Works of RK

I have spread my dreams out to dry
They were wet from yesterday’s tears
Should you chance upon them on the line
Don’t bother, just let them be.

I have heard from the unheard
There will be another long night tonight.
Jan 24-2011
From Life in a Multiverse

I have willed Time to slow down
So that in the little time I have with you
I could spend more time with you.
I have desperately tried for it to bend
So that the memories of time spent with you
Could be lived for ever more.

I have counted the seconds in a minute
And counted the minutes in a day
In anticipation of spending
One more day with you.

Time being what it is
I will no more.
Dec-23-2011

Now that silences are back
Where once your sweet nothings played
I wait in the eerie darkness of my nights
For some lost whisper of your sound to play again
Some thought you might have left unsaid
Suddenly finding decibels
Some story that you left incomplete
Suddenly finding a script

I wait for old songs to play
Someday. Dec-9-2010

From Life in a Multiverse

Memories from Springtime
Lend light to Autumn gloom.
As I wade through fallen leaves
I see new hope bloom.

As familiar words
Fire Telephone Lines
Old longings give way to new desires.

Memories from Springtime
Lend cheer to Autumn gloom.
Nov 20-2010

From Life in a Multiverse

The touch of your skin on my skin
The way your fret and fume under a kiss
The way you run away from a hug
And then come back for more

Nov 17-2010
From Life in a Multiverse

When I feel like writing, You become my muse.
When I hold the pen, you flow effortlessly as ink.
From memories of you have spawned
Every word I ever wrote.

Every keyboard I ever tapped made weird sounds,
sounded like your name.
With every long breath that I take
Wafts in the fragrance of your shampooed hair.

You are the words the punctuations and the pause.
You are the intention, You are also the original cause.

8-July-2010

From Life in a Multiverse

Someday from these ashes
I shall rise again,
Fight these self-doubts
And be able to love again.

Until such time O lord I pray,
Let these embers not lose their fire,
For one more lifetime with her,
May my heart always aspire.
April-25 

From Life in a Multiverse

Each day I sweep the streets of Autumn
Seeking new blooms of Spring.

The blossoms these days
Are all but gone,
I see no flowers no more.

These are my last few lines for you,
It is done.
I can rain no lines no more.
Apr-6-2010

From Life in a Multiverse

Lines from the poem
You read to me last
Thoughts of music that played
When you danced last

The SMS that you sent
Just before all this merged

Into a distant past.
Mar-27-2010

From Life in a Multiverse

It is stupid some would say
Allowing my heart to swing astray
I agree with the wise
It is my choice to be otherwise.
Once this small life of mine has run
Its innings and I am done
I would love to leave behind someone
Who at some point in her own little life believed
She was mighty precious to someone. Mar-27-2010

From Life in a Multiverse

Of the things I should leave behind
I have no clue.
Of the things I should carry forward,
Very few are new.

All I know as I run into this night,
Is that if this night has a tomorrow,
With me, there shall be you.
Welcome 2010. Dec 31-2009 
From Life in a Multiverse

Your incessant banter
chirping like robins of yore;
spring in autumn' sunshine in rain.
And as we walk hand in hand
through the necklace road lanes
your deo mingles with my cologne
in a sweet fragrant embrace.
26-Oct-09


From Life in a Multiverse

In losing you I retain
The best of you.
The memories that I cherish of you
Are not those that you dumped on me;
They are the memories
That I stole from you

The warmth that I feel when I think of you
Is removed from the ice-like breeze
That envelops me
When I am with you.

I find it difficult these days
To be with you.
In losing you I retain
The best of you.

Aug 28 2009

From Life in a Multiverse

Have you heard the incessant clatter
Of steel wheels on steel tracks?

I wish my life too
Would sound so clear. July 2009

From Life in a Multiverse

Sometimes you ask me
Why I fall so silent on your calls,

And I tell you,

I am such a lousy speak and you;
You such a wonderful hear.

Butterfly landing
Dare I squeak?
June 2009
From Life in a Multiverse

Missed a Beat... And then you smile again!
June 2009  

From Life in a Multiverse

If I were to count the hours we spent together
Once sunny silences replaced idle chatter
Time would give way to timelessness
I would have to borrow another lifetime. June 2009

From Life in a Multiverse

Each Sunflower that follows the Sun
Reminds me of my love
For you.

How could I let you know
How much I needed you?
Like all those things in the world
That live for aeons

I am silent too

June 2009
From Life in a Multiverse

One hundred poems
Over a thousand lines of love
All for one who would never read
Any of these.

Like my love my lines exist
In an eternal quest of you.

June 2009


From Life in a Multiverse

This night that runs into tomorrow,
Ends tonight.

For all that remains to be said and done
You have just this one night.

HE who maintains those registers would know,
The number of nights we're yet to live.

All I know at this moment in time,
Is that this night that runs into day
Ends tonight.

Goodnight:)
May 2009
From Life in a Multiverse

Amidst the din and buzzle
Of a city already mad
I find myself repeat lines
From my yesteryear Poems.

Those that I want
Are nowhere near
The ones who are near
Are not the ones I seek

In between what is
And what could be
Is me 24-April-2009

From Life in a Multiverse

All my lines, all these years
Each one of them, all these words
Have been penned for one
Who would never read
Any of these.

Like love my lines exist
Irrespective of you. May 2009

From Life in a Multiverse

Let me hurry through the day
I do not live here anymore
The days are a whiny slob
Waiting to be consumed

Days are ever expanding universes
Waiting for it to collapse into itself

Let me hurry through the day
I do not live here anymore.

To the nights I have shifted,
Need I tell you anymore!
March 24th, 2009

From Life in a Multiverse

Once the whining and the grumbling is past
And the groves and pines
Have given up the howls
One can hear in the silences that surround
The storm that rages within.

There is no escape.
Feb-2009

From Life in a Multiverse

I know how it began, we all know where it ends. Between this beginning and its end survives;
One meandering life.

Seasons come and go,
Relationships bloom and burst,
The Constant Gardner is ever at work.
Seeding flowers, planting trees,
Some to bloom others to grow.
Amidst this growth and decay,
Amidst fading-by-the-night flowers and everlasting trees,
Is one meandering life.

Climbing mountains riding waves,
Catching an 'Appooppan Thadi' chasing a dream,
Amidst sleep and wakefulness,
Is one meandering life.

Answering questions questioning answers,
Questioning the questions that longed for answers
And the answers that begged for questions.
Between moments of clarity and aeons of confusion,
Is one meandering life.

Milestones by the way
Discount distances yet to be run.
What is known is your truth,
The unknown is all mine.
Between the distances of the mind
And those of the milestones
Is one meandering life.

Stuck between truths,
Yours and mine;
Is one meandering life.


April-2009

From …

What storm is it that you brew
In your tea cups this time?
Which is this war
Ravaging your hinterlands?

I stand outside your minds corridor
Waiting
For a soft whisper to blow apart
The silences that fast gather
Into clouds thundering
And promising
Another downpour

I stand quite
Wondering
Which will be the killer this time.

The storm that rages in you
Or the one that I fight within?

April-8

From Life in a Multiverse

What magnificent distraction this! Ebbs and flows and throbs and throes
Disconcerting to degree
Away and beyond!

The Kite flies away
The thread tags along
All the way all along
Up and up and beyond
To the yonder till it falls

Catches a tree a shrub a hedge a storm.

What magnificent distraction this! Ebbs and flows and throbs and throes.
April-5'09
From Life in a Multiverse

A scoop of Silence splattered with sounds
Hot chocolate fudge on frozen vanilla
The taste of nuts rolling and melting
With the corn and the crowd.

Stay back for a second will you,
I have a moment to live
One single melting moment in life
Let me live through these seconds
These frozen freeze frame seconds.

Later, you will melt away
Go on to become a face
That catches my attention
In a crowd
That I avidly avoid.

A friend now
A Stranger an ice-cream moment away!
March 27, 2009 From Life in a Multiverse

The train that hurtles into the night,
Is driven by a sense of purpose that is mine.

Tonight,
I am just another traveler.
I share my destiny with those who are around,
In the same space and time.

I belive, and hence,
This journey !

March-5, 2009
From Life in a Multiverse

The green leaf melts
With white lime and burns
Translucent red in my life
Its one betel life.
Feb: 2009
From Life in a Multiverse

One neat string seamless and strong
That runs through my book of life
Tying in togetherness my pages
Days, events, years and lifetimes
Into small readable chapters.


You string my life together
Because of you I am
Because of you I have
A story to tell!


Feb 2009


From Life in a Multiverse

It needs only a smile
For a memory to linger
A longing to glimmer
And sustain a lifetime


Once all is said
You don’t need too much
To fall in love!
And let the Love remain.
Dec'08
From Life in a Multiverse

I do not want to write about you
Writing about you wastes my words
And define boundaries
In an otherwise infinite world
Full of infinite possibilities
I do not want to write about you
My written word stains
The paper where my ink blots
And words penned take on meanings
That was otherwise not thought
Let my words rest in peace
Let my worlds survive.
8th of May 2007

From Life in a Multiverse

Every time you know That I am just about to let go:

You squeak and shudder and blow
Even feign a thunder
Before you strike at the door
Three loud thumps
That mean
Please Don’t’ Go. 8th of May 2007

From Life in a Multiverse

When Dreams Start Hurting

Ablaze in the daylights of Nagpur
I now realize why their Oranges
Are a fiery red
The color of fire and the Sun.

Its a fire so frenzied
That this beautiful town with is beautiful roads
Clean and neat people
Scurry around the streets
on bipeds and mopeds attired
Like terrorists.

Yesterday in my hotel room
As I made way for the mistress
of sleep to invade
I dreamt of us
Of the last time I was in Nagpur
And we had a softy ice cream
@ Haldirams.

Fire of all fires
My very own dreams
Have now started hurting.
Nagpur
Is on fire.
May 2007


From Life in a Multiverse

The seed that I was
Ever in waiting
For that little warmth
Of an astray laughter
That warm cuddle
Of another
Stranger in transit

You came along

And in the hurried embrace
Of those molten moments
I bloomed lines
Forever flowering
Never ending

Oct-2008
From Life in a Multiverse

Weaving dreams
out of stuff I could not share,
Aspiring to fly to places of no return.

I await oblivion in the hands Of the one
Who does not care!

Does the fiery sun that sets tonight know,
If there is a tomorrow,
I shall rise again
And with folded hands to the unmoving,
I shall write again.

Jan-1st Week, 2010


From Life in a Multiverse

Drifting in the wind, ever changing
Not holding on, and never letting go
Neither fighting nor ceding defeat
I wait for the elusive spring.

Holding on to promises
In a pollen full of dreams
I wait for first shower to drench me
I believe.
Jan-16th-2010


From Life in a Multiverse

The last time I counted
They were nearing forty and going strong
One for each year of my life
And a half for the rest of me.


You wrote them on tissues, on government
Stationaries and letter pads,
And you wrote them on 15 paisa papers too,
Until the e-mail come along.


Death come calling
Through electronic mails and I
Live with my children tending
And pretending that there will be more.


Your letters, hard and strong.

19-07-03

Weather-beaten though they may be,
The leather and the woman in it;
It serves the larger goal of withering
That relationships undergo, in time, and
Some times out of time.


I make friends and in time they melt away
As friends are wont to do with
The sweet fragrances of friendship gone stale.
I plant flowers and they bloom
To fade
With a tired yawn
Into the darkling night.

I smoke cigarettes and with life
They burn the paper
Into
Inert ash.

There’s no reason why,
An e-mail should not end everything.
The leather of my purse will outlive
The girl it has so long imprisoned.

2001

From Life in a Multiverse

If I were to write you a few lines
And you were to name them after
Some poems you would have read
Somewhere in time to forget
And be remembered of it again.

I would write my name “Rxxxxx”
And I will write your name “Sxxxxx”
And I will place them at the two ends
Of a very white
Of a very wide
Sheet of paper.

And I will write no more.

Our lives are our lines
And between these few lines
Of lost spaces and misplaced punctuations
Let us, you an I
Help each other make sense
Of what remains of us.


Rxxxxx       Sxxxxx

2003

From Life in a Multiverse

Dear Sir,
I have drafted my report
For the last seven days.
It’s on your table, right
Next to your paper weight,
Under the pen-stand.

After you have read the above
If you feel I should change,
Some part of what had happened,
To what actually
Should have happened.

Edit it, its open to change,
What I did yesterday,
You can undo
Today.
6th October 2002

From Life in a Multiverse

Sitting in a car
Waiting for the train to come
Waiting for the train to go
To come away from somewhere
And to go away to some-other-where.

Why do I wait
When it does not concern me.
Of what probability is the chance
That therein will be someone I knew once.
Why does the hour glass always tilt
Midways and stop
So that time would come along
And sit besides me
And wait
For the train from somewhere
To go some-other-where.13-11-2003


From Life in a Multiverse

Clutter of trains
Ever running into tunnels.
Endless reserves in two our bodies,
Passions smoldering in your saffron breasts,
A touch, nearness, distant embraces,
All sealed with kisses, yet unsealed.
Softness of shampooed hairs,
Warmth of the eternal fire,
Youth lingering in you and me;
Shared secrets and the unshared ones.
Nxxxx and me, me and her.

I think now, my poetry began
Then, in some distant wilderness,
Among fiery poppies and dew drunk mustards,
In the cluttering of the rails
In your heart and mine
And those withering glances.


2000

From Life in a Multiverse

(In the vernacular, Kitna? stands for "How Much?" and "Safed Pannon Jithna" is a response which means "As much as a page of White Paper")
I have loved you through the cold midnights
Up north; when I used to whisper words
Of love through cold telephone lines
To keep you warm in me.

I have loved you in the sultry heat
Of a humid southern drought And in letters tried to water
Your thoughts in me.

Through seasons without ample reasons
I have loved you.
Through time, and out of time
I have loved you.
For such things to go on
And on
I have defined continuity on my own terms
In my love for you.
2000 From Life in a Multiverse

All good things come to an end, until they begin again. I am not sure if there would be a sequel in this lifetime. I don’t even know if the crew would come together for another shoot. The universe that plots togetherness, plans the parting too.

I knew and so did you that the time we spent together, we would never relive again. As I spent those seasons in time with you, I freeze framed the best of you. In my fear of forgetting you, I frantically keep you alive in my blogs, my poems, my passionate debates on relationships and my ever increasing play-lists of yesteryear songs.

One day, when I walk into the night, I would lean on to your memories and they will carry me through. When I meet my maker, together, we shall say hello!

When I found the sun up so close, sneaking up my windows, a mile high in the sky, I was reminded of you. I was remembered of the day sunlight was caught behind your silken hair. Rays of love would shine through you, and drenched me in its glow. And when I looked into your mriganayani eyes, I could see myself; and in your eyes, I was so beautiful to see.
I always believed that the Sun that shines, answers to you. You are the mysterious reason why it glows.
Rajesh

On an ATR flight from Hyderabad to Cochin, I had the window seat next to the propellers. The blades seemed huge up close and when the engine fired and they started to turn. 
Blades merged with blades, and soon there was nothing. The blades in their fiery speed became one with the things around, and seem to have vanished. Only the black warhead like nose at the centre of the rotors whirred like some Bosch hammer drill, being used in the middle of a lonely night.
When the invisible rotors lifted me into the skies, I thought about my Lord. The Lords presence, like the invisible rotor blades, is mostly felt, rarely seen.
Thank you for a wonderful flight.

Some day my songs will sing of you no more. Someday, silences will fall over silences; there will be no words no more. And when you pass this way you will find me painting in your colors no more. I know that one day I shall wake up and I would grieve your loss no more. I agree that I will never forget you but I pray for better things to remember.
Time would send me no answers, but I trust time to bring more important questions my way, someday.
Rajesh

My office boy has a young baby girl who has just begun to take her first few baby steps. On my way out, I see her hanging on to the gates and making baby-like noises. She is an optimist; I have not seen her cry. Yesterday on my way back from the supermarket, I bought half a dozen bananas for her. The mother was surprised, it was unexpected.
At the supermarket, I remembered the choices I had as a kid. We were just about “middle-class” but we had enough food to eat. There were baskets of mangoes, litchis and five guava trees. There were biscuits which I and my sister would hog over and sweets during every festival. Today these choices are not available to 80% of Indian poor. The onion sells at INR 75/- a kilo, tomatoes at INR 72/-. Barely edible rice is over INR 30/- A doctor’s visit costs INR 250/-. Last year, over 17000 farmers chose to die rather than plod on until their next crop-loss. Many more will die. The rickshaw-wallahs, pavement dwellers, scavengers, municipality workmen, hou…

I have been put through the shredder and my entrails have stained many a heart before. I have been ground fine in time and now get tossed in beautiful looking hourglasses. I have been beaten hollow as a drum, and I am highly strung. The shrillness of my voice; you would not have heard before.
I have been battered by the blue waves and have surrendered my pride years ago; I have no rocky edges no wedges and no space for your little hands to hold on to. I sustain no life anymore. Wonder what you see in me!
Rajesh