A PILLAR OF SALT

Standing in my grim light I feel swallowed
by my own shadow;
bend backwards to pick stars from a sea of words
and turn
into a pillar of salt.
My face:smooth shining.
Soul:black beads.
the parakeets, I release
throwing the cage-doors open
retun as guilts.
I scrub my pots, can't rub off
the potter's marks.

Quests explode in mind's stellar time,
implode back
to the motes in my eyes.

On my palms, father's fields
open up cracks;
droughts throw up dead-fish-stench;
eels dig deep in my intestine.
tired herons surface
in night's amnesty;
their white ash silence
settles down on the dead silt
that rivers forget
to collect on their retreat.

My face is a pastel ghost
in morning's fog;
the blind lanes
ambush my about-turns;
my garden's lilas
bedeck Kali's ruthless girdle.

Often days end without fuss:
no hurt, no remorse,
coast clear, birds peaceful on wings;
a lightness spreads my being
from south to its north.

The void nags me, looks askance;
the absence scares me of an unreal victory
the bliss grows rims of boredom,
my hulk sags under tonnes of melancholy;
the black night bivouacs in the open.

I stab a virgin sheet
with my pen's hunger 
the plough buries its rusted shame
in the pit of benign mud.
 

A BOATMAN'S SONG

Careened on your arid bed
I think of the days when
you flowed full to the brim.

From one bank, the other
was a dream of sorts,
a catamaran's wishful sigh.

A profile, baroque and damask
among the summer's billowing light
winter's roly-poly puffs.

Rains brought better surprises
with sun squeezing through the wetness
here and there like side-long glances.

Wet clothes, scanty clothes,
no clothes. A body suspended
between fragrant salt and crackling sun.

Standing on the parched bed
I dig, scrape, beg for water
in frustration beg for death.

Excavation shifts layers
of crust to unravel ennui.
Does history ever repeat itself?

Your origin in the hills
and destiny with the sea
mean nothing to me.

I pick handfuls of sand,
occasional pebbles, and step
upon you with immense care,

lest my footprints wet
your pristine aridity
for they bear the memory of water.

In other lands monsoon abounds,
the earth, fecund and lush,
the sun dancing among reeds and ripples.

Yet, I revel in your aridness,
cursed with a sweet void,
cluttered with loved memories.