I watch the taste of coffee

"I watch the taste of coffee in her eyes"

Rivers of Time cannot be reversed
except in my own Time.
And by now I have come to accept
the knot which I know I cannot untwine.
With a cup of coffee in my hand
the river flows backward as I watch
the taste of coffee,
at first on the tip of the tongue ,
then slowly twirling along the deep throat,
and when swallowed completely,
a whirlpool and the swirl--
I cannot say , of memories,
of moments perhaps,
in time and out of time.
Why do people philosophize
about which Time is real?--
Time In or Time Out/
It is just a bout of moments lived
in profusion.
Born anew, every rebirth an immersion in Time,
every immersion a rebirth in memory.
Nirvana is not for me.
"I sit on the banks of the river,
and I forget and forget", I heard someone say.
When memory attains Timelessness
it is one with eternity.
Nothing is lost in the flow.
I watch the taste of coffee
and live in the flow.

The Land and the Sky

 The Land and the Sky

Under the immensity of sky
and horizon extending to infinity
I run to get to the shore, alone and dry
With nothing but a shadow to accompany.
The waves, I do not know, whether chasing me or receding,
it is the land that is pulling me away from the sea.

The Winter

The winter was hard
The snow covered all
the traces of footfall
of those who walked alone
who walked alone in the snow
and the winter hard,
were all wiped out of the way.

The fence that separates
one home from another,
now barely visible,
will soon sink under the snow.

That is the way two hearts live in the winter of life
the fences buried under the snow
and yet no way to reach out.

The Blinding Sun

The Blinding Sun


Dark is the safest place to hide
from your mirror images, not one, but many,
when they blind you with an intensity you had spent
your years
in dissipating
and eluding.
But the dark passages are not so dark
as to diminish their intensity.
The blinding sun is the only cover--
no hiding, unabashed exposure,
the heat wave of a cloud;
it can evaporate the seas into a sky.
It takes a small effort
to step out into the sun,
the blinding sun.
Step out into the blinding sun.
It is no mirror,
no images there,
neither you nor me;
call it annihilation,
or call it peace.

Erasure and Amnesia

Erasure and Amnesia

A pigeon in my window
never stays alone.
One after another, a plaintive tirade of rivalry and jostling for space.
And such a small corner too the three of them fight over,
one pushing the other over the edge,
while the third watches
eager to see the battle end.
The battle will not end in peace, nor will there be an uneasy truce.
It has to be a decisive victory for the one who wins and a total destruction
with no chance of survival for the one who loses.
And we, the worshippers of peace, we call that peace love
where battles might end
and the rivals unite albeit in hatred,
 as they stand in awe of each other's might,
to salute in adoration,
not in dread of the threat of an impending doom hovering overhead..
I watch and retreat,
unable to make sense of the narratives which history repeats,
with a single note drowning all others:
the indelible fact is that there is no erasure, only amnesia.

Boredom

Sit down and meditate, I am being told.
Watch the flow and withdraw.
I do that; have done it;
Have done it so often that i fear
I have begun confuse where the line ends
between boredom and peace.
" Get over the grooves of the habits of language", I am being told.
In trying to stick labels to states of mind you are losing sight of perspectives.Awareness begins when you stop analyzing
between boredom and peace.

And so begins
my affair with Boredom
The pages of my diary overflow
with tales of boredom every day.

On a foggy morning, gentle; it listens to the sounds behind the curtain of silence;
On an intrepid , sullenly hot noon-day,
it intuits the secret of pollination from butterflies and moths.

Boredom arrives without a warning
and departs without a noise.
Leaves casually without a drama,
but leaving as it does,
opens trails of things in a disarray.

Boredom too, has its way
into the comfort of a chaos.
It does not storm in ;
quietly opens a door that was locked;
refuses to heed the warning on the door,
and sneaks in.

Boredom too has a character,
seductive, alluring, defiant of norms,
the beauty and a power of deviation,
destroying gently,
with no urge to create anything anew,
a compelling silence,
an opulent charm
of a village-buffalo
wading in a noon-kissed pond.

Boredom, I greet you with open arms,
You have taught me the language of irrelevance,
a throw-back into a world of a static whirl.

Euphoria

Euphoria

Everything is right here with me; it always was
and always will be.
Everything is right here with me.
When was it ever lost?
Do not laugh in your sleeve;
that will never do.
The seasons of blossom I witnessed last
have not gone away.
The winter rose has taken its place as it always does.
The harvest is abundant, the granaries full.
Has anything gone away?
I have a marvelous art of misreading,
and that was my saving grace.
I always used commas where a full stop was needed.
So everything is right here with me;
nothing has gone away.
I have always imposed disastrous deconstructions on utterances,
but they were never so disastrous as they seemed to be.
So believe me when I say, "Everything is right here with me."