Waking Into Dreams

She stared past the grilled window,
Past endless horizons
Where the sun never sets
On dust covered tin roofs;
One strand of rebellious hair
dances in front of her eyes,
Interrupting her thoughts
Breaking dreams against reality
She pushes it behind her ears
looks at me and sighs
Before  closing her eyes
To wake again in dreams.

The Man and the Sea.

A deep dark horizon
Spreads its wings endlessly
Over my head
And embraces the sea;
The waves come in
And crash on the rocks beneath my feet
And again, and again
The sea heart beats;
I sit there, a lonely soul
In the embrace of the cold, sharp wind,
Looking at the future
That is fading into the past;
Love is in the air, they say,
I try to smell it, but I can't;
Nothing, other than the smell
Of wet, white sand.
I remember Poe
And his poem, 'Alone'
I wonder if that is what my future is,
If that is what I am, what I should be.
The wind blows again
And the waves rise over my head
To hold me in their embrace,
And put me to sleep on their sandy bed.
The waves part reluctantly
Farther than they were before,
They return, but surely,
Further than they came before.
As my eyes probe the sky,
My lungs inhale the wet air,
And the waves rinse my skin clean,
My heart beats, with life.
My skin is now sand,
My blood, the waves,
And my lungs have the wind of the sky within
I am the world.
The world is within me,
I, within the world,
Inseparable, yet distinct,
Thus, do the twain meet. 

My Muse

She did not see me. I wish she did. But it made no difference. Things would still have gone on in the same way.  I would not wish it any other way. I turned again to glance at her face through the wafting cigarette smoke. Calm, smiling and playful like a child. There was something about her in that bustling street that stood out. Her hands kept returning to that pooch dawdling by her side. I couldn’t help but smile at that innocence.

The tapri was busy with people coming and going. Everyone warming their wet noses with the steam from the ginger tea. Others like me savoring the silent smoke that wafted beside. I had just returned from a wet ride through the streets. My head was aching and my nose running. Then I spotted this stream of sunlight in the middle of the street.

She was kneeling down on the street playing with her dog. At least, I thought it was her dog. The pooch was just as happy as she was. They were a pretty sight in the corner of a street with rotten garbage smelling close by. Her face was not exceptionally beautiful. Nor was I in one of my poetic moods. In fact, I had lost that a long time ago. It is hard to come by good poetry without a muse. Then I heard this laughter. Pilfering through the horns and screeching hawkers, negotiating traffic and skipping puddles formed on sticky residue on sidewalks. It touched my ears, and I saw her.

No this is not love, I am too logical for that. This was not a crush. I never fall for that. This was something else. Something that called to me within. I stared and stared till my tea went cold and the ashes fell from my fingers. Then I saw her turn. I froze, half hoping she did not see me, half wishing she did. But she stood up straight and looked past me. Or so I thought. Her cane made a splotch on the puddle in front and the dog walked away as she held out her hand to a friend.

For nature to rob such a vision of sight. Oh does nature treasure its beauties with wrath. I wondered if she knew her own face. If she ever sought to see. But there was she, my muse walking, seeing with her fingers what I would never see. Evry skin traced, every raindrop filtered through those fingertips and emotions translated through handshakes. And there I was inane to every change in nature, cocooned in my own version of reality. While my muse sent me a message through her laughter. 

Bas yahi soch kar tujhse mohabbat karta hu main Faraz
Mera to koi nahi par tera to koi ho....

The Dance Of Shakti

She cuts through the crowd
Like a river through the rocks
Her sharp eyes searching
Fingers running through the vegetables
Turning,twisting and checking
she will only use the best
Green,Yellow,Red and some orange too
Packed in a huge cloth bag

She first lights the Fire
The primary element,the purifier
Then,she uses water
which bubbles and hisses upon the fire
She sits down with her weapons
cutting,chopping and mincing things
As she deems fit
Till you can see no difference in one
From the other

Her brow is sweaty,hair messy
She whirls like a dervish
in her small universe
Everything assembled together
she stirs them with her ladle
Like a sorcerer,muttering incantations
Dancing to the crackles of Fire
The Dance of Shakti
Till things reach a frenzy.
The liquid thickens
To a semisolid state and a sweet aroma
travels in the air,serene and calm
And suddenly,she extinguishes the fire

Silence overcomes all,Nothingness
Just a deep reverberation
The aftershocks of a frenzy
Till you can hear nothing but the word
The seed of creation

She calmly places it before me.
Her labor,her fruit and art
And stands before me.An artist
Creator and Mother.
"How does it taste?"