Suburb

At night,

not the hissing of cicadas, No.

The leftover-nature, duly plotted,

hears the screeching of a worn out truck

dumping a load of frigid boulders.

In the morning,

not the gushing of a stream, No.

Trees that remain, wilted and soggy

hear at irregular intervals

loud retching of individuals in haste.

At noon,

not the raw aroma of vegetables. No.

The remnants, stones scattered, 

of an old disintegrated hand-dug well,

smell the stank of a concrete septic tank.

In the evening,

not the melody of birds, No.

The scrubby grass, its forlorn bugs,

gaze at the conceited fluorescent lamps

of a cctv-fixed iron gate.

People, nevertheless, 

seem happy,

which complicates the question further,

Is Earth a suburban hell as well?

Dream

Upon waking in the morning 

I settled in to write down my dream -

If only a fragment of it.

I, however, couldn't recall anything.

Afternoon approached 

but the dreamt didn't,

although the sumptuous lunch 

brought its mood back.

In the evening while reading 

a book, one secondary character 

in it dreamt about 

long lost-friends 

holidaying at the beach.

Mine wasn't about that.

I remember, at least,

what my dream wasn't.

Unhappily,

night arrived and with it came 

the thought of dreaming again.

A portion of the dream flashed 

in front of my eyes:

the part in which I'm 

trying to remember what the

dream was.

Sad, somewhat melancholic,

I stopped thinking about it.

Probably, the dream was a dream

about writing. Writing, anything, at all

and paying the dream forward 

to you.

Act II/Last scene

She assured

she'd love him

till the time 

he's frail and old enough 

not to remember 

simple ordinary words

like towel, toys, potato, poems.

Unusually however,

he retained 

all the mundane things

but somehow forgot the words

promise, vow, pledge.

Parting

A baby-word at most,

nothing else,

with its own set of reduplication,

a blabbering sound,

so that the word hangs 

fittingly on the blades of the tongue,

a repetition that evokes 

half yearly, twice, two parts

as if life provides freedom 

to do the same things again.

Still the word oscillates, we befriend it.

Yet when it is time to utter it,

the word suspends itself,

a baby-word it ceases to be.

The tongue entrusts it to the air

as if, conscious of its weight -

the eyes absorb the heat of the moment.

It overburdens us, not letting us be humans.

Bye-bye mother.

Bye-bye father.

Bye-bye friend.

Bye-bye lover.

Bye-bye brother.

Bye-bye sister.

An inane word for the adult world,

to make us feel nothing has changed,

or even if it has,

it will occur again, twice 

yearly.

Bye-bye year.

The class that isn't...

In life,

sometimes, like a 

bored, worn out student,

you raise your hand 

for attendance purposes only.

Otherwise,

familiar with the fact 

that the school is long over

and done with.

Your wife and children

gaze at you, first in amazement,

then take up their mental registers

and mark you present for the day.

Your wife smiles, the kids giggle.

You play along, take notes

and grin in return while 

tinkering with the broken toy.

The school maybe up,

the class isn't -

It never is.

Living on the edge

A mangy dog,

shivering and frail,

sitting in the pallid rays

of winter sun

is actually all of us -

thinking and wishing,

one home chore, another music track,

shopping, a cricket match,

one more reel, a movie, 

going to the supermarket,

applying nail polish,

buying updated gadgets

can cure us of our diseases:

hopeful the impending spring 

there would remain no wounds to lick.

Untitled

A random pebble 

considers itself 

a bit of every sole,

that grazes or tramples it,

even when the wearer disregards

the shoe to be part of the earth.

Intimacy is convoluted.