A Dancing Sylph

A Dancing Sylph

She puts on a yellow guise of gentleness,

Vermilion is dotting her demure palms,

Her locks are plaited like silk strands,

Scents bring out her natural charms.

Humility shines in her limpid eyes,

Her supple body sparkles her young age,

She keeps devotion in her pure heart,

With this her feet kiss the waiting stage.

Her face shows a plethora of expressions

Like a battlefield of a thousand emotions,

The air hums a certain soundless magic

Softly echoing her innocent notions.

She dances like a poem with a fire-

A music that enchants every mind.

She is a flower of beautiful hues

A petal of which is hard to find.

Late

 Late

Since, you have not yet returned.

You have not yet returned
Since the: “Don’t wait for me,
I might get late tonight;
There’s work. Love you baby.”

You have not yet replied
To: “Was the salt to taste?” -
A handwritten note in your
Questions laden lunch-case.

You have not yet called home
Since the:  “I am stuck here,
There is a meeting now –
Sales have dropped – everywhere!”

You have not yet arrived.
It is beyond midnight.
I wait in this dimness
Pierced by the streetlight.

The phone rings. Is it you?
No. “Hello, Kavita?
Have you watched the news?
Havoc! Where’s Ajoy da?”

On the television:
The Taj, Trident, Leopold
Have all been attacked, oh!
Horrible events unfold.

V.T. too! No, please God
No, let this be false!
Where are you? Why aren’t you
Answering my phone calls?

I’ve stayed up all night long,
Your parents are here. Mine
Have called a thousand times,
“Things, Ma, are far from fine.”

I reach the hospital
Hoping to find you named
In the list of those wounded,
Rather in of those unclaimed.



Years gone. No news of you.
They have cleared the debris,
Wiped clean the blood, the shells;
Just not the memory.

But you haven’t yet returned
Since the: “Don’t wait for me,
I might get late tonight;
There’s work. Love you baby.”

Two Lives

Two Lives

It takes a while to understand

And much longer still to explain

Our mutually quiet sleight of hand

That has reduced this mutual pain.

Round and round, beating around

The veritable bush of the past,

We are back to when we two found

Our two lives to be in contrast.

Furtively behind etiquette

We have in our rights kept living,

Yet, when alone, we seem to debate

All there’s to fate and forgiving.

This - our shared charade, will follow

Us when we’ll be two lives apart -

Alike at times we weep or wallow,

Across the humming of each heart.