moonbeam, a cento

moonbeams tease my soul to sing a muse
beauty from above summons my spirit to dance
i watch a bird, and pet a dog wagging his tail
soft sea’s silence, in my being, echoes a yell

against the caravan of untruth and fraud
wit in me frees self from the prison of head
there the bard sat alone in a daydream
with a future sketched in pencil of cream

many things in life that wound and hurt
but mercy, today, opened a pane for that poet
while only well burned ashes was left behind
allowing him, now, the sleep, to defend

* Photograph by Gitanjali Victor.

woman in my life

just nearer to my grave i pause
to raise the issue and to reflect
on answers registered
carefully in my mind

the question, then, is this:
do i now need a woman
in my life, that last lap to run
to sleep well before i sleep in peace

this matter my heart
has never before quested
not, at least, very consciously, granting
freely, that space for a woman in my life

* Photograph by Kendra Lee.

calming my mind

calming my mind is taming my cat
that i never had any success
every time i expect her to sit
she walks away with her meow

my mind too with peace as i shut
let’s the flood-door open
for million thoughts to flow
with mice to nibble my house

until my soul drops dead
like that tree beside the river
fell by that not so big beaver
effortlessly gnawing around

taking stock

when pain pinches

my feeble heart
that struggles to pump blood
to keep my other organs well

as my tamil mother
continuously cooked to feed
the many members in my home

i prefer to stop my walking

as she stopped, but only
for a moment, that i may take stock
and replenish my stockpile
to continue my journey

that may continue, or end
not with my counsel
but entirely at his will

silently walking with, or sitting
beside me, struggling

to recollect his absent presence

skyscrapers & bigger mosques

depression in small children
and obsession with paediatric drugs
embarrass health services
that keep busy world-wide
where people are extremely
self-centred with no time
even for leisure and push
the spousal relationships
to the backseat
making loyalty evaporate
but building, steadily, buildings
including skyscrapers
and bigger mosques
while i see and sense
with that third eye
an increasing impatience of people

newer journeys

my body, that machine
circulates fuel not so well
threatening, frequently, to stop
or, permanently shut down
certain sections
to slow down my soul
or, to suggest, with force, a path
my spirit never planned

this prompted me
to turn to a mechanic
for whom my soul is irrelevant
and who considers not the dream
that my sprit secretly dreams

adding tubes to that machine
but from within
the mechanic who touches not
any grease, nor the lubricating oil
made my soul soar higher
and higher to spaces my spirit
has never journeyed

erasing my soul

she exposed my bone and my flesh,
with muscles and fibre
and my blood and my spit
that she licked from my lips

revealing that which matters most
is not that silly little soul,
that indelible, invisible substance
that gets transposed

to that unknown place and person
from which it came
but my cock in erection and nipples,
both without bone

but in that state of arousal
that she sucked and squeezed
while she pushed mine into her depth
and her flesh into my mouth

proclaiming the new purpose
and establishing an inner peace,
though perfectly momentary
but demanding that frequently

a process by which the spirit
in her, and me fully evaporated
as worthy ancient manuscripts
now erased for new writing to emerge