Nostalgia

the steaming rice

drinks up the broth

and spices up its lonliness…

the smoking oil in the wok

tantalizes the young and raw onions

they turn pink

blushing

they hide behind the stiff okra

or sturdy potatoes

flavours, dormant and subdued

flare up

and fill my room

with aromas long cherished

i find home

in wafting flavours

nostalgia, bubbling in a wok!

The Otherness of My Words

"Your words, not mine"-
you pushed the conversation towards me
holding the empty silence at your end.
"My Words!"
Ah, I see,
the ownership, the title deed - mine.
These words-
               mine?
               truly mine?
               mine alone?
Each syllable,
all the intonations
every meaning -
               ascribed or presumed, all mine?
My words
because,
              I rolled them on my tongue
              tasted the hurt in them
              gulped down the expectations they carried
              kissed them good luck,
              as they left my lips...
beacuse,
              they stood forlorn
              suspended in the otherness
              engulfing the small universe, mine.
My words
because,

            they could not breathe
            in the air heavy and pungent
            with the acrid odor of breathing ghosts.
My words, mine,
only mine
because,
I spoke them to dead ears and deaf eyes.
         

Insanity

An antonym

Opposites

And unlike what is said

Opposites don't attract,

And even if they do

There's friction

My diction

Your language

My rage

Your patience 

Makes sense

To those grazing the surface

The furnace 

Burns deep

And when I weep

Tears are hot

They burn a trail 

I fail

To stitch logic

Or reason, or rhyme

Is it a crime 

To seek, to ask, to question?

Perception

Is an art of management 

I went

Mad, from being madly passionate

At any rate

It's the antonym

That has stuck on me 

You have flipped my world

The one that you hold in your hand

Beyond my reach

Beyond the stretch 

I could muster...

A tale so mundane...

You hold the right end,

And, I on the opposite, insane.