Home-coming...

Soon the cool breeze will freeze…
Freeze into a cold whiff pricking you along the road…
Soon the sun will go down…
Down, down, down…till you can’t find it anymore.
Very soon the air will smell of stale dead leaves,
Of dead flowers trampled upon…
Soon enough the lights shall blur on the streets,
Leaving you in company of the eerie smog…
Soon a sudden gust of warm air will remind you of a home…
You will run and run…backwards…with heated ears and restless breath.
Soon you will knock...on a familiar, dilapidated door,
Only to be frozen too…frozen by that face you see…
Frozen by the painful memory of the face you never get to see…

These are strange times...

Something new has been scribbled on the page…
I hope it remains there.
These are strange times…times when nothing remains…
The woman thought she had created a child…
Time did the trick…it wasn’t a child who scowled back!
Shadows too are quick to leave you!
You need to tie them by your waist…
And hands?
They leave you too…yours…and another’s…
I am here though…I remain.
You can turn…turn and ask me a question.
Questions always remain…
And the answer?
I had scribbled it for you…yes I had!
May be it walked away…
Nothing remains…these are strange times…

What do I create...?

What do I create if you are my thought?
What do I bring forth? You are all that I have…
All my songs are but melodies of your memories…
How do I choose a new path when all roads lead to you?
You stand there…at the end of all journeys…
I move forward to be there…every day…
You are the first fleeting thought of every new dawn…
You are the companion of my tired dreams…
You are the arched horizon I try reaching to…
You are the hand I wish to hold on…
Are you there? There…for me?
Can I ask? Can I doubt?
Can I live and not be yours?
Can you live on without me? Beyond me?
And then I see it! Why do I?
The world knows…how can we not?
You are the Sky…too proud to stoop…
I am the Earth…destined not to stand.

Masks!!

A silent, neat and creepy battle is underway…
Who shall have the upper hand?
Or shall we say the final hand?
This is the land of the confident masks…masks piled on masks…
No…they are not people…simply masks!
Masks that laugh, masks that giggle, masks that command, masks that stoop!
You thought you saw a human being beneath?
Sorry! those days have passed…
No flesh, no bones, no blood, no pulse…only masks meeting masks.
So who shall win the battle in this land of the masks?
Can masks attempt to unmask each other?
I ponder at this and laugh…
A wait in cold numbness…who dares to ask?
The battle gets underway…an unending task…
I witness it today…tomorrow…the year after…and centuries pass…
I am the wisest…the shrewdest…why? Do you ask?
I did not act…did not judge…did not rise…did not walk…
The only mask who never joined the muddle…
Never felt the need to unmask!

That time of the year...

Its that time of the year again…
When yellow leaves stretch themselves on pavements,
Welcoming every step of your lonely stroll…
When the fragrance of the revived gulmohar
Follows you unfailingly, through familiar lanes and by-lanes…
That time of the year when misty mornings
Arouse old memories, enveloping life with sweet melancholy…
When the sun becomes kinder…merely kissing the skin
With its honeyed warmth.
A time when the buzz of the city calls out loud…
Making your isolated poise more special, more picturesque…
When strange, small, colorful birds greet you in parks,
And even twitter impatiently…waiting for your nod!
A time when life slows down…waiting for you to admire its new dress…
A time when happiness hides in nooks…breathless,
Excited…nervously wanting to be found…
That time of the year that pushes you unawares…with its quick hands,
Into dreams of a perfect world…
Its that time of the year when words disobey your commands…
Impulsively dancing into tender, meandering poems…
That very time of the year again…when you long to be happy...and yes...forever.
A time of the year…that waves good-bye too soon…
Deserting you abruptly…
Amidst those silent yellow leaves and the scent of the moody gulmohar…