SOLDIER

you burden the soldier

with your expectations

you want him to win a war

in which you will never go

you want him to give his life

while your blood will never flow

you will thump your chest

and howl battle cries

for him to return in a body bag
and you forget him pretty soon

CIRCUMFERENCE

You built walls 
The domestic ones

And found everything within
Your world, your life

Your purpose within

The family was precious

Yours that is

What lay beyond

Did not matter

The empty bowls

The festering wounds

The blown limbs

The body bags

Was not seen

The ghettos

The tear stains unnoticed

The million faces

The million bruises

Were only sights

To be seen

Through your window panes

SWALLOWED

loneliness

creeps into my room
from some corner

it enters

it grows

it overwhelms me

i cower

i withdraw

i cover my eyes

it is ruthless

in its advancement

gruesome

in its completeness

i am shrunk to the wall

it yawns

its black gaping mouth

i am swallowed

in a gulp

it is lonely in here

in this loneliness

is there no way out

it presses on me

i am bogged to the ground

it is impossible

you know

to drag a lonely self

to rise to activity

to tend to occupation

to pretend loneliness

just walked out

the way it came in

Haze of Proximity

it is raining

my world
is an indigo blue
i think
again and again
of you       
in going away
you are
closer to me
you transcend distances
and rise boundless
you defy
all definitions
and make our relationship
limitless
that which
you could not be
in one place
you have by retreating
into oblivion
today you appear
larger, nearer, dearer
without
the haze of proximity
your person seems
sharper, neater, more erect
you pervade  life
and sink into me
your personality soars
in going away
you’ve found yourself
i am glad
i could give you back
to yourself

unreal

the skies are downcast

and expressions overcast
outlines recede
landscapes blur
the rains move across
horizon to horizon
cleansing space
in gigantic sweeps
foliage drips
with uncanny grace
the breeze sways
at a haunting pace
this world is unreal
dream like
in its face
you have been gone
for days
knowing no end
and i have waited
with a patience
uncanny to my race
it is tiresome my love
to be reasonable always
i can be trying too
it is time you knew
how this
rain like gloom
pervades all life
and leaves me cold

 

still a chance

cobwebs hang

on my brain
dust has settled
into my lungs
the blood is
drying
it s not anemia
the system is tired
it’s not old age
youth
lies buried somewhere
the spirit shies
it’s not weakness
i am alive
but
death has come
many times
occasionally
the mind raises
some dust
maybe there’s hope
maybe
there’s still a chance

 

ashes

in every dawn

there lingers the ash

of the dusk gone

in every tommorrow

is the stink of

a wasted yesterday

today lies

in the middle of nowhere

hopelessness

yet hope lurks around

I’ve stamped on it

many a time

it neither dies

nor rises in flame

a spark smoulders

and singes the being