The Essential Taj

  He taught me how to read the sky To watch the clouds pass slowly by With wonder what would happen If the blue inundated sun sharpened   To invite fire and breed optimism He made it appear sheer realism Dancing flames make hits and kisses They burn some and the other fixes   Just as well the eternal dance goes on The universe enraptures and moves on The soulful display of youth and desire The existential play of death and fire.   But so long as there is complementarity There will be uninhibited camaraderie Between firefighter and firestarter.    for MoltenIce  

Red is my mistress.  In grace she’s wine red, in rage she’s bloody  with time she’s maroon. In Spring a cherry bright;  in Autumn a solemn splash  blending into fallen copper  leaves in a forest of warm pine  trunks streaked with bronze.  This red is  my mistress.           

I am a straight              line And within me              there is a shrine of laughter and               joy, of success and pleasure and              all that is divine lies inside me.   This             line   where flowers bloom             inside me when the earth blushes           and the sky weeps in sadness or in happiness.          The fear of failure, the emptiness post-cowardice        is also embedded deep in my vessels, and nerve endings.       All in this linear design. I ke...

The sky gather -s its multitude of clouds, preparing for ample pre-monsoon shower. Trees swing in ecstasy, in anticipation of freshness, and impending joy. Feelings of nostalgia  suddenly seep in, of evenings, rainy and blissful. 

Sometimes I think and feel that the valves of my heart are made of taut steel or maybe spider thread.   They say that the latter is stronger.   When the place you belong to where you are from, it                                      throws you out. Pushed inside out, first, they turn against each other and become wolves Then, turn you in to the wolves.   When all you’ve wanted is to belong. When all I’ve wanted is to belong, and let my heart be, butter melting through slender fingers, to                                             ...

 

  They say youth possesses an endless reservoir of energy, a token of innocence and un-couthness charms alive and once, twice, thrice, abundant chances to make mistakes in those years of fecundity and debauchery.   Another gift of youth is time , And it’s on our side a meritorious pal, witness to our growth from mal- nourished in love and its notions to a connoisseur of love and its potions of affection; towards society although some of us can’t tell yes from no while others live in involuntary piety But both have not the object that runs it most often than not and that is dollar bills   That milling workers spill only in their mid-thirties, when wallets grow wings and time runs thin while energy… well, is hopefully sky-high.   Unlike, later while life’s vitals run a death march an inverse of youth, when pockets and bank accounts grow heavy with long years of restraint, of iron chains and blind f...