetic,
could I have taken this flight?

The might of fancy
and this materialistic hold,
how have fortunes faded and
and at what rate am I growing old?

Suddenly, it all becomes amusing again,
when the ticking clock suddenly
seems visible to me

In a few hours I'll be free...
How can I shape the end?
Before I know another day would be spend
without me having been 'me'

Will I look back
and would it all still come to me?

When will these words melt to glee?
Inversed logics and reverse polarity...
So much for insularity.

If ever it is to be, it'll be
today I submit another day to my destiny

Wanting for it to germinate till it becomes my greed,
I hope to keep the fuel burning with my poetry

Away from home, but close to my might,
Learning to fly while hoping to flee...