मेरी काली काली शामें

बन गईं गुलाबी आहें

लिपटती हुई साँसें

छूती अनायास ही बाहें

तू चल संग मेरे

बुलाएं हमें ये लम्बी लम्बी राहें

गुलाब सी खुशबू तेरी

मेरी रुकी सांसें सराहें

Lunar love

 

It is a silver draped sky forever

Her sequins fall on my mental eye

For silver is all that appears to mind

The craving of the ubiquitous orb

The tides rage within all night long

In a strife to touch her glowing face

It has stopped to dazzle in my day

There is a spell of an eternal night

Unaware of this frenzy, she smiles

With her glow she sparks the path

While embarked on her own orbit

Somehow the world revolves around her

The storm within sits silent in the cave

Simmers in his passionate warm vapor

Cooked to a delicacy , ready to be served

Upon her platter with a candlelit charm .

 

Delhi

2112

14.48 hrs

2.1.24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A plentiful of surfeit

 

 

A breath to catch breath

Amidst a whiff of gentle storm

The swirl of still life intermittently

One event after another and sometimes

The buzz of tranquility is a bang

The fortune to succor wish

And actions to beckon luck

The pilfered grains to hide in soil

Dissolve in the extended furrows

Germinate life back skyward

For a perpetual harvest of mind

The dreams hatch from brittleness

To sprout a plentiful of surfeit.

 

2111

Delhi

23.40 hrs

1.1.24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

निकले वो कूचे से मांगने कोई मन्नत

उनका दीदार हुआ तो ये जहान बना जन्नत

 

वो आये हमारी तलब में मस्जिद के पीछे

अल्लाह जाने आज कैसे एलाने ईद हो गई

The open limits

 

There is a sky within cage

And the sky is caged outside

When the horizon comes to shore

It brings the specks with myriad hues

Those that are life filled vessels from afar

There is no abyss to limit the plunge

Yet we hold ourselves back a bit behind

For the awkwardness of the plunge

Into the realms of the open limits.

 

Delhi

2110

23.27 hrs

27.12.23

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fire

 

The torch of the sun

Creates a centre stage

Even in the margins

Where we find ourselves

It sparks the sight at dawn

Whereas in our blindness

We grope and stagger enroute

Towards the criss-cross of time

Here the noon makes no difference.

When the hour comes finally

To unpack the gifts of the day

We hold on to the wrapped past

That we have failed to disburden

Even as we trudge with the load

Amidst the cue of barren breeze

That spreads like a song from twigs

Now the hour of the torch

The burnt epitaph on pyre

Charred remains of us like anyone else

The night of the time we had .

 

Delhi

02.40 hrs

26.12.23

2109