|| birthday ||

Birthdays remind

of receding days

they shorten the life

of dreams snatch

some wishes

fill the emptiness of life

which can not be filled

moving feet complete

the perambulation of

life each year.

Eyes wish to cover

beloved faces with the

joy of cordiality that

is scrubbed away by

the grazing of interests

through the year.

On a birthday

smile wishes to soak-up

happiness off each laughing

congratulatory face even

as the lips know the

hollowness of the smile.

At the birthday celebration

held between warm palms

palms wish to forget

all hatred-despair-animosity

knowing well this transient meeting

is meant to turn into forgetfulness.

(Painting : Subhash Babhulkar)

|| hunger of dreams ||

You are with me

like pleasure

like the ground with roots.

Your touch

awakens me

as the sun touches the earth.

You read me inside out

like eyes read everything

going beyond words and breath.

You are with me

like the truth of the dream

like vision with eyes.

You are there and

dreams lived in the eye

dissolve in the loving body

the lines and colours of dreams

reveal themselves in the body.

You are with me

the earthy fragrance of ripe corn spreads

the hunger of dreams is satiated.

As though a cloud-body

near a snowy mountain top

shy, wrapped in itself

eager to rain on the glacier.

(Painting : Shivakumar Sunagar)

|| seeds ||

The woman bears

with and keeps quiet

like night.

The woman burns

and remains calm

like the spark.

The woman moves on

living with limits

like the river.

The woman blossoms

and flourishes and is

ever hungry

like the tree.

The woman drizzles

and rains and is

ever thirsty

like clouds.

The woman makes

a home and always

remains homeless

like the birds.

The woman is

a resounding voice

but is silent

like the word.

The woman births

man and remains a slave

like the seed.

(Painting : miniature painting from Rajasthan, India)

|| words caught in between the ribs ||

some words

hoping to escape from the paper

came out flapping

like birds or butterflies

some words

like perfume

wished to settle into the paper

some words

no matter what shape they take

are only conscious of themselves

but when

they are now in human hands

they become dangerous

even to man himself

there is no sense

of pleasure left now

in the charming words

and from the words of man

still exude the lingering smell of his

animal self

and now a days

there are sham flowers

made of paper and plastic

that one even hopes to capture their

fragrance

in transparent flasks

new words, then

are given to these flowers

that hopefully would let them flourish

just like

money

man has been converted into

computers and electronics

with 'robot' as his new name

but some of the words

absurd and meaningless

have only their hollow sounds left to

them

and they

do not realize in time

that they do not ring true anymore

on their bed of paper

but like the last breath

within the chest

of an old patient

that gurgles

every time he is about to give up

the ghost.

(Painting : Agustin Castillo)

|| in words she ||

In words

she saves

herself.

In words

she saves her desires.

In words
she saves the essence

of her sensibilities.

She uses words

like a vault

to store words of love

the dazzling jewels

of the heart

and coins of the body.

In words she stores

the nagging pain of her breath

the moisture of tears

trapped in lungs

the loneliness of heart

the pain of grief.

In words

she says it all

her words

do not speak

they just open their eyes

and enter

the discerning eye

and in the guise of words

she.

On the palm

of words she

paints patterns

of desire

and in desire

she paints words

in words

the magic of love

unseen, permeates the

senses as heavenly pleasure.

In the word

she lives as meaning

imbuing them with

her essence.

Fighting the bogeys

of the subconscious

a new word transcends

the thesaurus.

In words

she saves herself

and in surviving words

finds herself and

extracts from them

life for her sinking breath

and glazing eye.

In words

she registers

her remaining time

the heartbeat of time.

In words
she keeps

the words of

her essence

from the essence

of her god

she creates new

words of love.

(Painting : Virginia Bacellar)