They talk of good karma, and moksha..for all of us

If you believe in Ram..or Shiva or the thousand gods

And yes, there is heaven if you believe in Allah, or Jesus

I wonder what describes the heaven we find,  the gods.

We ever so unexpectedly find, amongst each of us..

In the friendships and love we share and Almost like gods..

We create the beautiful, when we love another more than ourselves..

In moments of tenderness, laughter, mirth and kindness,  there is a god..

Undescribable but there ever so hidden in plain sight amongst ourselves..

I write this verse .. and a song plays on my playlist.. what if god was one of us?

 When I drape a saree, A pretty one in red

And yes , those  earrings..that dangle 

An anklet, a necklace and a shiny bangle

A little Kajal and maybe a lipstick cherry red

I face the world.. trying to be a pretty face

And then my heart tells me, ever so kindly..

You are beautiful, my dear.. yes, ever so gently..

When he, your love, looks at your face..

You truly are beautiful..

When love looks at you face to face….

Beautiful.

 Today, as I sat down to make a clay Ganesha on Ganesh Chaturthi.. I thought of writing a poem for He who created us..

As I try my hand at making your idol,

Your elephant trunk and deity face..

I wonder if this is how you prototyped my face .

In your head, did you decide to add my mole ..

As an afterthought, I often thought …

The way I love with no ability to hold back

My quick anger and quirky clumsiness..

My fickle mind that sways between hard work and laziness

Did you add  all that or was that my Karma paying back

As an afterthought, I often thought…

Every win and obstacle, my fate you decide 

My life, my choices …are they really mine…

Or is life and it’s game all pre decided for what is mine..

Tell me, Oh Ganesha, is all an illusion of choice..to decide 

An afterthought, I often thought..

Mt only  real choice.. to love and go with the flow

To know that I am a speck in your cosmos infinite

That all my logic and desires are but fine

Making a Ganesha as I let my thoughts flow

I am an afterthought, I often thought.

 All I ever asked from this world was an all consuming love..

All I ever got from this world was everything but that..love

To always be standing at the crossroad .. of love

Where I  endlessly want and give ..and love

The ones I love are always timid to love..

It is as though time and again, time tests my love..

I fail in love ..

Today

 I write because the scribe listens..

He lets me pour my heart and  soul..my love

He understands my pain, he listens..

I am never alone with his presence… my love

My scribe and I.. he gets me more..

Than you ever will..my love..

For he is my pen to open my soul..

He is there when you aren’t..,my love 

He accepts my every mood..with love

Yes, he loves me more..

Though I love you more ..

 Does every relationship have a name?

Does the name define the relationship?

Does the relationship define the name?

Does a nameless relationship have a name?

Is she your lover because you held her?

Is she your lover because you love her?

Is she your lover  because you made love to her?

Is she your lover because she loves you so?

Is she your lover because you can’t deny the love?

Is she your love r because you cannot live without her?

Is she your lover because you can’t live with her

Does love not suffice it all?

Why do we name it? When we can call it love

Why do we question it? When the reason is love

With us.. with you

 In the threads of meaningless conversations, words

How are you? .. and Are you okay?

A deeper thread hidden entwined in unsaid words

 It really says..

That with you, I am okay..

Goodnight and Hello.. trivial words..

Meaningless sounds.. to fit in the norm..ok?

Carrying endless waves of  love..unexplained in words

It really says..

That with you, we are okay

Pliant to my master potter

I am but clay in your hands.. My master potter

Mould and pat me to the shape ..the softness you desire,

Pliable …surrendering to the powerful hands of my potter

Whither it is joy or pain , your will… my desire

Hold me, work me. spin me in your destiny wheel

Till my muddy muddled mind becomes all heart

Bake me in thy heat, where your warmth I feel

Till I willingly set to the shape of your heart 

Please.. is all I have to say ..as I feel

 In the Medina of Marrakech, beware

There are street hawkers peddling their ware,

The snake charmers and the henna artists..

All wooing the curious naive tourist..

Like the crafty playboy of your teens, love or desires

Who promises a lifetime and gives you a fake moment..

These hawkers promise the panacea to all desires,

Yet the tourist.. she loves it all,  living in the moment ..

Knowing they are cheats, she still naively gives in..

The joy of surrendering to foolish desires ..

Even if you know you are an idiot goin in

Pink flamingo

 There are pink flamingoes

Pink Flamingos that fly

Fly in middle eastern deserts

They thrive the harsh and the cruel

.. our love.. a pink flamingo 

 Black roses, they bloom,

By the banks of River Euphrates..

Nowhere else, they say..

Your love for me, it bloomed

When I was beside you..

Nowhere else, I say 

The Sonnet’s curse and a limerick’s arse

I sat down to write a limerick..a tease

Instead, I wrote a long verse, taking my time

Perverse like the urge to pick your nose, or to sneeze

The poet  in me feels an urge to write in rhyme

The sonnet long has 14 lines from bad to worse..

The poet must write long lines, thought she earns not a dime

At the most awkward of times, she breaks into a verse

In her alphabet soup, there lands a poem lame or sublime..

ABABCDCDEFEFGG, is the sonnet’s curse

To make the poem fit the Shakespeare's quatrains..

She forces words to ryhme and that is her curse

In rhymes and syllable rules, life’s meaning drains..

More rules to make it a sonnet?, My verse refuses to be that party bore..

No more darn rules, I will stick with free verse and lore

A limerick, again needs to rhyme...

Has to be funny  to stand the test of time...

And bawdy like yes..Edward Lear

Forced to be funny, my verse now just wipes the rear

Who has the time to make a funny verse rhyme

Rules to make it a limerick? My verse refuses to be that  party bore..

No rules for me, I will stick with free verse and lore

Lovers last

A note to my love..

 A  love note .. that you  will chance upon .. for the moments when life parts us or separates us to bring us back 

———————————-

Something tells me..  you read my verse?

Lovers in their effort to deny love..

Deny their selves.. thinking it makes it less worse

Not knowing …cowardice does not stop  love..

Love does last.. even when defiant lovers don’t..

Something tells me..  you read my verse?

That you know we could live.. if  you only  willed ..

Could live even, love even , but the odds are worse..

Unless you choose more than just reading verse, Strong willed? 

Love does last.. even when defiant lovers don’t.

Something tells me..  you read my verse?

Give in to love! It takes both of us..

Weak willed or strong willed, look beyond verse

If you only will . ..if we only will.. there will be us..

Love does last.. even when defiant lovers don’t..

Something tells me..  you read my verse?

And will choose to live beyond a lifetime in a day,

And that you will give in to love ..however averse

Lovers can last .. If we give in to love.. today?

Love does last.. even when defiant lovers don’t..

Something tells me..  you read my verse?

Lovers last when we surrender, give in to love..

Knowing love lasts, then we lovers last..

Knowing, yes I know you read my verse..

 Love does last.. even when defiant lovers don’t..

Then why defy?

 

I  yearn for love, tenderness and care..Love me?

Then my heart reminds me.. selfless

I must give not ask..unconditionally me..

Love, tenderness and care… caress.. endless

Hoping against hope in the indifferent universe..

That love can bring everything back..

I choose to love thee and the universe, 

Not hoping that you throw some crumbs back

But hoping some day…you see my verse

You wish you had  thrown some crumbs back..

And rudder those crumbs to the  universe 

As the universe ‘s prodigal son who returns back

To love and love back the universe..

If not me..

The poetic contract killer

 When I kill a poem ever so silently..

Choke it’s neck without leisure 

Choose to work for a penny more

Rather than feed the hungry poet’s soul

When I choose to lie back in fatigue, in laziness 

And not give the words a pen to write.

My poems… killed, awaken from the dead..

Haunt me and say.. Have you sold your soul?

Your poetic soul for two pennies more..

A contract killer on hire.. Yes..

I kill poems for money now..

Calluses .. Excuses

 I faintly remember your chiseled face,

The stubble, the angles..some semblance of you

Trying to revive what I felt for you.:

Was it true? Was it all a lie to erase?

I remember our fingers entwined in a clasp, those times

Now all that remains is my rough callused hand..

The friction of holding and letting go..numerous times

Dry, unfeeling with a wart right on the fate line..my lone hand

 In an ocean of Indian Chai,

In an ocean of Indian Chai .. frothy

In cups and saucers as sailboats to buoy 

With teaspoons of  brown sugar oars..earthy..

You and I ..on an adventure of conversations..Ahoy!

Our naked minds revealing words like cookies soaked in Chai

Chatter.. silence..All our thoughts or lack of them.. 

Comfortably open in an ocean of Indian Chai..

Us.. Sailing away from the world.. Forget’ em..

You , me .. willfully pause for life to stay still…

Yes .. that moment would soak  in Chai

 Fake banter...Real Love...

In conversations …today and happy banter..

There was a question drowned in wine

They asked…What is your happiest moment.. like ever?

You.. Dancing in your arms alone..My happiest moment ever..

In that moment I felt your absence and yet I hid in cheery banter..

I remarked a fake “Now!" and  resumed the banter..

To fake lives..fake conversations and fake banter🥂

To help us survive real love!

Just love .. in childish scrawls

 I know not to frame words…

How does one frame words that spell feeling…

All words come out hollow..and loud

Like a loud screech from an untuned microphone 

In lieu of music .. a shriek..

Say.. you want a hug .. a moment in  light

Tenderness … Ask for it in words.. ugly words

The words.. they smell.. Unwashed laundry of whiny flaws

The moment’s yearning..morphs to monster in words 

 Painting an  needy expectation.. trite .. with clingy claws 

 In lieu of painting   unsaid desire..and chemistry

They come out all wrong, twisted ...my heart in knots …

“ I wish you would want me” .. I say

I sound like a  prosecutor losing his plea in court

 I wish instead, my words were a kindergarten scrawl,

A toddler scrawl of a  huge childish ❤️ heart.. 

You would then  atleast  smile… at the innocence ..

The innocence of childish  love and desire

And not see it as. grumble…quibble… a squabble

Not an ask .. a demand nor a cross for you to bear..

Just love .. a childish scrawl

 

The world is at my door,  

Loud chatter, parties and conversations..

There is love and happiness…

And yet I seek my silence with you..

Knowing that silent togetherness..

That silent togetherness will always ..

Will always be a moment ..

A moment in eternity..

I tell my mind to choose noise ..

Not listen to my naive heart..

For silence.. he is whimsical..

Silence, he betrays me..

Leaving me abandoned..

Abandoned in eternity..

Holding onto a moment 

Back to the world..

The world and it’s meaningless party ..

I go..

For noise, he is there .. constant..

Not eternity, not a moment..

But he is there..

Noise is steadfast…loyal

Silence …fleeting 

 Quicksand

The vicious quicksand in the deserts of Sahara..

Less vicious they are than men..

For they pull you into darkness just once..

But the men, who have a way like quicksand..

To pull you closer… for them just once won’t do

They pull you in deep and let you fight your way out

Breathe!

Just to pull you back in once more..

The sheer joy they see for a woman fall .. again and again

In her naivety to want love ..Love and Quicksand

Are all but one..

Men.. they are more..