an unfinished poem

 There is an unfinished poem in me,

Somewhere...lingering in me.

In the prison of spring awaiting its release,

In the cage of desires, fluttering its wings.

Like a fleeting moment, neither here nor there,

Like the unseen moon, unfolding at its own pace.

Like the starless night, on its own journey,

Like a lonely path, which has not been taken yet.

With a flurry of events, dead but awaiting burial,

With an unforgiving past, lived yet untold.

Like a barren season which promised rain,

Like the waiting for a beloved, who never came.

Promises not kept, a life half unfinished,

Memories of a kiss, awakening from a sleep.

Coming home to a night, dark as ever it was,

Shedding a tear for the moment that never was.

There is an unfinished poem in me,

Somewhere, lingering in me.

Dark

 ...the airplane after take-off had loomed over darkness, the view below was nothing less than that of a place where power cuts were normal. But it made the effect more marked when the flight was descending on a place which looked like a starry night. He felt he was literally landing on a star lit sky. For a few minutes he forgot himself and braced to embrace the night which was dancing to itself. Before entering the terminal he looked at the sky and found a pale, silent moon looking back at him. But everything changed once he entered the immigration counter. Little did he know that he was carrying a part of the darkness he had left behind. Thousands of miles away from the darkness and here in this bright order of everything, his darkness was visible. Suddenly he became aware of himself.

Sorry

Today again she said sorry.

The last time I counted,

It stood at 362.

And that was a decade ago.

The first sorry I remember,

Her lips quivered and the moon

Hid beneath a cloud.

The wind had changed its direction then.

Her eyes had moistened and my heart had skipped a beat.

It was monsoon but it didn't rain that day.

Though the clouds had gathered

To kick up a rare storm.

Everything was forgiven under the passion of the moment.

It happened for a couple hundred of sorries.

With each time, the passing moon looked down upon us and moved passively.

Neither the evening breeze noticed us.

Nor the summer noon left us unscorched.

Sorries now are like the paint peeling from the wall.

The scars of the memories which were untold, unforgiven.

I lost the count of those sorries just like an old man forgets a pair of keys.

Often a sorry now is heard and passed just like a bowl of bland curry is passed.

It has become a ritual which is obsolete.

Still she says sorry, out of habit.

And is forgiven routinely.

We stand at status quo now.

Waiting for another sorry.