if only we’d met sooner

maybe you would’ve liked me better when i was young

when i’d have jumped barbed walls and fences

braved mosquitoes and cold nights

for the sake of silly dalliances

when i’d on a whim take overnight buses

in the vague unrequited hope of half-amused kisses

when i was more willing, under the aegis

of my naiveté, to take my chances 

put aside my dignity and wonder if every passing

fling would be one of life’s great romances

ignorant of how in every beginning lurk the seeds of an end

and every birth a death portends

that with colours of a desolate dusk

every dawn will forever be replete

mindless that every heart-ache comes

in the garb of a promise sweet

maybe then i’d have had the leisure

and the heart to indulge in love or the pleasure

of a couple of cigarettes shared in the rain

then, unmindful of the impending doom

maybe, the craving for your body

would’ve brought me to your room

at some late hour of some lonely night forlorn 

or maybe just the vanity in my own 

calm as a gull bobbing upon the ocean

it’s not cold anymore

when the stars come out and the milky-way flows

the constellations slowly begin to take shape

and in the immense calm a timelessness pervades

us and the night

which flows down upon everything soft tight

around the trees glittering in the moonlight

and the path now a soft milky white

all the edges

are softened and the trees and the hedges

merge with the benches the poles and the lake’s depths

and all space is filled by night’s dark breath

or the moon’s pale sigh

flapping through the inky night a bat swims by

and we lie back, with our moonlight-shadows merging

which is our true essence emerging

in the quiet

of the night made of the silent riot

of chirps and the howls so distant and surging thus
they seem to come like breath from within us

and they said love couldn’t be bought

ah! what a relief, i finally came today

what a release; i feel reborn, remade

it was tiring feigning it, and so

i had to arrange it a certain way

she had a thin, bony torso and flabby

thights. her droopy breasts were small

but she needed the extra money and so

she said she’d do anything at all

she held me tight, kissed my neck

and she fooled me, i swear

“i love you”, she whispered

with such conviction in my ear

a letter i chanced upon

i’d been warned that you’d lost - which intrinsically implies debatable prior possession -

the use of your blessed faculties since you got the blighted faculty position

and it is hereby confirmed by your dim-wittedly obtuse correspondence

validated, now with evidence, by your inordinate preponderance

on my deplorable limitations and your scintillating achievements

in your insufferably domineering tone that’s become a pain

and i can read that undermining condescending smile again

used to point out my shortcomings

just to cover up your insecurities

arising from some awry

sense of rivalry

allow me to say only

that i plainly refuse to respond. surely

you wouldn’t take any offence and please

you mustn’t refuse me that right - to hold my peace

having known you, however, since we were both guileless little kids

and wishing you well, i might as well add a bit of a postscript:

stop strutting around like a prize cock in his prime

and go smell the flowers while there’s still time

when?

standard news standard life

await your turn, stand in line

stranded with your stand-in wife

when was the last time you felt alive?

pillion riders and prepositions

prepositions they tell me are words that tell you

the relationship between objects or things

like karnataka is below maharashtra

and the cat is under the table lounging

the kids when asked insist that a pillion rider

is the one who sits back of the person riding a bike

and i wonder if just that much captures the truth

or what relationship if any it signifies

maybe there ought to be separate

words for the aunty picking her nose

and the beautiful girl sitting slumped back

hands hanging down eyes half-closed

and the little kid with goggles extra-large

and a broad smile who sits facing backwards

and the guy leaning on resting his head

on the back in front with his hands reaching forward