At this moment we are trying poetry again
When the Gurkha guard paces up and down
Hitting the night with his rhythmic stick
As his shrill whistle pierces its silence and
A distant dog protests its snout at the dark sky.

We use it as a pain balm on our temples
Of low self-worth and high aggrandizement
When we refuse to take our glances away
From the short term low walls interrupting
Our blue skies with painter stroke birds frozen
Above the rocks that rose from sleeping shrubs.

He always looked for a catch
Amid complex loops of reason-
In the people logic of democracy
And the fine arithmetic of men.
His eyes now float upwards
On the hill, in the forest
His pockets are full of rain
And the helicopter’s whir.


He had them coming everywhere;
He promised them rice and jobs.
His words were hopes, sparks
That flew off from under his toes
As he walked their mud tracks.
His eyes now float upwards
On the hill, in the forest
His pockets are full of rain
And the helicopter’s whir.


(The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Mr.Rajasekhar Reddy has been killed
in a helicopter crash in the dense forests on his way to a public
meeting)

Amidst waves of undulating optimism
I reflect on this morning’s wavy lines
The jogging track’s bikini geometry,
Scraps of park conversations in waves,
A gust of wind riding on film music,
A scared rabbit’s grass-jumping white
And a lens eye short in beauty-waves.

A mere single phase electric line
Makes me much afraid in the dark.
I am in the first phase of my old age
Groping for a matchstick with unsteady hand
In the dark recesses of my mud-wall.
In the quiet afternoon, I sit by myself
Much afraid of the crow’s metallic caw
Marking my life’s phases matter-of-factly.

When my mother was not a mere idea
My falling sick was a cosmic event.
Now it is like the forest tree which fell
In the storm, noticed only by the birds
And the big black ants at the root.
It is now a mere idea like my mother
An idea which comes to its fruition
And fades away in the cosmic sky.

White is coarse -spun cloth shirt
And the white of a squint eye
Operating from beyond the world
Two years is long time for an eye- white
Not to merge in the sky's white.

With wind in the curtains
And wind in our face
Yesterday's raindrops
On our garden leaves
Are now poetry words

Night is conversation
Drifting like old boat
Anchored to the tree
Ego’s flames quickly rise
Their smoke fills eyes
While night wears out.

At midnight as the wind howled
One remembered random things
Images which came straight
From the back alley’s darkness.
It was time to say something
Or get back to soft wet sleep.
More random images, period.
This way you break conversation
And prevent lapsing into comma.
Sleep comes creeping in the bones
In the face, in the eyes, period.

The hills rose in brown and blue
Fluffy clouds cast shadows on them
And sprinkled powdery evanescent snow
On their reddish-tinged stones.
Deep in the mountains he smiled
Raising his speaking hand for us.