The endeavor

 

The long cherished dream now

Is just a breath away from mast

The warmth of her fragrance

Flares up my drenched soul

The crackle of damp desires

Sends embers upon the sand

Sensing that the shore is nigh

The vessel erupts into a twirl

That conjures up a whirlpool

Splashes brine in the naked eye

Baffled, I start to row in a frenzy

To smother the last few waves

But for long the shore eludes

Somehow I tear my burning eye

To find the shore afar on horizon

I have rowed back Into deep

The folly of blindfolded endeavor !

Rishikesh

2295

23.11 hrs

2.6.25

 महफ़िल में ग़ुम हम को

अकेलेपन में हमने पाए

बेख़ुदी के नूर को ढ़कते

अक्सर शोहरतों के साये

The Dusky Dawn

 

The sun hovers over the dark next 

His feeble wings manage barely a flap

The strands of grey on his red flanks

Are visible to vex the anxious eye 

The fate dangles atop this spectacle 

Much like a dampening cloud in sky

That stretches the cradle of dawn

But shrouds the day earlier in dusk

Oh ! Such is the baffling wrap of time

Whether the day will hatch from grey

Or it will be a collapse into black night

Only the imminent time will unravel.

Rishikesh 

1.6.25

2294

12.22 hrs

The meet within

 

Slaughtered and slit

A pause to ruminate

Marinated deep within 

Scorched on skewers

That drill through the rib

Sometimes life delays escape

Amidst the slicing edges 

Maybe tormenting electrodes 

Or enticing hooks that dangle

The plight of being half alive

Pleading for an instant death 

Which is denied with savagery

Finally decked in a silvery shroud

Dipped back in the gory sauce

The fate of old dead dreams

When they meet within the soul.

Rishikesh 

2193

20.28 hrs

28.5.25

The advance to return

 

These tides that leap so high

Sometimes that I crash into skies

The glitter that was atop on shore

Now the twinkle swarms from deep

As if it were my wonted sea bed

The soul is all dizzy with this disillusion

Every sight ends in an abrupt horizon

Whenever I search for a place to reach

The long hours were for long spent

In carving roads to the time to come

When life passed through bye lanes

For it was always the way forward

And time is not known to return.

Found on an unknown shore sometimes

Those who had alighted with a thud

When the world was stranded in the sky

Then we know that instead of advancing

It is only drifting that we often know

The best of the times go with the flow

The destiny often changes destinations

For it is a round world after all

The directions are only relative to where we are

Every advance is actually a return .

Rishikesh

2192

09.54 hrs

10.5.25

The weekend road

 

The path lightens up

Winking with his dazzle

The peripheral reflection

Of our resplendent sparkle

The runway to endless joy

Then the leap into skies

Afloat atop the vagabond cloud

After the twinkle below blurs

Busy amidst the ravine dreams 

There are so many places to reach 

When there is nowhere to go

Then the prompt of the destination 

The belt is fastened again 

The uneasiness of descent 

A thud  alights us from voyage

The margins are now sadly dim

At the terminus of weekend road.

Rishikesh 

2191

5.5.25

20.10 hrs

 मानवता का वध करे

ये किस भांति का धर्म

निहत्ते पर अकूत प्रहार

नृशन्स, क्रूर और निर्मम