The Poem

She met me,

accidentally,

after a gap of years -

thirteen to be precise 

                   and

it was evident 

how Time had her

skin dampened,

teeth splintered,

nails smudged,

hair des​ic​cated.

She, however

courageously, did not

make any effort

to hide all this and said

"Yes, I'm living a Life! You see?

What about you?"

(I wanted to reply 

but withheld:

maybe there will be a poem about all this -

reminding you how grief 

gatecrashes over us all,

stanza-wise -

without rhymes,

in loneliness)

You will understand it without a summary.

Sole

That night,

I slept with a shoe

in my heart.

In fact,

anything to hold on to

could have sufficed.

The body just yearned for

some semblance of something 

that sounded 

or at least possessed 

a soul.

Nothing much.

Overtime

They say

a poem on Overtime

should always possess

excessive words.

It should, simply, be overabundant.

The poem should overflow

It should overwhelm.

Overexert.

Overpopulate.

Overburden.

In other words,

it should unrestrainedly strive

to overthrow 

the overarching meaning of the genre.

Or,

it should be content 

to be sold cheap in a word factory;

on some picture perfect social networking site,

like any ordinary worker

drenching in sweat,

eating by the roadside and, 

on phone, talking to his far-off family -

working on the construction of a mall 

he would never dare to enter.

In the labour of breathing everyday,

Life's an overtime.

Strangers

The least,

he thought, he could do,

(after listening intently

to the old woman's chronicle

of losing sight at an alarming level 

while keeping his own unemployment ratio

in the current scenario,

clearly in sight as well),

                                            was to

take those grimy, heavy,

thick glasses gently from her and

rub and clean them diligently 

with the hem of his shirt

that had lost its sheen due to overuse.

Meanwhile,

the other person went on blabbering -

failing to

witness 

the tears.

Untitled

The sky fell to the floor:

its ultramarine reduced to dust.

As if it would now pour:

crude crusts of benevolent rust.

Scripts

"Which tense do you want to live in?"

- Osip Mandelstam 

There was a Poet,

quite prophetic and noble,

who hovered over this greened earth.

"Faith is a bird that migrates . . .", he wrote.

There will come a Poet,

experimental yet eloquent,

who will bless us 

with verses of the apocalypse.

There is a poet,

however

condescending and narcissistic,

living -

somewhere in gutters -

exactly where he belongs.

The Scream 2.0

How would Edvard Munch paint us this time?

At first,

he won't.

Then an HD photograph.

In the background,

a shopping complex -

advertising the importance of trees.

On it,

a gigantic screen

displaying some benefit concert.

Towards the middle,

a figure emerging -

arms open (motion blur)

almost weepy, reacting

as if surprised...

Fitted with a well practised,

clinical fake smile.