Father and Daughter

My daughter dear, divine gift,
You are now all of twenty-five,
I see that you are all adrift,
Do moor and dock while I am alive.

Precious princess, don't be dull,
Papa loves you all the same,
Yet, the time has come to mull over
The rules of the mating game.

Pot of gold, I live for you,
I wish you to live happily,
For that this one thing we must do,
Find you another family.

Look here, one day I will place your hand,
In the sweaty palm of a suitable man,
He will then be your promised land,
To cherish and love all your life time.

When you were little, my heart, my core
I bought you stories, long and short,
They spoke of knaves and Kings of yore,
Filled with human values of import.

Princes and paupers the same graves ply,
Sceptres and sickles come to the same,
Go for the best, I am there by your side,
Whatever you wish for, simply take aim.

I gave you love, I gave you might,
I told you to go live your life right,
Sometimes you failed me, sometimes not,
Yet, in you, I lost faith not.

I know that you are a misplaced idealist,
My poor little girl, my lassie naive,
This cruel word has its own grind and grist,
And much little room for your dusty Palgrave.

I remember having told you once,
At any stage in life to remember
And be at ease with the fact
That ultimately we are all alone.

Learn to confront yourself with that truth
And my baby, you will have peace of mind,
I know that you will sit by my dutiful feet
And tend to my careworn frazzled frame.

You tell me you are no pastoral maid,
Who coyly waits for love to beat her breast
You say you are a brazen De Beauvoir,
Who seeks not security in your nuptial bed.

You say you will stand alone,
Wed, Single or divorcee,
You want to make your own mistakes,
Which you may live to repent and regret.

You may run to me at times of self-strife,
But never blame me for the state of your life?
You may ask me for money if you are hard up,
But never demand it of daughterly right?

Do as you wish, my lovely pearl,
I will live by you and die by you,
You are a woman of matter and mettle,
Papa is always proud of his girl.

Ode to Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

A memory lost in nameless grave,
India remembers you no exalted more,
She bears not how you loved her lore,
To you he is none but Sahib White,
A Wilful colonial oppressor.

I set down your freckled name today,
On the hoary rocks of Jungheera,
Where all at once can witness true,
The doubting mane of manicktollah,
Spirit wafting the smoky greens.

Then seated under an unhurried tree,
Lost in pensive melodious quill,
Silken thoughts sighing your soul,
Hybrid vigour churning your mind
In sleepless fits of rhythmic rhyme.

Tuned to the music of nature's pulse,
Your sensible beat of passionate vein,
Throbbing with the heartbeat of grass
Burning with the widow on her promising pyre,
Loving with a feeling full of innocent fire.

Of Byron's beautiful, dark wan brood,
Browning's wondrous tender love mood,
Black eyes, twinkling, silent, deep,
For ignorant humanity, wanton weeps.

Reflections

Let us not tempt fate,
For she makes a bad godmother,
To children born out of wedlock.

If only you could can your
Barbed wire branded humour.
It claws me like a lusty cat.

It is of that self-pity that I write,
That shallow tenderness,
Some of us call it love.
The flowery sandals and scarred feet,
They make my self-image.

Mistreated witch of inverted priorities,
Realising the wrong things,
Thinking them true.




Time running out,
My cake slice lies foul,
In company with other
Culinary experiments gone bad.
Hard, tasteless and out of shape.
Maybe a skilled chef can render it tolerable,
That is my only piece, my last.

Trying to imagine,
That when gone, my near and dear
Will be in a room full of light,
Knowing everything there is to know
In a cosmic jiffy,
While I pine on in a sub-deathly ignorance.
Could I turn my mind inside out,
And see the insides of reality
Or truth or beauty or love?
If I can think of them,
Why cannot I see them?




Or is it that I am a creature
Of shallow sensibility
Who learned by infra-experiential rote,
These ideas passed on in indifferent print?

Yet, I am human.
There has to be a continuum
Between the lowest and highest,
Somewhere to be sighted, isn't it?

Cosmic Joy

No quest for infinity,
It may be an idea,
Never to be a thing,
Like love,the universe,
God and sin.

Feel and relegate feeling
To a telescoped consciousness,
That moves erratic
Between indistinct realms,
Flitting across flickers

Take up a thought,
Like a garment's texture
That is all it is,a passing sensation
Wrought by forces unseen but
In your control.

Cultivate independence of mind,
Not arrogant self-righteousness,
No self-indulgent fascism,
A sense of duty,sense of shame past,
Of life alone.........

Ultimately alone....
and revelling in happy life.

To Mothers

Her mellow grace and subtle charm,
Her childish wit and easy manner,
Her classy ways all go to make her what she is
And will be, mine forever; a mother.
Even when she and I are gone,
In a time capsule of verse,
These words will write her name
Over and over.

Today's Child

Knowledge as it seems to me,
Is where, when and how had been,
Sulling bright-eyed sparks that be,
Numbers, names, places unseen.

Named after auspicious stars,
Gods, goddesses, planets far,
Blessed to receive life’s nitty-gritty,
By ordained agents of the almighty.


Not stronger against death,
Not stronger towards life,
Just restless and at strife,
With all and with myself.

Duty

A feeling that changed me,
The leafy silhouette
Flashed lightning in its gaps
And the knowledge that
What I thought was is not
Blends inside and later,
Clears up better.

Everything is as good
As I make it
To a measure,
Will and time
Amount to nothing
But can keep me
Content within search.

This summer evening
Marked by misty bursts,
I calibrate my past,
Index my future,
Trial,pain
Not in vain
What I chose.

In my power,
Fortunate being,
People to love,
Love back more
Never in need of sincerity.
Lucky, quite sparkish,
Creature of ideas and put-uppances.

Who hurts people.
This is a new call
To duty beautiful
Satisfying, yet more stretchly.
Never did, now dearly.
Again, that's what I choose to try.