Life

How big a bully this life has been!
It pushed you, slapped you, pinched you:
To make you dance on its tunes new
Took props away-all- lest you lean.
How big a con, without a blindfold
It made you trust its lays.
Snatched all your years, all nights and days,
It shackled; poisoned, kept you in hold.
The ground below and wide sky blue,
It'll make you run and take em away.
If you breathe still, it'll say,
“Now give me all sweet, small things too -
That hold you when I've taken all.

Kashi

How'd I ever write of anyone but you, O Kashi!
Lord Shiva, the destroyer of all desires,
How burnt he in his desire for return!
I too, with closed eyes come to you
And roam in the lanes I lived in-
A restless, haunter
Of my city,
My ghats, my and lanes and days with you.
My uncle, exile, he wept for his Kashi,
And told
“The man who loved you most
Was cursed to stay away forever.”
A curse, they say, is curse
When heart it burns.
The old curse fell.
This time,
On me.
The curse of living away,
Of never coming back
To you, O Kashi!