Flashback

Scorched from a placid reservoir of memory,
Blown to sky by a gusty present,
Candy-flossed to clouds in distant nostalgia,
Come crashing down the drops
on my block of concrete ...

I hold my palms out in this rain
like a priest holds fire,
Collecting fragments
as the drops splatter in and out,
Images like random pages
from a torn flicker book,
Lighting up, dimming out ....

I splash my face with this water,
It adheres around my face,
Seeps within my skin,
Back into that reservoir it came from

Stationary Running

I’m running on a treadmill,
Miles eaten up by a growling belt,
Slipping off my shoes into oblivion.
I never left to reach anywhere.
A sweat-soaked T-shirt,
An LED displaying energies burnt,


I could have run laps on concrete ovals,
Reach the same place every time
…. Faster or slower than others.

I could run a marathon across this city,
Reach another place at a time
…. Faster or slower than others.


But I run the equator every day,
Reach a time on a different day,
And run the treadmill all over again
…. Faster or slower than others.

Up-Down

Dragged on a highway dividing lanes,
A traveling chalk, I,
diminish connecting dots,
Every curve, hugged and slid across,
Every tunnel, echoed with engine shots.

Every trip, tightening the light
yarn wound around street lamps,
Every change in season, a reason
the terrain makes faces at me,
I am switched between demarcated speed channels,
routed like data packets which are never lost

What can the chalk draw anymore?
Does it have any calculus?
An LHS equals to RHS?
Or will it, merely,
retrace its path along the lane divider?
Looking for spaces in its length ...
To fill in the blanks

Impasse

Is it mine? Is it yours?
That candle burning in a lost cause,
Swaying beneath decorating lights,
On a table of two empty chairs.

Chandeliers tinkling comprehend,
Silence has chosen to descend,
Two Chinas facing each other,
Alongside assorted non-veg platter,
On a red checkered table cloth,
Yet unembellished,
As the evening remains undernourished,
And much too sober as
Steady menisci of half-empty vine glasses.

As Smsing key tone punctuate the air
And main course awaits our care
Will you appear? Will I be there?