Poetry

the pigeons flew off today with a piece of sky the rains washed down the mosque tomb its untoward gaze somebody hastily patched with red and orange...

your long unruly hair had grown on me always and on a sunny afternoon like this stretched to a breeze i had known its sheen rustle gentle on your...

i had gone to see you again a desolate road had once tied the heart the wind and dust hid the palace a lone watchman told me you have left doors and...

today the evening has come back in its finery streets coil back in languor i smell an aroma like distant footsteps lying on a divan behind curtains...

my nose had touched you as i uttered i love you lips that would never leave the crypt of a season strangely looking for another reason i let the...

let me go i had told you then your smile unleashed a sea in the ravines palaces were swept off to a distant sky and a painted afternoon burnt the...

another day I came to see you after many deserts had cut into many a season and an insanity as old as the tamarind tree had redrawn its borders as...

i had told you again and again that we must run far away where will that be, you had smiled mischievously sandstorms that might hide us to a...

We had once walked around Connaught place for hours Trying to solve a puzzle Of a day in its stately columns Holding aloft the far shores Of an...

It was difficult to place your home Green foliage hung around the majestic gates Loudly protesting as I pushed it open A child in rags looked...

The cats struggled to sleep last night They screeched and screamed Squirmed and dreamed Of cool desperation In catatonic inspiration Of the raj and...

My mother died today I was with her till she gave the last gasp And broke all changes in a single swipe that struggled to keep her It was a...

The mirror told me a different story I had frequently asked about you Since the summer we met and lost each other again We had made love on a sky...

And you? Is the African sun shining? Yes it has been shining Burning all of us underneath it It always reminded us of our skin That had burned black...

Where did the members of your tribe go To happiness they thought they would suddenly find Didnt we find our happiness after travelling strange lands...

december in johannesburg brought the heat wave so familiar to an anger torn again in a brittle feeling of windswept leaves high pitched laughter in...

this is an evening of hurts in a collage of elusive colours on a body stained with a distant dark. i had called your name yesterday as the moon rode...

Les montagnes dévalaient aujourd’hui tout autour de moi qui chevauchais les dragons dans le soleil et son armure de brouillard : je...

The mountains galloped down today all around me riding hard the dragons in the sun in an armor of mist seeking your runaway eyes at an edge of my...

It rained and rained Tiny sundrops fell all over It fell over the hot tarred road And it fell over the fort wall It fell over you and me And then...

I slept on white sheets, The charpoi on our backyard Captured many a sun Many a kites, many a glances The cold has been a welcoming night Your eyes...

Summers were imprisoned Outside closed doors Nights are your shy eyelashes Left half open I had stood reckless Against the peepul tree Unveiling the...

Summers back home have always weaved Treading a scream, the wind bringing Bandit faces plundering Earthenware feelings At the end of a long...

You had told me In a summer of stealth Of birds that sat on Electric poles who Left as evening approached I thought of the rain To whom I must...

Huzrat kothi, your home another minor minaret lost to history and Mughal nobility to a stampede of life, moments and memories. Days and nights in...

you said something that day whispers of a twilight river swirling in your eyes i could then only catch faint notes of a long forgotten song gently...

In the night, a dream creases you on me like the unfolding bird in a suspended storm on a bending tree. You brush beside me, the caress feathering...

Winter nights in Gwalior hiding an unkempt solitude in a long drawn silence encompassing fort walls, cannons and promises behind gilded curtains....

When did I first see you, Aavantika I ask myself again and again even then when you touched me in that long night with a ripple of laughter and a...

When you have traveled all the way over A thought on a flutter of an eye When you have traveled the sway of Wheatfield of my village in A solitude...

There was a rain once that broke the sky in two and strangely streets stepped by you lifted an old curtain beyond your knowing me Bus stops rode a...

there are swords in a palace of my dreams that glint each night behind faces of darkness searching smouldering till the dawn of realization and...

Somewhere far off beyond the sand dunes and a ragged sky-piece pierced with the last of camel hooves tired in pursuit of a long day, the evening in...

An elderly lady came to me From an Old Age Home She was white and dried Her blood sugar was up Her blood pressure was down Before she fainted She...

Days blended into nights and then suddenly a raindrop quietly managed to touch your cheeks while you looked out through the fort windows drenched in...

There is a closeness bequeathed to summer A shadow astride Your lips And I have held ever since A voice warrior stealth under a satin skin. Streets...

I wait for you each day with the changing of seasons, the smell in our mango orchard and the turbulence of your hair where I once basked the stealth...

Another wintry day petals over petals of quiet wind hiding a warmth from these streets of old delhi where fables had once been strangled in the...

The theme of godfather is playing somewhere and my mind once again tries to open a long shuttered window on pall bearer of shadows and sadness of a...

It was this yet another train that lumbered back into Gwalior casting long shadows heavy with another day snaking into a deepening dusk by the fort...

it was this road that once took me to your haveli a spiralling dirt road at the edge of madness that grew into a walled city of shadows hidden by a...

I spoke to you once of voices and streets snatches of sky between us and stone walls of your home that always muffled a conversation steady patter...

I never knew of such seasons in a crowded street off old Gwalior wayside nestling a pervading touch of your breath caught in nooks of sighs behind...

Yes, I lived for you all these years and all these summers that stalked fervently the streets looking for moments we lost so long back... Summers in...

I have watched for long the sky scattering staccato of moss green walls overgrowing a distance musty corners of my home where clouds and ghosts have...

I have seen a desolate river flowing in voices and memories always at sunset when stones sizzle cold and a hope in the tar, sticks to the feet I...

How much do you miss me... the roads that I have shown you, would never take you to the lamp-post whose flickering lights had searched with me in...

Far, so far off in a far off land you think of me as always even while driving down to work or when you get caught up in a traffic jam or just...

Sitting somewhere far from home thoughts are a nagging child in my village fair It's summertime now back home long summers of grumbling pigeons...

And then the rains came narrow streams pouring down the sultry heat by the fort side I remember the forest below humming to peacock strains. I look...

And then again the sun broke brittle with a yesterdays laughter spread amidst a sparkle of resounding moments. Since then a voice tangled within the...

On an evening like this in the midst of running streets and running rain I think of leaving you, taking with me a cache of words in a tin-trunk...

You live in the deeper recesses of the fort surrounded by villages in the mind of a dust-storm and in an air thick with voices of the heart. days...

That was a such a long time back and the nights knew nothing of the kothi at the end of sand dunes. Even time whispered with the storm as it passed...

I once loved a dark girl... I never knew her name She came one day in the eye of river dusk her dusky shadow prevailing the green fields and...