Footprints on the sand

I tread over shards of broken souls

As I set sail for distant lands

The wind came on. wiping with scorn

My footprints on my sands

 

Time crawled across the timeless waters

The shore was not mine

I looked at the strange unforgiving sky

The stars had the strangers’ shine

 

Not a hand was raised for me

In the maze of faces and hands

I walked a lone, solitary walk

Among their footprints on thei sands

 

I survived the sins of my dark bronzed skin

To earn my worth in gold

The uncrowned prince of the markets was I

Where dreams were bought and sold

 

Yet as I looked over my empire

Counting my 1000 grands

I saw how lonely were still

My footprints on their sands

 

Thirst gnawed.And I set sail again

For the rain soaked soil of mine

I looked at the familiar, comforting sky

The stars found their familiar shine

 

And let the fragrance  take me to

Where my old frail mother stands

Where she has guarded against the unforgiving wind

My footprints on her sand

The abyss of silence

I ask no questions, I seek no answers
You asked me to straddle the narrow pathI do
My diversions are but proverbial.
You asked me to play safe Why, I do
I never ask questions, I never seek answers
Over the years I have perfected
The art of inane exclamations
Every time you push macabrity under my door
Only to return nonplussed
To the cocoon of my safe world
Where I berate in numb, frozen corridors
You, your ideals, the hopelessly honest Manjunath
All shadows on the fringes of my sound proof world
Do not get me wrong-I am not dishonest either
Only I ask no questions, I seek no answers

The glass wall

I looked at him across the vast emptiness
Faces dissolved and disintegrated as he
became omnipresent
Days of silence had built up a wall
Stained with soot from snuffed out candles
Shielded, his face was hazy almost nebulous
Suffocated, I flailed my arms, hysteric and obsessed
The emptiness took on shapes as the glass
fell protesting to the floor
I panicked as I lost him in the crowd
Slowly realizing, my vision of him had always been filtered
Through layers of glass that changed colour
as I traversed the spectrum with him
Now, shorn of adjectives he was ordinary to
the point of mortality
I laughed after a long time
Where was the demi god of my dreams-he was
only a man

The Phantom

Suffocated by the oases’s calm I walked
Into the nomad’s mutiny
Life beckoned but I yielded
To the quirks of destiny

Abandoning the certainty of the day
I became the night’s wanton queen
And Lived a 1000 years of bliss
In those fleeting moments of sin

Cocooned by still air I yearned
For the restless storms to brew
I scorched my hand yet reached out again
For the phantom called you..

Sunday Morning

The air hangs heavy on a Sunday morning

Nauseating oil and ghee and the sauted spices

The wives in kichen fry puris. The men on the verandah debate

Matters of national and international interest

Restless kitchen. The new bride – her voice, her opinions

The wrinkled, firm hand restrains her. Tell us. We will hear

The ordeals of the kitchen.The shames of the bedroom.

Let the men deal with the world.

The debates sink in the oil. The smoke is heavy

Close the door- snarls the man. The smell is nauseating

The women do as told. They are safer within closed doors.

With the nauseating ghee. And the sauted spices.