A black leather watch

A black leather watch
around her slender wrist
made her hand the most
beautiful hand I have ever seen.

Her comely hand
on which she had worn
that black leather watch made it the most
beautiful watch I have ever seen.

The Heat

Even in this night
the street is simmering.
Perhaps it has been like this since
streets were formed.

Beside the street
having no eyes to shut
the footpath struggles to feign sleep.

And both of them
are one in an uncomfortable embrace.

Between them runs
the sewage carrying
menstrual blood.

The street and the footpath
will lie like that
sweating from fever
dreading the morning.

He took classes

He took classes on
contemporary philosophy.
In those years
he used to detest poets.
Maybe that was why we were all
under the spell of his charm.

A few weeks ago I saw him at the railway station.
He was no more a philosopher,
perhaps he couldn’t bear being one;
life had made him rely more on poetry.

I don’t know whether they-
with their powerful youth-
worship him now as we did then.

Telephone

Echoes are privileges of mountains,
valleys, magnificent churches,
water wells and perhaps of childhoods.

But I hear Echo from where she
was banished mercilessly.
I hear echoes at seashores,
in crowded buses,
in serene gardens
and under the drops of sad rain
falling on my monsoon umbrella.

I still hear the resonating echoes
of a laughter heard across a phone call.

The Supercat

The cat’s body was lying face down
on the slope of the garbage heap
with its front limbs and paws outstretched,
and hind limbs joined together pointing downwards.
Its head was jammed into the garbage heap
as if to peep through the surface in a tragicomic way.

It looked like a Supercat
soaring over the garbage heap
flying above the skies of death and decay
peering into the world in which the dead and the decaying live.

In years to come

In years to come
nobody will sing about us
not even ourselves
because the song is dead
and the singing ceased.

--

There is no return
from where we have reached now
for now we have a past,
something we didn’t have till now.

--

All is lost
yet we still live
not to regain the lost
but to live the loss.

--

You will get lost
in the shades of life
and find merriment
and laugh more than you ever did before.

But still, you are lost.

--

It is good that you left
before my fingers touched you.
If I had
you would have been defiled
and been a mere mortal, like me.

--

It is true that you are dead
but I wish more deaths for you -
let the black
of your eyebrows die,
let the quivering
of your lips die,
let the luster
of your golden bangle die
and with you let the words
in your gaze die.