DELUSIONS [I]

[I]


I am not an atheist or an agnostic, but

I believe in a Supreme Power,

A destiny, that shapes our ends.

Faith is often described as a delusion.

Did I ever see any one of the gods?

Or heard Him?

[Why do we mention ‘HIM’? - As though

He is masculine in nature?]

I have no experience in any of these.

Then why should I have faith

In a non -entity to my sense?

Nevertheless, I have many a times

Held His image, idol, paintings,

And have touched them,

In a church, a temple or wayside.

In the church they give the sacramental bread

To believers as a blessed gift, from God.

It represents God and believing it as God

Transubstantiated, they accept it.

It is no more a piece of bread.

It is something more than, different than

That bread we eat daily, for our hunger.

Faith changed the substance!


When I kissed my deceased father

Before he was laid to rest,

I kissed his lifeless body, but felt it

As a Godsend ecstasy and rapture;

And I kissed my wailing old mother,

It was the body of an age old woman.

When I clinch and kiss my beloved

I am not merely fondling the body of a woman;

It is something more than that.

And that ‘something’ is the delusion,

Illusion, or hallucination or myth.


When someone touches the feet of an idol

Or kiss the feet of a granite sculpture -that of a God,

In the form of a deity, it is not the granite or the marble

They touch, or genuflect before it; but God himself.

When you touch, hug and kiss your beloved

Are you touching a mass of bone and flesh that could

Be bought at a meat stall or butchery?

And the bliss it brings forth to the heart

And the exquisite contentment accrued…

Is not that too, a myth?

WHO IS BLIND?

Who is blind now?

Who is blind in this utter darkness?

The God dozing in His heavens,

Or the poor human who toils and crawl in this earth.

Who is blind now?


Shadows are groping in the gloominess

Of life’s path, without any intent or target.

Though the sun is gleaming in full ‘joie de vivre’,

It is darkness at noon for them.

It is midnight for them at mid noon.


Man is building castles in the air,

With many a desire in his heart.

In the realm of unyielding mirages,

A will-o’the-wisp of his imagination.

But when the magic wand of time and fate

Is brandished momentarily,

Like the twisting kaleidoscope moves

Everything in its turn,

We see the empty wilderness before us.

Only empty wilderness!

Agitating Love...

Do not love me this vigorously…

Do not love me this fervently…

My heart is searing and sweltering,

With the agonizing torridity of your love.

The luscious dreams in my eyes are

Smoldering and burning out.

I never coveted for this much love

That I cannot compromise or cherish

Inside my heart’s mother of pearl.

All that I wanted was the complacent warmth

Of a miniscule spark of love, to haul the burden

Of a lugubrious despondency that weighed upon me.

And cross the Empty Quarter of a desert of

Arduous affliction that threatened my existence.


I managed to reach the shore struggling with

The waves of grueling misery, with the helping

Heart touch of a loving hand stretched out towards me.


I could break the walls of a fortress of

The sweltering heat shield of the stifling summer,

With the chilling wetness of a moist kiss

Of your beguiling lips that lingered in mine.

I am surviving as a burning candle now,

Without perishing in the hell fire of my expectations,

Only with the fond memory I relish from the past,

Of a loving caress, of your soothing hand.


So do not drown me by immersing me

In the deluge of your savage love;

As I cannot withstand the sight of

A flayed heart by your lurid love …

Love Unsensored..

Those lines that were never written,

Those words swallowed unuttered

Were all for you, and about you.

The anxiety of the sodden sprout of grass

After the first rain, and the ecstasy

Of the first drop of rain, kissing the earth,

Are all inlaid in those words and unwritten lines.


Meandering like a winding river, downstream,

Through the lonesomeness of a solitary stork

Doing its penance earnestly on one leg,

In the far corner of a green velvety paddy field;

And through the resplendency of a king fisher’s wings;

Through the dreams of a jacaranda flower,

While I close on you, gliding softly in silence…



Greet me with a garland of blooms

From the rainbow; adorning your forehead

With a speck of vermilion, borrowed

From the evening sky, and a bewitching smile

On your lips that narrates untold heart throbs.

You will then listen to the cooing of my heart

In the dawn, while the morning mist covers the wood.

You can then fill up your scattered dreams

To the brim, with my love – Uncensored…

Farewell...

Oh! Death…

You will not die…

You went without hurrying at last

Into a long dark tunnel.

But you did not die...

There was a piece of lamb awaiting

For you in there…

I am your spirit.

It is time, since I have lost you in me.

You left like the withered petals of a rose,

Assembling back into its stem;

Like the rustle of leaves humming

In harmony with the breeze.

You are a twinge in my heart

Of a poem I could not write…


Each birth, glided slowly into this

Forbidden path, is a poem

Lost in oblivion eternally;

Yes, lost poems.....

What could your love, your candor,

Your smiles, your jests, your comradeship

Fill in my heart and eyes?

Are only two drops of tears!

SPLENDOURS OF LOVE

I smell the musk in the breeze and asked her,

If she has seen my beloved and caressed her cheeks,

While she was passing through.

The silver bells on her anklets tinkled in a melody,

While she ran, and I heard it in the distance.


The ripples chilled my heart with jubilation,

As she plunged into the blue waters, of the tiny river.

Did the tender trunk, of that small plant,

Leaning on my pulsating bosom, shiver?

Did the rosy lips, adorning the sign of my

Ardent love there, for a moment, quiver?

The stars blossomed in her stunning eyes;

Twilight blossomed on the cheeks, wet with coyness;

Nectar of the grapes dripped from the red soft lips; and

My name overflows abundantly in her honeyed words.

I can not delineate the delight in my heart

As I awaken in you, with all my sweet imagery.

It is not the five flowers, nor the radiance of

The gorgeous moon, which is desired;

But your adorable eyelids are Cupid’s dearest arrows….

Me...Who Is you...

Like the fragrance emanating

From the sodden earth after the first rain;

Like the never ending water bubbles

Overflowing from the spring of your love;

Like the flames of cold wintry blueness

Of a moon lit night in January…


I still remember those wee hours of the night

When you walked in….

Then I saw you in the darkness of the lonely

Nights, when the Night queen blossomed

And in the twilight

When the petals of the Pansies withered….

Then you flew away deep into the silvery clouds

In a long moan…

Was that the chaste love of a puny butterfly

Or…….?


Finally, leaving a cloud of suspicion in my mind

As to who you were…….

My mind after an interlude of a semi second,

Softly asked me again...

”Were you me?’…..or….myself?

WHICH TINT OF THE RAINBOW?.......

Which tint is of the rainbow!

Which note is of the sextet!

In your eyes,

In your lips,

What is the tone of

The music you hum?


I will adorn the treads you walk

With flowers… magnificent.

Open those steps for me to walk,

Dress up for me that night,

And keep yourself for me,

To take you near my soul

To make you the rhythm

of my heart.



All your lonely dreams

Were about me.

We longed for our

Dreams to blossom.

To make you the life

of my life

There is an immense

Desire in my soul….

Unknowingly...

Tell me my heart, did you ever

Crave to become a stanza in the

Sweet rhapsody of an enthralling love;

And to be a resplendent dream

In its meaningful contents.


Tell me if you have ever heard

The rustling wings of the mystifying

Love affair, in my melody?

The saffron tinge of those solitary

Evenings, were the gifts of love,

That you proffered, and conferred.

I don’t know anything, but I am

Just singing like a wounded bamboo

Stem, that cries in the wilderness.


Tell me if these songs carry the

Fragrance of ancient love ballads,

And the wind is blowing to create

A rhythm to the music in harmony,

I ‘m just singing like a forsaken bird

Waiting in the jungle, in the midst

Of a wild fire, unknowingly…

Down Memories Lane

In your tender eyes
Blooms the starry sky.
There is only one continence
Alone in my eyes,
One note alone in the ears;
I am unable to wipe it off from my mind
It goes on and on eternally
And my life stands still in that harmony.

You illumine my environment
As the thousand lights of the lamp
In the courtyard,
And you are the one after the thousand wicks,
which stands out and radiate celestial glory.

In your sparkling curls of hair,
I perceive the emerging moon
On the firmament,
With her bride-maids–the stars .
I see golden rays in your cheeks
When your finger tips touch
The flaming lamp.
And I could see your love blazing,
In your stunning sweet face.

As I morphed into a sandal colored
Attire covering your soft rosy skin,
You entered as a poem into my mind
And your sweet snigger
Became a sparkle….

HUES OF DREAMS

In those young days when I used to

Love blossoms, and wished to fly around them

Like a butterfly, the colour of my dreams was ‘green’.


When I coveted to touch the snow clad

Mountains that loomed over the boundless

Horizon spreading before me, the colour

Of those dreams were ‘ blue’, as the hyacinths.


The age when I desired for the dawn of

A new political system without corruption,

And the blood was bubbling with revolutionary

Ideologies, the dreams hovered around me

Looked forward for such a dawn, its colour

Was a crimson ’ red’, of the proletariat.


When I see the dry leaves of a tree

Scorched in the intolerable heat of the sun,

My excitement freeze and the dreams

Assumed the hue of ‘ash’, in despair.


In this advanced stage of life, I am unable to see

Anymore vivid dreams, I used to have.

Now my palette have the colours, got mixed

Together, and formed a blackish tint.

No more resplendent dreams in the life now!

And who knows, what its colour could be

In the eerie silence of my tomb….

Silent Night…

Evening soaked us in dewdrops.

We never realized, we were sodden.

Our feelings, too warm, swelled with

Vibrant love and in delirium of ecstasy.


The purloined hours coveting, like

Two springs gushing out of a mountain

To embrace each other and then meander

Down the plain, in unison, to eternity.

You waited for me that night, in the wintry cold

Alacrity written in your smiles and eyes,

Under the finery of the Milky Way,

The pale moon, guarded over you.

Glow worms in your heart, flew out,

Fluttering all around, in the teeny breeze.


The wind carried the lassitude of the midnight;

Stealthily I came behind you, and covered

Your eyes, with my right palm and

Holding you, with the other.

You uttered a cry, finding me that instant

In a fog of confusion, and turned.

Embraced me impetuously

Like a clingstone, and showered

Myriads of tenderest kisses on me.

Me, in reticent vibes lost in reverie,

In that bewitching sprawl.

Time lost its count…nature stood still.

How long? We never knew...

Infatuations of birth....

You have taken my birth

And me yours...so the Providence decreed…


Infatuations filled our birth

And we shared the nectar of our love

You became my daughter and my son.

My hands became a cradle for you

And I sang lullabies for you to sleep…..


I will adorn your lips, and brows

And your cheeks and nape with

Very warm kisses draped with my love.

I will watch your pranks and naughty smiles

You, my beloved, sleep close to my bosom.


In this chamber, along the walkway

I will hold your soft fingers in my hand,

And follow you like a shadow

Shower you with kisses all along.

Like the dewdrop lingering on rose petal

I see you nestle at my side

My spirit is enthralled by this sleeping angel.

Do not disturb her in her siesta

Lest, my dreams vanish in the void….

IF YOU ARE NOT…

What for is sweetness embedded in this song

If you are not coming here once to listen to it..

Why the flowing water should keep love in its mind

If there is no shore to embrace it; or

To hug and hold close in the flurry of passion.

Why should the moon show its face among the clouds,

On a night when you are not beside me then.

Why should the rainbow bloom in the firmament,

If you are not there as a peacock in its pavane..


Where is the charm, which bewitches me with a sweet smile?

Tell me, my beloved; I am groping in the gloomy eve of time

That awakens my dreams, and arouses me out of my lassitude;

The heart is tuning up the chords of love and the sweet

Music is flowing out through the breeze, and

Love has become an inimitable inebriating rhythm.

The doors of the ivory castles will open for us.

The flower of Paradise will bloom magically for us.

A new dawn is opening its eyelids from slumber.

Wipe your tears and trust that you are not alone.


The spring zephyr will confide in your ears

That without me you are a non-entity.

Uninterrupted

In the corridor that connects birth and death,
Intense silence remains at standstill; there
Erupts a hushed moan, helplessly pleading
For some unexpressed assistance.

Let me own that silence, adopt it to
My soul, as meaningful moments,
That slips away elusively in the interlude
Of silence and sounds in life.

We make them into poems, in all
Its perfection and contemplate on it.
Open my eyelids after my death and
Look into the depth, without apprehension.
You will observe the ripples in the sea of
Tears that were kept away from dropping
Down through the cheeks, grimly.
Even the destiny is preventing me
To become insane, lest I forget
To remember everything…

Beckoning

Come out to the world, you won’t regret.
It is not dark here and I will make you a different girl.
In there you have to face rebuffs and scorns;
And it reflects now in your nature.
To love and leave is not your hobby.
Like the tensed strings of a violin
You spend your days and nights
You have no recreations
A touch so light will quiver it and,
Discords erupt in hard feelings.
With that you break the hearts of
Those, who love you and cherish you,
Make me the happiest one in life
Sure, you can do that with strain.

I was in rapture
When you said ‘no rupture between you and me’.
So lovely this morn, when I saw you sail past
Clad in that blue Sari with red lines.
Again I heard your pleasantry;
I know the concern in your breath,
Full of love you’re the one I love.

Can’t you break the clam
Which holds you away from me?
I can’t enter it; sealed and marooned
My soul flutters around it,
Awaiting and awaiting to glide
Away to the blue sky and ride
Among the silvery clouds,
And together we make our haven;
Though others may even scorn us.
Hurry up before the dream vanishes,
Before this moth scorches its wings.

Said you helped me to come out of my loneliness
Yet, when you left me, you pushed me into an abyss.
Said you’ll call me later, but you never did,
And I waited till dawn, and then you never knew.

I don't know...

Who opened the soft petals of this Lotus
One by one in the pool of the morning?
I don't know! Let it not be known.

Who dissolved the charming scent of the Sandal
In the morning breeze grazing in your presence?
I don't know! Let it not be known...

Who aroused the musical couplet of this nectar
On the lips of the wild pipe of this bamboo
Dancing with its peacock's tail ?
I don't know ! Let it not be known...

Now my mind also chants this chorus:
"I know I don't know anything"
Let the fountain of this knowledge
Never dries up...

Who pushed open the door of my soul
And entered there with a glowing
Lamp of love and purity?
I know! But let it never be known...

HARMONY

The wind adores the fragrance,
And the bamboo pipes loves music,
The earth and the sky,
The shores and the waves,
The river and the sea,
The nature and the Creator,
Are they not in harmony?

Is there anything created
That does not like each other?
Do we have any proof against this?

The sextet notes, the rhythm and beats,
Any song or music without them?
Any emotions, any play? Any literature in the world?

Any hearts, which do not imbibe
The slumber and dreams in it,among lovers?
Is there a romantic moment without it?
Is there any vision, not awakened by
Amour, infatuation, and obsession or
Hopes, all sublimed in unison?
Is there a splendored imagination
Without music, love and romantic awakening
And fulfillment of life?

Lost In a Trance...

The snow melted in the vale as the blanket of

Silky clouds changed its attire, and the ravishing

Spring paved a silky carpet on the earth,

With the golden fleece of sunshine.


A wild brook flowing among the grassy knoll

Was singing its luscious song, with its anklet of love;

The silvery foam gleaming in its ankle, under the sun.

A tiny flower danced in the blowing wind, its moist lips

Pecking the cheeks of the wind, with honey.

Inside the mind in its pavane, had a canopy of

Rainbows with tender affectionate thoughts.

Are you drenched in the milky rain of the

Gleaming moonlight in its glory..

Seems you never realized the sprinkle of

Sandal from the heaven, in your daze.

PROGNOSIS...

Do not love me at all expecting that I am a flower.
Do not touch me as though I am a dew drop;
I will fade away with the warmth at your finger tips.
Do not tread on me, believing that your insteps will
Find it comfortable to walk on me.
Do not try to climb down into the depth
Of my fathomless heart,
Assuming I am only knee deep.
Do not try to delight me with a kiss
On my disillusioned lips, believing
It is enormously charming and sweet.

I am just a woman, with all the vileness
Of this world, and none of these.
I am no angel…