AN OLD LADY

 A romance of times, 

 my emotions desired to be clad

a fifteen-year bond,

words playing game of hide and seek.

Thoughts cajoling words lazing on some days

on other days, relishing the five-star buffet

picking the exquisite ones.

Words eager as in the game of musical chair

parking at right places, thoughts patting words, 

 the unlucky ones exit.

the therapeutic delivery, cessation of pangs

the numerous stanzas shaping

a poem at the end

a joyful process each time 

I write poetry.

The same joy recurs 

as when I saw the toothless old lady

with bent frame on the street

and rushed to come home to

write my first poem.

Her smile so beautiful

only poetry aptly couching

my thoughts with right words. 

REFLECTION

My reflection belies me

Rewind life twenty years past

The present me would have 

received a smirk

I may seem unrecognisable.

Unpredictable mood swings, restlessness

impulsiveness hung in my past wardrobe.

My ears heating the landline

mouth resting only when lips clasped

to rest the empty bed.

Emotional dependency, delegation,

attention seeking my second skin

I never thought to shred.

A one eighty-degree shift 

my spouse's description of 

current me.

Whom do I owe my gratitude to?

Meditation or morning pages,

every little sprinkle cleansed

my blemished soul.

Pauses and solitude

my preferred confidants now

my daily itinerary, enviously defended.

Life never seemed more refreshing

The pleasure of the silences,

beauty of tasks achieved

stretches spent with me

each moment a joy in itself.

Fast froward twenty years ahead

My future may turn 

to acknowledge 

the present me

if crossed paths.

A WAVE LESS

The Uber picks me and my suitcase

as I bid bye to my folks

the one wave and parting hug

seem less.

Memories coat my every minute

the last three weeks still a blur.

Still a hope that the phone would ring

 or he would come back

and I would rush to him.

The ache in my heart hurts

a pain no one can cure

it's his blood in my veins

a person so full of life

and warmth, just 

diminished to bones and ash

immersed by me in a sacred river.

The voice in my head refusing to accept

my mother's and sister's 

incessant tears search for answers.

His heart one day decided to rest

leaving us marooned forever.

SHELTER

Like the fallen bridge pieces, 

tripped many a time in life

crossing even the levelled one's

asked for a hand to help.

Solitude or inactivity 

submerged wet depths

in unwanted waters.

Five years of meditation

and scribbling morning pages

the broken soggy wood of the

 old soul seems unrecognisable.

The subtle urge to not react,

the little nails of perseverance

indeed a shelter built with no one's help

where each wooden bit is a new me. 

CLOUDS

Each time we stare its a new you

the black sometimes embedded in white

the dark patchy gloom never tiring to exist.

At moments, the snowy white freckles 

stir milky drops of hope in life.

You condense and expand as an amoeba

your each new shape even Geometry puzzled to label

You remind us of  light cotton balls blown away by wind

Your shimmering radiance pales even the icy glaciers.

A game of hide and seek you play

with colours of black and white

there is no nook you did not visit

 there is no corner you did not hide

The indigo blue sky a free witness to your game of chess

The vapoury clouds below, subtly balancing your zebra shades

your greyish tinges peeking on and off.

Life indeed a precarious canvas of dark and light tones

each one's paintbrush juggling the black with the white.

THE SCRIPT

The glass half empty, or glass half full

a hackneyed maxim reliant

on viewer's disposition.

Is it as simple as it reverberates 

or is it the script in our head 

that tightens the knots?

Scripts scribbled in invisible ink

our mind harping them tirelessly

our ego smiling to see it cemented.

Years pass the concrete 

firms our stance

a thin whiff of malleability

sweats to squeeze in.

Existence then, a ping pong match

each one's script bouncing

against the other.

The unwrapped erasers of the psyche

cocooned next to the fat book, lust to shrink

Look out for the permanent markers

screams the glass half full or half empty.

It ain't easy, squirms the ego

Repair the script to match others, 

Keep attempting, says the glass

Isn't other's script also

worth a look? 

This poem is a reference to how opinions get fixated, convincing or getting convinced both then becoming a challenge with age.

The LAST LAUGH

Bruised survivors scavenging familial limbs

eyes blinded by scarlet puking earth

split toes poking the stranded ripped shoe 

a finish only we ought to be see 

with salted popcorn for company.

Yet human intelligence defies all borders

the thrill to annihilate to irresistible

video games insatiable to 

whet real human appetite

Oozing red, bruised blue

the preferred colours of global leaders.

Death, the most marketable commodity

Countries the most zealous customers

hoarding  tools of destruction.

Man made borders and contempt 

drawing human extinction.

The flock of birds hovering 

above the corpses have the last laugh.

Colour, borders, nationalities

non existent in their orbit

whole world now served on

a free platter for them to share.