(written September 05, 2009)

I'm realizing that making the context known, seems to bring the intended meaning to the reader and making it that much more comprehensible. Wherever decency permits and no harm is likely, I will add the context... I welcome you to check back on the earlier posts, where, for some, I've added context.

"I want to cry" is something I wrote to the first girl I fell in love with and was caused by the resultant first (of many to follow !) heart-break. Of the many poems that I have attempted to publish in print media, it is the only one turned down and repeatedly so. With so many (dubious!) firsts to its credit, its little wonder then, that this remains my most favourite poem in my quiver. Read on.

(Written May 1988)

Had moments frozen

at my wish,

I'd have said no prayers

ever.

 

HE must have feared

For HIS relevance in my story

and those moments passed by

quickly.

 

Context:

After many years, out of the blue, someone I used to be madly in love with, emerged from the woodwork... And said to me.. Naren, what's happened with you in all these years, tell me your story... This obviously was my response... 

(written on March 5th, 2009)

Who says,

That sentences can’t end

At the comma?

 

Often,

the entire sense

exists at the conjunction.

 

Hope, desire and propriety

can perhaps accomplish

a mere grammatical finish.

 

Destiny decides

the preceding,

antecedent,

and the entire realizable meaning.

 

This narrative

was meant to be told

as a conversation half done.

 

(Written on October 27. 2008)

 

Context:

For some years I worked very closely with very young school-going children. Very often I found myself dumb-struck with their questions... not because of their complexity but rather their unfettered simplicity. At the same time I was in active contact with a vast group of people ranging from middle to old age in search of peace, truth and soul-cleansing, as part of a spiritual congregation... The irony was irresistible

(Written Jan 2007, Also posted at Caferati, ryze.com)

I wanted to pull you close to me
Sometimes
To move with the music,
To immerse myself in your fragrance
Or in the tenderness of a moment.

Sometimes
Because your body beckoned,
Or maybe mine urged,
Seeking, giving satiation.

Sometimes
To keep your arms from flailing,
To smother your heaving anger,
And to protect you, me.

Sometimes
To avoid your questioning eyes,
Or averting mine, in guilt.
Mostly as subterfuge.

I wanted to pull you so close to me,
So close, as to resonate the throb
into willing you forever
from questioning my intentions.

 

Written Jan 05, 2007. Also at Caferati (Ryze.com)

Many thanks to Suniti and Reshma for helping improve this. 

Doesn't
Every bubble
have
its character?

The sheen,
veneer,
The space within,
And without.
The emotion,
The story,
And its own moment.

Every moment
is a caricature
of the context
occupying
that entirety.

** ** **

All life
encounters me
in every moment.
Some
call it
Objectivity.

** ** **

The truth
Is in the withdrawal,
Reclusion,
Death, perhaps.

The living
Is in the biases,
Perspectives,
Moods-swings.
The living
is in
the Caricatures.

** ** **

 

Written Nov 16, 2006. Also at Caferati (Ryze.com)

Its 3 AM.

Just the distant hum of a genset,
the whispers of the musquitoes,
Else, utterly still.

Sleep has long broken treaty with me,
Comes only when laced,
but my weightloss program, ran my bar dry.

The doldrums take toll
I scratch my sparse scalp sore,
Panic grips me
Even as thoughts threaten to lay seige.

Time to accede to my kinesthetic nature:
Only dumb reruns on the telly,
And the books too imposing...

Who could be awake now to tete-a-tete?
I qwerty punch the URLs, and Lo!
The porn folks are buzzing, so too the poets.
And my panic dissipates.

 

Written Oct 30, 2006. Also at Caferati (Ryze.com)