The Passing of a Stranger (Dug up from a 2006 hand-written note)

In the Dark, on a New Moon day,
On the barren land,
There walked a stranger on his way,
With a black pony at hand.

Clad he was in dark garments,
And his head was covered too;
On the pony were his saddlements,
Which were all of a dark hue.

His pace was slow, his footing sure,
And wary he was of arounds;
He looked prepared for anything to endure,
And stopped he at all uncertain sounds.

From afar he looked no crook,
Though sure one cannot be;
But one could discern by just one look,
That he was not pleasant to see.

Altogether a foreboding look he bore,
But then, the sky was dark -
So was the land and waters before;
Even a dog would have feared to bark.

He walked on, pursuing the poor beast,
To carry on with his tired hoofs,
An evil pair they looked, to say the least,
Though there can be given no proofs.

Steadily the Sun rose and the dawn crackled,
The foreboding look vanishing,
The rays struck every sand grain and they chuckled,
The pair now further wandering.

With the rise of the Sun, all was plain,
And the pony now looked so brown,
The man we doubted was a mere plebian,
Walking off on an errand of his own. 

Prayer (Dug up from a 2006 hand-written note)

Pray, pray to the Lord,
The Almighty; save me
Once and for always.
In return let me donate
A thousand quids
To your big temple.
They may use it
To pay the temple employees.

Pray that my son's studies
In the UK go unhindered.
My daughter be married off
Without hassles.
And my wife should stay
To serve me till the end.
Don't you take me away soon either -
I have just started my life
After retirement.

You pray and I pray;
The God will take care
of me and you and the others.
He'll solve our problems
While we sit and watch daily soaps,
For He is a magician.
You and I will take a dip
In the Ganges and be sanctified.
He'll be pleased.

Praise be to the Lord! He,
who listens to the prayers
Of you and me and the others. 

All is well

If all was well,
You and I would have
stood hand in hand
by the door of our
two-storeyed bungalow
by the stream-side,
lined with jackfruit trees,
orange boughs
and wood-apples;
Watching the crimson sun
set by the far-away hills
dotted with teaks and firs;

If all was well, 
I would have been
hugging my publisher,
accepting a cheque of six digits,
looked on by a
beaming mother,
awaiting the publication
of an elite selected works;

If all was well, 
You'd have brought home
a jewel-case,
which I'd have playfully
rejected,
and then made you
wrap the emerald necklace
around my neck,
and you'd kiss my hair
as you did so;

But...

Rebuild

Blood, bones,
fragments of painful tissues,
flashes of nightmares,
oozing memories -
I sipped their slurps
in each mouthful
of my coffee.
I make a new coffee everyday -
A new recipe each time,
And rebuild my self
with its viscosity. 

All I need is to write

If I knew what to write,
I'd have been a columnist.
If I knew how to write,
I'd have been a novelist.
If I knew when to write,
I'd have been a poet; -
But all I know
Is that I need to write,
Not knowing what that makes me.

There are ships in the sea,
Sailing with a compass,
Captain and charts;
There are little dinghies too
floating without destination,
Carrying balmy corpses in them.
If all I need is to write,
then that makes me
the end-less dinghies;

A burnt charcoal,
burns ceaseless,
emitting heat
and cooking a lamb soft -
A spent coin
never gets spent,
Journeying on from hand to hand -

All I need is to write, my Lord,
All I need is a page from your exercise book,
A little ink from your pot,
and some words
that don't always choke on themselves
and tumble out in a jumble,
Or sound gibberish
As if I am ranting -
All I need is to write....

Choices

I had no choice but to hear you;
You stated your case time and again;
I thought about it,
And said you are right,
But would you have taken
any other reply?

You said I was wrong,
I did not argue;
You said I was a selfish pig
And I nodded my head;
You said I had an ego the size of an elephant,
I looked up and smiled at your delicate face;
You said I was mad, lazy and arrogant,
I tilted my head and wondered
why your voice sounded so faraway....

I thought of the day you said that you loved me,
I remembered the way you took my palm in yours and kissed them,
I could feel even now the breath from when you first kissed me....

There were promises of happiness,
of joy and togetherness,
But all we do these days
is try not to look
at each other's face....

There was a hope that
I shall belong with you,
But all that happened is
that I alienated you too...

No lawyer to fight my case,
I wished I could end this race
by just vaporizing into thin air;

... I have no choice but to hear you
and nod my head as I always do...

PS: I owe the first three lines to Alanis Morissette's Head Over Feet.