Only a pair of parakeets
Know how to love in my city
My city, of a million hearts
Pumping blood at high pressure
Charred lungs, Slick tongues
Only a pair, entangled, still, share
Breaths full of sanctity
In my city.
My city, with lovers as fast as its food
Exchanging preservative laced kisses
Insta reels, daddy’s hot wheels
Only a pair of parakeets
Are at a standstill
slowly rotting In my city.
at a time in my life a late phase of transition to eternal life during which my ambient thoughts are becoming more detached from reality giving me perspective seeing through things to their underlying significance egad I have become a…
Here, next to the stone elephant at Kailasa temple,on the streets of Aurangabad,in the waves of the Arabic Sea,I will always be a brightshameful white sheetamong more practical brown.I will be bleached as a stainon the dark khadi fabric,unnatural shine…
It was a malformed face with a twisted mouth, made worse by a fixed smirk on it. It was not a genetic disorder, the man was sporting it, just the way he sported a shirt with large brightly-coloured checks and…
I have seen A nightjar now and then, A bird flying at night, Flying past at night, Something like a bird Flying past at night, Something flying past At night, Just when The headlights alighted On them. A head-on collision…
The Toto-wallah Asked for more. He made it sound Like a legitimate demand. Perhaps I was miffed not to hear, “Please, Sir, may I have some more?” As I got off, I gave a thirty. A gesture for me, A…
On first glance, The warblers at Ibni Seem the perfect role-models For free birds. They bide amid the bamboo grove, They bicker among the hibiscus, One can’t tell their home from their retreat, Their lodgings from their home. Are birds…
I am an uneven bird, Quite contrary. All your cajole Lay heavy, unmoving, Upon my heart, My brooding, Incubating shut-eyed Hen of a heart, That won’t budge From the egg of torpor Toasting under Her warm underdown. Flights of freedom…
They put a swallow in a cage. It fought and fluttered, Squacked and scattered, And generally ran amok. And then they asked, Whatever got into you? The bars of the cage, She said. The bars are outside, They said. I…
Lanes for the seekers who Stand over the shades Of our joy Go on for miles Pretty harmless but cold. Buildings and trains, Screams and horns, People falling off their bicycle People dying for their sport People toying with their…
Once in a while, the tides turn high, And I go searching for you on the street. On a heavy night with sky cold and dry I ask with my creaking voice,”Has anybody seen her?” The lonely winds carry the…
Who met my lips, for which I am writing today wet, inert and inked in blood A pair of upper and lower flesh Untold, doomed love affair between the two. Who met my lips, for which I am writing today…
I forgive you For all the hopes and dreams. I forgive you All the broken promises we made. I forgive you for not being my anchor When I was being lapped up by the tides I forgive you for not…