వంతెన

కాశీ విశ్వేశ్వరుని ముంగిట హాహాకారపు గంటలు
గంగా నదీ తీరాన ఏవో గుర్తు తెలియని మంటలు.

గ్రీష్మపు ప్రభాత సూర్యుడి భస్మాకారపు చీకటి,
కబేళ ప్రవాహ నిర్ఝరీలో పావనమైనదా ఈ తటి?

అన్నీ కర్మలలోకెల్లా ఏది ఎక్కువ హీనం?
బుక్సార్ వంతెన పైనుండి పడతోసి విలీనం.

ఏమని చెప్పను ఈ పుణ్యభూమిని గూర్చి?
ఏ రాచగృహం కట్టను ఈ శవాలను చేర్చి?

Choice

When you're soaking in tubs, smoking in pubs,
sipping on sugary cups playing with pups
Do you see the skill of the potter, glassblower,
do you taste your tea, or just sit and pity?

When you're riding the roads, crushing the toads,
amidst the neon boards hauling the loads,
Do you see the graffiti on sidewalls, waterfalls,
do you hear a banjo strum, or a bass drum?

Have you seen a fine wine vanish like turpentine,
drunk by the lush swine like they have a deadline?
Not all who share the privilege, taste anise or sage,
there may be a spillage, or an abrupt slippage.

Have you seen a plain lane, black asphalt mundane,
painted for a penny gain, into an art insane?
There is a beauty can seek, be it in a crooked beak,
or the mount Fuji's peak, am I a geeky freak?

To see such beauty is an art,
a technique learnt by the heart,
The learnt ones are fortunate,
for its not a course by the state.

Maybe it's my biased schemata
That you find them in every strata.

Seeking

Vapours of the ember, nights of a cold December,
Push me into slumber, nothing to remember.
A thorough inspection, deliberate introspection,
A memoir collection, to rekindle affection.

Keys on the hooks, just where no one looks,
Bills in the books, where Lord Tolkien cooks,
banded bangled wrist, pen bleeding in the fist,
a week long Playlist, to wipe the clock’s mist.

What to teach the kids? Who asks and who bids?
Where are the glass lids? How to control aphids?
The world fades white, too bright a light,
Hear my muted plight? Come help me fight.

All that I now can recall, a young and a lively fall,
Spring Fair's game stall, shooting darts at a doll.
It's the only life I see, in this world I’d love to flee,
The only moment I was free, a flash and I still glee.

A second or a week, when I was tense and meek,
Too love-shy to speak, That is all I wish to seek.

Blunt

The screen clears, no pain or tears,
Cuts on the sears, a pool of fears,
Will they leave me, my rhyming spree?
Will I have to be, that leafless tree?

I’m eating a lot but I still crave,
Safe yet scared in my lone cave,
Will I just take a book to the grave?
Will this be all that I ever gave?

But then again, who knows the pain?
We write in vain, design? No, a stain.
Blunt is the wick, gone is the kick,
We hone till slick, click or no click.

They who know us know this,
Those who don’t are in bliss,
Irony is to sing one’s own diss,
Maybe, it’s good to be amiss.

Deforestation

A writer sits at the pine table, trying to doodle a sketch,
the image of the very fable, that would some riches fetch.
Cold winds are on the window, the hearth is kindling warm.
A few crumbled papers to throw, assures the fire no harm.

The wood that was set on fire, keeps the writer sane.
But let me sing the wood's lyre, the big fat tree's bane.
The big fat tree of the wood, the tree that never moved.
A squirrel came in search of food, whose guilt never proved.

Tickling and pulling the twig, solacing in the moist heart.
The squirrel loved the tangy fig, and thence never apart.
But then came a fateful day, the fate's axe stuck the trunk.
Reality had to have its way, woods were carried by the hunk.

The squirrel ran fast and swift, until the truck was lost.
And thence came no tangy gift, but squirrel wouldn't exhaust.
In every way the squirrel knew, tried to pour life into stump.
Drops of water at roots it threw, but never was seen a hump.

The squirrel thence carved art, in memory of the old pal.
The friends were now worlds apart, not humans to text or call.
The woods burnt in the hearth, feel cozy o dear writer.
The squirrel wails in the darth, let's make your day brighter.

May this fire not bring hopeful rays, may your art fetch love.
May it help you find solace, for the tree isn't alive now.
Become a writer, great writer, don't forget the wood that burnt.
Make our lives one bit lighter, help us live though we weren't.