A silver rose with seventeen petals
Carried by the monsoon wind
Floats on a river wide and blue

And infinite oceans, serene.

Sail, frail hope
And onward go
To unsullied lands
That still are green.

Sweet obsession

Now that you've gone

I miss you

You've left a hole,

A void that I dont care to fill

Not yet

Perhaps you'll return again

And wrench my heart out once more

The heart beats
A reckless rhythm
In a body shackled by a prosaic mind.

The limbs that seek to flow
And surge like wild torrents
And breakers
Must fall like dull rays
Upon the landscape of conformity
Fashioned by the collective genius
Of a race that seeks
To inflict order when
Intemperance’s free reign
Could better prosper.

Curbed,
The natural instincts
Flail wildly,
Made claustrophobic
By the stern hand of habit.

Slowly,
Disillusionment clouds
The lofty visions
As shattered dreams
Become a commemoration
To the tamed spirit.

Steadied and bound,
Chained
By the surety of discipline,
Trapped in the vessel
Of which
It is the giver of life
The heart beats but despairingly,
As the candle of hope burns low.



Draw the stifling curtains
On this empty stage
Lest a wild, whistling wind
Should blow out that
Frail flickering flame.

Fair trade

A whiff of victory,
A luscious, tantalizing aroma
Of a higher realm
Almost within reach
Almost
But not quite
So deceptively close
But
So perilously far
And yet I’ve set off on that journey
Abandoned the safety of predictability
For the fragile dream that
Cries for realization

Is that fair trade
Is that viable,
Feasible?
I wouldn’t know
We were never taught economics of the heart
That dreams
Of things even beyond
The realm of intangibility.

Chimerical

A smile, a tear
A hidden fear
Unearthed
From the deepest wells
Of buried memory

A thought, a sigh
A last goodbye
Wrenched from a broken heart

A hope, a dream
Chimerical,
Unseen
That flickers
Like a dying lamp

A breeze,
A gale
A wind of change
A portal
To that other place

And end
A death
Of things forgotten
And old

The skies have assented
Its time
To start
Afresh

The Visitor

She lay down
Her weary head
Upon the downy pillow
And wrapped herself in silken sheets
Those long black lashes gently drooped
Until they hid the sparkling emeralds
And yet,
She
Warm between the ivory sheets
Could not sleep

The Rain murmured a foreign melody
On the cobbled path below her rooms
And the grass
Bathed in moist freshness
Swayed for the first time that spring
And danced to the
Music of the Wind
The leaves whispered secrets to the nightingale
Who raised his voice
In a luscious chorus
Rhapsodizing the demure beauty of
The first night of Rain
The earthy aroma of read earth
Drifted on the Wind
And coyly negotiated
Its entrance
Through the satin folds
Of the curtain
Drawn taut across the window.
And suddenly
Those emeralds eyes opened wide
As the wind delivered its message
And she leapt up
From the feathered bed,
Ripped apart those stifling curtains,
Threw open the windows
Wide
And leaned out.
The gentle wind that knew her so well
Teased those ebony curls
As they
Danced with the Wind
She smiled.
They had not told her about the rain.
She had not heard him creep
From the east
Into her land
Rain had come
At last
How now could she sleep?

moonbeams spent

There is a cave on a deserted shore
Where golden sand twinkles
Under the veiled stare of silver moonlight
And in this cave, the water can be heard
As it caresses the wounded rocks;
The healing touch of innocence
That would cure and be blemished

And the silver moonbeams too crept in
Tiring of the golden grain
Ready to scour or gently pry
To comfort the wounded rocks

And I followed the moonlight
To the promised cave
Where gentle waters and gentler fingers
Would serenade and
Apply a soothing balm to the sorrowing

But my searching feet found no gentle waters
And no sorrowing and wounded ones
Drew mortal water from my calloused feet
Yet the gentle caress of some ethereal tenderness
Lingered in my mind
Just beyond my hearing
A transient love of healing…
Had my shy celestial guide
Been misleading?