Puppetry

They say, we are what we are
and our life is what it is.

No.

We are what we are not too.
We are that man too,
whom we envied
for his golden watch,
for his motor bike,
for his better English,
for his leather shoes -
and whom we stabbed in the nape.

There is unborn poetry
in our shallow minds too;
though we will never be poets
even while dying of reality.

Our life is that which it is not too.
Our bones are that father’s too
who never fathered us
and our flesh that mother’s too
who never carried us.

Our world is that city too where
we haven’t ever killed in street fights
but where still echoes pistol shots
in pallid, windless evenings.

Our time is that too which
never ticks for us
but still drag us along
to tomorrows that we don’t own.

We will never be those men,
live those lives,
walk those worlds
and see those times.
But they lurk somewhere -
perhaps in the backlands of our souls -
luring us like a dryad
all the while evading us forever.

Disappointment

The old house lay new, as new as any spinster.
There was no dust on the marbled floor
and it vainly tried to mirror the ceiling.

The faded, cracked pages of hardbound books
stacked in wooden bookshelves
told new stories - they talked about these days.

Faces that looked out from daguerreotypes
on the walls were not of dead people
but of those just being born, once again seeking death.

I expected coarse dust from bygone years
I wanted the books to have just memories in them
and I had dreamt of finding dead people here.

Truth

On some afternoons,
when I am sleeping,
a chameleon runs
from the guava to the hibiscus
across the cemented path in my garden.

I wake up
from my dreamless siesta
to see its changing colours.

But by then
it would have vanished
into its own secret colours.

If ever,
in the rest of my days,
I catch sight of it
to what stone shall I freeze it?

Years

Times were good back in those days
so much that they killed all the good ones that came.

Nothing is forgotten-
neither the cane chair
nor its dirty soft cushion.

Evenings were sweet
like tea.

There weren’t much music;
but then who needed it?

It used to rain
and drench whole lives.

End

We are getting ready
for something - always.
For a duel, maybe,
or for a truce.
We are not quite sure.

At most we will start
and then get lost in the beginning.
We begin the verse
and then forget even the words.

If we had reached anywhere, any time,
it is only to the wisdom
that we are incapable of reaching ever,
that we are capable of only getting ready -
of only beginning.