Ages will pass
for the stains to disappear
Because the smell of blood
is not easy to forget
Let's not hide
in meaningless quagmire of debates.
Tears don't heal scars,
nor do words exorcise the ghosts.
No help will come from the other side,
they are peaceful now.
Give up what you have,
abandon! abandon! abandon!
the cows, the pigs and the books.
Burn the scriptures,
before the opium turns to hemlock

The lose buckle belt knocks on my helmet,

dangling relentlessly across my head by the gushing wind.

It's a repetitive thud,

like drilling holes in the skull 

or hammering a nail on the coffins,

that squeal and squawk,

day and night.

Sometimes, I want to roll back to the past,

a cradle from which I spilled out,

one summer many years ago.

That home has turned into ashes, 

last autumn.

The red light stops the thud.

But escape is still a long walk,

An endless road spreads out in the horizon.

He tells me 'Time doesn't exist, only clock does'.
I look at his ageing face, 
his acne raising like volcanoes, 
hiding the rage that burns the core inside,
secreting mucus,
like all tears have been strangled to death.
All that remains is a face, bereft of life.
Sometimes, I look into those defeated eyes,
searching for the clock.

Kisike takiye k niche kitni kahani chupi hai,

pallu mein bhande huye,

baalo mein gajre ki tarha,

kisi k chasmoo ne kitne hi mausam dekhe honge,

pocket mein chupe huwa paise ki tarha kitno ne jawani lutawe honge, 

rumalo mein chupe aasuyone kiska dilka bhoj liye huwe,

kisike cigarate ki duwe ne kitne dilo ko jalaya hoga, 

phir kahi kisike haato ki pakwaano ne kitne riskte siche honge,

kisike kitaabo ne kitne chitthiya pohochae hongi,

ek botol sihayi ne kitnahi shabdo ko jora hoga,

dadima ke paan ki gillorine kitne kahaniye sajae hongi,

kisike jutohne kitnahi maanzile paayi hongi.

aur kisike kalam ne kisi shaayar ka saath nibhaya hoga,

Aur kisi shaayar ne har din, kisi aysi hi raat ka intezar kiya hoga.

A virgin forest was the heart, like new leaf hope grew on plants, dancing in the rain that washed the trees of life.

The windows of childhood never ran out breeze, the rivers never ran dry,  the sky spread as far as eyes, like a giant blue umbrella.

Thoughts like kite soared in open spaces. Days and nights passed like snails of the forest.A zillion breath of time, melted into the green box of dreams.

Now memory is a shadow floating in those barren lands, dust and ashes grows on the burnt branches that survived the fire, sometimes the eagles come looking for the trees, they tell tales of the forest to the stones.
Ghosts roam in the corridors that highways sold us, the bed of bones that crack under the weight of dreams reminds us of the dry leaves, the cacophony that drowns this graveyard strangled the lullabies of the night angles.

Yet  I go looking for that green box sometimes and return  with stones in hand.

They say life can grow under stones. I  Only wish if worms could fly.

They tell me, the earth is at boiling point and may puke its melting core on us

They tell me, the burden of humanity has broken earth's bones and may shake some weight from her shoulders,

They tell me, The burning pyre of existence is blinding the eyes of sun and someday we might inhale snow,

They tell me, the mounting shallow pride of men has filled up depth of oceans and someday we might not walk again but float.

I laugh out loud,
Smile in pretensions mirth.
I tell myself,
i know, i know.
And then dance.

Slithering flyovers and soaring sky-scrapers sum up Shanghai,
which wakes to the silhouette of a shiny future and sinks early
into a concrete dream.

People pour out of the rabbit holes which lie hidden from the naked eyes blinded by the sizzling razzmatazz of a showpiece city.

The Huangpu flows bifurcating the east from the west, a new high-riser grows on its shore, another brick towards the ever-shrinking sky.

The Gemini sun smirks and smiles, sometimes slipping into sudden silence. It rains and shines almost simultaneously, the wind chills the spine.

The Bund (Wai Tan) grows on you a little everyday, newly wed couples take pictures, travellers stroll as vendors sell ice-creams.

A plethora of colours splash on the streets of Nanjing road, shinning brightly in cosmopolitan hue. Oriental Pearl and Jin Mao shine through the night, only the clock tower keeps time.

The Old Jazz Band still plays at the Fairmont peace hotel, tugged way in a forgotten old charm where the six octogenarians keep their date with history.

I make a house of sand 
after years of long lost meanderings into oblivion. 
On the day of salvation, the river comes and leaves a stink of blood and bones. 
I don't drown. I don't die. 
I find myself as a beggar wandering the streets of faith begging for some hope, knocking the doors of the invisible Lord that can turn all dreams to ashes if I speak blasphemy.
I beg him to return what is mine,
I beg, beg, beg and then he answers my call.
He answers my call,
only to put me in a breathing graveyard where souls grapple with themselves to find a way to justify the greatness of the Lord.
He asks me to lie to them,
to sing his eulogy to the one who made me,
the one who matters, the one who deserves to live,
but the one who is a prisoner in this house of death.
So for years I lie. For years I die. For years I try.
And then one day the river comes in the afternoon,
stealing the last drop of hope from the eyes of the prisoners,
putting them into their last sleep.
I don't sleep. I only watch in disbelief.
The last wave of life lashing the shores of existence,
time trickling down like last tears of innocence as the white angel turn into ashes.
Now I wait for the river every night.
When it rains I go to the shore to taste the river for one last time.

Of ants, cattle and monkeys

At first, it was the red ants who raised the clamour,

they huddled together and went to the cattle,

they fought and died and shed their blood.

Then the white monkeys came with ballot papers,

the white far hiding their cold coal hearts,

they weaved them a starry dream,

and then sucked the blood of the forests.

It was then cattle and lambs joined the red ants.

The Monkeys had mortgaged their starry dreams to

the wolves and crocodiles of the west.

The crocodiles wanted to create a zoo for the animals

so one night they burnt the forest down,

but the red ants fought on.

Across the corridor, things were no better. 

Here the cattle had left their shed long back.

They now lived in shanties and refugee camps,

they pulled carts, ploughed fields and at night longed for a home.

So the white monkeys weaved them a concrete dream now.

The monkeys hanged a carrot in front of their eyes.

Soon the cattle evolved into donkeys,

There were no mirrors for decades,

So for years, they never saw themselves,

they couldn't realise how they looked now.

And those who realised had become too comfortable being donkeys.

When the carrots exhausted,

the monkeys summoned the pigs and vultures.

That's how the BT-carrots were introduced.

They opened the gates to the raccoons, wolves and red foxes.

Soon brugmansia, monkshood and bladderwort grew on the red soil.

Slowly and slowly, they sucked the blood of the earth,

And the corridor turned into a desert.

The red ants still fought on,

Digging tunnels, they waited in their burrows,

Awaiting a moment, a coup d'état,

when they can spill over for one last time,

and turn the soil red again with their blood. 

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a bridge, 
forgiveness is earth, 
it gives life, its a sea where no one drowns, 
all sailors cross this sea,
forgiveness is a walk alone a lonely road,
forgiveness is bliss too because it purges your soul,
forgiveness is love which never stops, flows like a river.
Forgiveness is a drop of tear which is squeezed out of the mountain of pain.

Among zillions of moments that I walked on this earth, many paths are left stranded, many days unattended,

I can ruminate in my vacuum, pick up the pebbles and through them away.
I can change my path or track a new road, but I can never bring back the travelers who could never cross these walls of pebbles and returned home.

I can erase the pencil but I can never get rid of the dents left behind, these bruises will stay in the pages of time.

Those days starved for my love,
buried in a mountain of apathy.

Those skeleton road loses a bit more,
waiting for the river of death to find them home.

Yet I wish relations were like days and roads,
we could at least have a dawn after a night,
we could trace our way back to the beginning.