My will

To you, my daughter, i gift my smile
Take it with you when you build those bridges,
For it will better stand the test of time.
Use it often on the old and young,
For a smile speaks of hope,
Where words and gestures fail.

To you, my little one i give my dreams
For it is they that have carried me this far
Carry them in your sleeve,
Wear them in your heart,
Drown in them each time you come upon
Unknown terrain, unseen fears,
You’ll find them handy enough to mould
Your life the way you want it to be.

To you my parents, i leave my memories
Dwell on them, each time you cry
And listen to them sing you lullabies
With time, they’ll teach you to let go
Like you have done many a time before.


To you, the one who shares our parentage,
I entrust my hopes, for it will be up to you
To carry forward the wonders of our lives,
To remind the future of where we came from,
And where we belong.

To my friends, i wrap around you my warmth,
Lest you ever feel the empty spaces where
We laid over endless cups of coffee,
Our threadbare lives.

And to you, my love i leave nothing.
Nothing save freedom from everything
That binds you to me.

lies

i know how it is to fly,
in complete abandon,
anchored by your love,
and believing so.

i push boundaries
defy convention,
to prove myself
over and over again
for no one but me
or was it for you?
that i did what i did
aim, achieve, reinvent and
chase elusive success
as you watched,
quiet. proud.
and almost made me believe
that it was love i saw
in your eyes.

i would have gladly clipped my wings,
and chained my heart
if only i had known
that you wanted me to trade my freedom
for your infidelity.

untitled

Love me like the way i love you,
With an intensity that suffocates
the rational,
Drives away fear,
Disrupts everyday mundaneness
Blurs the boundaries between heart and soul
Until
Until all that is left is pure passion
Passion that i will pour into your pages
Until your blankness fills,
Page after page
Note after note
Until i can write no more.
Love me like the way i love you


there can be nothing more cruel than when writing escapes me and i desperately want to write. a million words and thoughts run through my head but evade the hands when a blank white page stares at me.

...and you

A handwritten letter,
A new year card,
The voice of an old friend,
A childhood party dress,
The smell of home made cookies,
The colour of an unadulterated blue sky
A baby’s babble,
The hugs of happy, happy children,
The warmth of their quilts,
The smell of grandma’s talcum powder
The feel of my pillow
The dogears of my favourite book
The appeal of a blank white page,
And you.
You, dishevelled, sweaty,
tired or fresh from the shower,
Just some of the things that
Tug my heart.
And all the things that i live for.

Falling in love at 2

It’s two in the morning
There’s just me and there’s you.
Nothing between us,
Even noise has taken a vow
Of silence,
Even if for just a while.

It is the time when
There’s just us
And little else for company
When the world seems so faraway
And dreams so near
And so impossibly true.

Before i place a book mark on those dreams,
And my stark white pages
Turn into pixelated emotions,
Before words surrender to noise once more,
Allow me to revel in you,
Solitude, my friend.




love 2am in the morning. my favourite time to work. sometimes it's so silent, one can hear the earth whisper.

delicious brown

Chocolate, your lips,
Almonds in those eyes,
A dash of cinnamon,
A hint of spice
Coffee and cream,
In your delicious skin,
Who needs an aphrodisiac
When you have it all within?

a kite's love song

Clouds
Of love
Enshroud me
Envelop me;
I lie transported
Bereft of barriers
That bind me to mortal ground
You take me to a new-found-land
Where myriad shades of love unfold;
Our kite like freedom finds new expression.

Together we go, your soul threading mine
Tossed, turned and careened by desire,
Higher we glide, guided by dreams
Until suddenly, you snap,
Leaving me to savour,
Those precious moments
Before I fall,
For your love
One more
Time.

one of my earliest poems in free verse. - maybe 2007?

the invisibility of memory

The remembrance
of forgetfulness
blinds words
that hide beneath
the surface of
volcanic thoughts
waiting to burst forth
in a canvas of emotions.

They refuse to erupt
And instead stop. Abruptly.
Their rivulets of
Loquacity stifled,
Silted into muteness.

Seconds, minutes and aeons
Seem to pass,
But nothing wills
Their unwillingness
To spill and fall.

And then, suddenly
They disappear,
Recede into greyed
Folds.

Lost
To the cacophonous
Laughter of the world
And the empty tears
Of a loved one’s memories

There emerges a calm
On the face,
The remnants of remembrance,
Now forgotten.

Many a time,
The loved one waits
For the torrents
To emerge,
If just once.

Alas! They
Are now buried,
Lost in a world
That she is lost unto.

Alzheimer’s –before it takes away reason

written in may 2011

Release

when the time comes,
why is it always so hard to leave?
what is it that binds me, holds me back?
is it you,
the love you have for me,
or my love for you that wants me
never to leave?

is it my care
that i dread to abandon,
or the scare
of who will lay out your tea and toast,
or help you find your way around the kitchen,
knot your tie
or pick your clothes?

is it the smell of the well-worn sheets,
that held our love,
that i hate to leave,
or the emptiness that will become
of our togetherness?

i fear for many things,
of what will become of you,
for did i not pledge my heart
until death
that will now do us part?

as the monitors stuck on me
tick my every second away,
i cannot bring myself to leave,
even if it means
that i can no longer be
alive; full of life.

as the moments pass
inevitably to that time,
when i will cross over
to another world,
i realise
that in time,
i too will become
that faded void
of what once was us.

now i know,
what holds me back;
my heart is with you
and yours in mine.
so, release me, my love,
for us was meant to be
only until now.
from now on,
it will be just you
but fear not,
for i leave behind
my heart within you.
And you will be safe
With yours within me.


do we know just when we are about to die? i believe we do, for i have seen it in my loved ones' eyes and in their touch. sometimes, they are ready to go. sometimes, it is us that holds them back.

written in June 2008, days after my father passed away

your eyes said it all

It took just a moment
For fate to decide
That your time had come
That you were too precious to
Leave behind.
And we just stared
And cried some.

Helplessness had a new avatar
Cancerous fangs and
Treatment to match.
Tormentors took on
And you smiled,
For it was your bravado
That we were still leaning on.
The pains in your veins,
We never knew
But we egged you on with
Our ignorant talk,
Urged you to stay calm
And fight,
To not ask questions
And to teach your body
The power of your mind.
And through it all,
You smiled.
Tears of pain
That we happily mistook
For realisation.

Many months later
The colour of your skin
Paled, its surface
punctured now,
with marks of
venom cured by venom.
There was nothing left,
Just skin and bones.
And your smile.

Through the torments
And all the charades,
That science and art together
Displayed,
The monster found ways to strike
You back
More monstrous than before.

But no matter how hard its poisoned
Fangs tried,
The one thing it could never catch
Was the spirit in your eye.

desire (diamonte)

Fire
Sparkles, hot,
Igniting, searing, devouring,
Desire, love. Dampened beads,
Drowning, quenching, appeasing,
Divine thirst...
Water.


(diamonte is a kind of formed poetry:

one word
two adjectives describing first word
three words (ing words) describing the subject
two words describing subject; two words describing the opposite
three words (ing) describing the opposite
two adjectives describing the opposite
opposite word

soul, sold

Some time ago,
I don’t recall,
Was it summer, was it fall?
When I sold joy for melancholy,
For its frown, its sadness
Held new appeal

I bought tears for laughter
Lost the twinkle in my eye
and my smiles
It seemed inappropriate
To stay happy amidst the cries
that I saw the world to be

I gave my hopes away,
To traders and merchants
who stocked happiness
in their stores,
And gifted my dreams,
To the poor beings on the streets

I gladly sold the trivial joys
Of watching the sunrise,
and chocolate bars,
To a place on the couch.
I sought darkness
Instead of light,
and loneliness for gaiety

And when love rattled at my door,
My soul was empty,
I could never see, the clouds part,
For by then my eyes were blind.
I could not feel the warmth in my womb,
For I was not me,
Anymore.


written on 20 march 2010. watching my father in law slowly slip away into another world. just 20 days before he died. felt that i was numbed by emotion - the pettiness of life - it hit me like never before

soul deep

Love me not for beauty and grace,
For they are but skin deep.
They will wrinkle with age,
And succumb to time.

Love me not for passion and desire,
For they see only as far as my eye.
They will grow misty with age,
And grow cold with time.

Love me not for my dreams and hopes,
For they grow only in the depths of my mind,
They will change with seasons and each passing year,
And may disappear over time.

Love me not for my smiles and tears
For they speak from voices deep inside
They will shrivel and dry one day,
And will be forgotten with time.


written on 26.2.2006