MOONSTROKE

I broke my heart
Against a sun-kissed wall
On a hapless yester day
With the unrelenting force
Of a sulphuric misconcept
That eddied along the way.

The beater shattered
Into a myriad flakes
And all the pieces
Cracked into division.

Though time has seen
The faces of many dreams
And to me it has shown
The ethereal pleasures
Of flashy thrones.

I never could find
All my scattered pieces
And so I couldn't leave
This wall where the rupture
Is now but a ghost
That haunts the absent
Spaces of my repaired heart
Especially, on a full moon.

-K.G.

MOISTURISER

Oh dear!
What did we do
To our delicate hands?
There are so many lines
Than there were last time.

I think we could use
Some fancy moisturiser,
You know, to revive
The softness that we’ve lost;
It really works, they say.

I don’t remember a time
When last I felt the texture
Of a delicate hand
Against this harshness
That has crept into mine.

Wait, I remember now
Just these two days ago,
I ran into a gentleman
More gentle than a man could be
And so, we didn’t shake hands.

Some thing queer in me
Advised to refrain from contact
Apparently, I’m more comfortable
With this coarseness now.
How about you?

-K.G.

ONE MORE DAY

Now that we've come this far
Would you like to get back
To the very start?
Where time and patience
Played a havoc of sorts,
And conspired against
All the growth
That we could bear
In the shifting paradigms
Of this undulating journey.

"If only I could,
If I had just another chance."
Is it not astonishing?
How everything seems
A lot more hopeful
In the imaginary womb of time,
Where just through belief
One could conceive 
Their desired offsprings of action
With guaranteed results, 
And roundhouse all issues
That could not be set right
In the first time.

Yes, I hold differently- So
In spite of all the gold
We remember shimmering
From the former times
Of a beautiful beginning,
We're never getting back to lustres
Regardless of how the sun shines.
Hence hold on to your baggage, 
And gather all your regrets
For that is all that must be left:
This life has, at least,
One more day to go.

BLACK LIGHT

Hold my thought
And elope with me
Into this subdued night
That’s passing with such ignorance
In the dazed eyes 
Of passive beholders
Lying awake inside their homes

No, this night isn’t dark
It’s a bright pool of day
But is it just darkness
Along which your image
Of night shall linger?
Forging yet another mind
By primitive notions
And fears of the unique?

However so, if you’d like to know
Dry, brazen afternoons behold
A gust of desolation
That howls in its blankness
When no hounds wag their tails
When no passengers await by the rails
For heat reigns this night
In flashes of a raining black light

I come from a simpler time
That borders on the line of vintage
When the haunts of a restless summer
Kept us hungover until September.
However, we’re here, not to drift away
Safe and protected against UV rays
But friend, when 46 degrees of heat
Refuse adversely to retreat
And power cuts paralyse appliances
Will you not throw the windows open
And vacate all fabrications
Those that condition your home?

-K.G.

CONVENIENCE

Do you remember where
We had first met?
Or the very first words
That either of us uttered?
Because I do not.
Neither do I recall
How you and I have
Come to be what we are

Does that make me
Heartless or carefree
In your soulful, condescending eyes
Simply because I could not
Hold on to fleeting thoughts
Which I had then intended
Without ever intending to look back
Regardless of good or bad

Is it not ample validity of
My sincere efforts that I remember
Not your favourite colour
But your precious scent
That pumps through my conscience
As I submerge myself in composition
Of unspoken sins and tragedies
Acknowledged as per convenience

-K.G

UNENTERTAINED

Ever tried getting back
To an unentertained hunger,
Of a former past
In the wake of
Some jilted disdain
Some anger, some pain.
Any memory?
As how the insides
Of the hopeless stomach
Had, some time, called out to you and you did not answer. 

That, my friend
Is how you could
Have made it this far
And this way!
So take some time
Out for your sad,
Hectic, life schedule
And meal your self

With what you like best and make a memory of the day.

ASSOCIATES

What do you want?
Out of all the things
That I have asked of you,
What do you want?
There is bound
To be some similarity
Between your and my
Desires, yes?
For without it,
Aren't we just agents
In place of associates,
In each other's life?

But then again,
Are we really
In any manner
In each other's lives- still?
After what has been,
And how it's been?
Do you still hold
And sorts of consideration
For my sake?
So that if in the wake
Of some wretched day
If I call, you do answer.

Because I am a liar,
You know it well
And I couldn't be an angel
Living in hell.
If I ever told you
That I'm not reminded of
Your face- If I ever said-
That I don't want interface,
I lied, sweetie- I lied.
And you believed me
Like you always have
May be because,
I still wear those pants
That you still despise.

-K.G.

TARTARIC ACID

Life fleets by
Slowly and morose
And a little incomplete
Without tracing
The secretive lanes
Of Ganesh Ganj.
I wait like a pained patient,
At the scene
Of some tragic accident,
Who must bear the pain
For another span
Until the remedy is met
By the capable hand.

Some separation
I must admit,
I do feel when there is
No scope for a visit.
Then, I feel the pain
And recall the blank space of
Where there's silence today.
Where pools of Bougainville await,
To unite with
The scent of Marijuana,
And commentaries of carrom-
And tartaric acid of grapes-
At the room on the roof.
In our shrine of slumber;
My beloved Ganesh Ganj.

-K.G.

CLICK

My morning dawns
With the sunny
9 am sun,
And the very first
Touch that befalls
From my searching fingers
Is upon the touch screen
Of my very advanced
Smart phone.

The good morning conventions
Take charge
And I rise a little later
After having risen altogether,
In the slumber of my
Very interesting Facebook profile
And the messages that
Old friends
And banished fixations
Touch and type towards me.

All of that
And so much more reaches me
In my furnished 2 BHK,
And yet no one touches me
To wake my sleeping eyes,
And while sleep ascends
With sheer compassion
In the emptiness of the spaces
Within my home, within my inside.

Where's the name I made?
What's the part I played?
Oh wait! Someone just
Liked my picture on Instagram:
That's me at Starbucks,
Deliberately holding
That side of the mug
Where the logo appears,
Sneering upon desire and inability
Of those that cannot be
Like me- in that picture.

Also I forgot to say,
What Emily showed me that day
That place in central market.
They make superb pizzas,
A dozen of friends tried it too
And wrote fancy reviews
Just how I did.

And yet, I remember not
Telling anyone
About the delectables
From my granny's kitchen,
That are ever so available
At my service, at late nights
When no joint or restaurant
Would deliver to my bedside-
And at a time when
Clicking just wouldn't be enough.

-K.G.

YESTER DAYS

Welcome to-
The graveyard of your
Yester days.
Keep your eyes open!
You don't want to tread
On the disfigured remains
Of a former day.

This cemetery
Is but life's gift
To compensate the symmetry
That did not exist.
I see you haven't any flowers
That makes sense,
It's difficult to choose
Out of this valley
Of detailed tombstones,
Which to honour
And which to apprehend.

There.
That's the day you went to school
With unfinished homework
And dazed, glassy eyes.
And that one-
Is when love said goodbye
For the seventeenth time.
There, under the shade
Of an insignificant tree
Is the day of your reprise,
Your first view of demise
And sufferings, simplified.

Sorry.
For the inconvenience caused,
It's rather congested-
You've yestered a lot.
You should visit sometime
In the tints of monsoon,
Rains make this place
Far more gloomy and grave,
But I'm sure we will
Manage more room.

Death,
I heard, is not the end
Death, I heard
Is an orphan,
And is a rather beginning
Of true remembrance
While all of the world
Casually,
Just goes on.

-K.G.

LESSONS AT A FUNERAL

It lay there

Cold, numb and decaying

All outlets of the body

Jammed with white softness.

Aside, the incense stick

Emanated unbroken shapes

Of an idealistic mirage.

To cover up the filth

That death had spilled

All about that humble room.

With smothered sobs

As a perpetual background score

The body lay there

Unaffected, and

Almost unfettered

But the man was gone,

The spirit had bailed,

Leaving behind only

Eighty-seven kilograms

Of societal weight.

The spouse had wept,

The son was sombre

And neighbours crept

In lieu of that November

Men that never knew

The body that lay beneath

Had so much love to offer

Suddenly, and admiration

For the deceased.

They decked it up

In godly shades

And made out of it

A most gaudy affair

New clothes, and fragrance,

So much for deliverance

I know I’ll miss the spirit anyway;

A body that was burnt that day

For time truly kills no one

It simply differentiates

Between white-haired reality

And our lusty, youthful parades.

-K.G.

SWEET, RED REGRET

If I had a lot of money
I'd buy myself
An undeserved guitar
And amplify my electric rantings
To be heard at spaces afar

If I had a lot of friends
I would throw for them
A generous congregation
And throw them all away
Keeping only a few old fixations

If I had a lot of space
I'd build myself
A majestic castle of a home
Inside of which but
I'd read, I'd write and decide alone

If I had a lot of luck
I would compose
Only that which I truly beget
Sans any encounters
With sweet, red regret

-K.G.

FURRY CHROMOSOME

If only I could
I'd write you
In a couple of lines,
And enclose you in a book,
Like a forgotten rose
That mustn't be touched,
For it shall wither
Upon contact.

Among half a million
Possibilities and might-be's
You and I are only
But a ghost in the arms
Of memory.
So when one day
I get back
Having strengthened myself
To open that old book
Inside which we lie
As a decayed masterpiece,
As a dismayed catastrophe
Dying and resorting to immortality;
A faint fragrance will remain
As our only memory.

I must also demystify
How you need not oblige
Anyone
Even yourself–
For this is a wasted affair,
I'm quite clearly aware.
There are far more
Intriguing fixations out there.
Relax, you furry chromosome
You do not have to care.

Little pleasance is found
In lifeless romance, I admit.
But, however
I believe that a scent
Will bind you back
May be just to a vantage point
From where you could
Eye my expressions
As I open the page
That we were on
A long, long time ago.

-K.G.

SO LONG, MISTER POET

Mister poet, how dare you make believe
And speak of unthinkable things
Even those, that cannot be!

Mister poet, you’re technically guilty
Of sharing your fabricated dreams
In forms of written fantasies

This man, I say
Is an errant alone.
For he breaks so passionately,
Our societal monotones.

He’ll sell you his words
And his precarious verbs,
And his euphemisms
Of an unrequited love

He'll call the winters
In the grumpy rains,
He’ll adjust an uncut summer
Within an incident of pain

An outlaw as such
This man must be crushed
And erased from existence
Must be his fragrant touch 

We’re too afraid, mister poet,
But we’d have to let you go.
However, you’re a good penman,
So keep writing more.

Ahead of us, on a day when
Man could return back to civilisation,
May be we come together and meet again
So long, mister poet; so long until then.

-K.G.

GLOBAL WARNING

It is most easy
To convince yourself how
You're with the wrong person.
Especially, when
In a given situation
They're at the receiving end,
Standing justly impeached.
Therefore this conviction, 
Becomes far more ruthless
When you have some one
To agree with you;
To play the agony aunt
In the events
Of a gruesome corrosion.

Since your choice 
Is your decision,
You need not another mortal
To indirectly mention
How your choice
Was the wrong one.
You're capable enough!
Trust yourself.
And yet if you fail
To analyse and determine-
Give yourself some chocolate,
Give yourself some time.

We're born affecting people,
We die affecting people(for a while), 
But all the time in between
Is spent on our so called personal lives.
And to be personal,
One must detach
Oneself from influences and opinions.
So that, against everything else
Against all odds,
We find the time
To reflect and to rewind.

-K.G.

STARE OUT LOUD

We are most basically
Our favourite cups of tea,
All the smoke, winding
Deeper in a hollow dream.

We are all the lies
That we're told everyday
And every candid truth
That we dare to speak


We are not our smiles
Those that we fake,
Day by day.
But our truths reside
In honest laughters
Those that conceal dismay

We are not the strangers
That stare out loud
On calloused streets,
We are but acquaintances
Of a very proud,
One time thing.

We are the push
Behind the cars
That our fellow earthlings
Forget to fuel

We are the shelter
Of a dingy tea shop
On a sudden, sullen
Crowdy weekday
When the cramped spaces
Of extensive parking lots
Throw us on the edges
Of roads for retreat

Frankly, we're just a change
The one that we'd like to see
But one that we cannot be
For we are simply, what we need

-K.G.

SLEEPING RIGHTS

Something in my crooked head
Reeks of jealousy and hatred
Right before reality seeps in
I figure a thought that's creeping
In the shape of vanished ideas
Rare so much yet still not clear
Upon the ceiling drove past a car
Halted for a while and went afar
Licence to such clowns comes so easy
Some light and the shadow goes sleazy
Two past midnight; they're going home
Back to luxuries that remained alone
Often overflowing tumblers do backfire
How much liquor does man a require?
Each day new quantities measure state
Washing down exquisite sides so late
And then the walk up to their sedans
So irregular after performing sun dance

Inside their bedroom lingers the scent;
Fragments too of synthetic amends
It's not the perfect time to change
And into more suitable apparels arrange
The body they carried is only gloating
With condescending wine; within floating
Inside of another nightly home
An infant howls in painful undertones
Woken by flashes of cruising motorcars
On sunbaked walls with sealed in stars
By time the cars fit into their spots
Sleep decays and slumber rots
A mother begins her humming again
That drench her infant in a dreamy rain
His father is a different story
With a blackened temper of the quarry
He puffs his vexed temper aloud
In rising palls of dense clouds
And just before the filter intercepts fire
He stubs his silent rant and expires
Into the remains of a wrinkled night
In his land, sans any sleeping rights
Where ruptured sleep of the deprived
Lose the trial and the convict thrives
Upon conventions of a society civilised 
And yet so uncivil to my waking eyes

-K.G.

ALIENS

A different face, a different race?
We think they're really far away.
Stuck in their more complex lies;
General matter, great surprise.

But they exist closer than we think,
Washing faces in a bathroom sink.
Or crawling into bed on afternoons,
Sobbing to their Mills and Boons.

Wishing for a teleport of some type,
To rewind what went by unrecognised.
Searching recharges for soul and mind,
Callous collapsing and leaving behind.

The awkward fear of saying good day,
To an unrecognised face at bay.
Pinching soft and hard on conscience skin
And thus helping in being lost within.

They're not so far away
I beg to say again.
They could be anywhere
Lost in this parade.

Remember, in this fire,
You are not alone.
You're not the only,
Waiting by a phone.

Grey skies always pamper
Broken hearts and souls.
Everyone's an alien,
Freezing in the cold.

-K.G

QWERTY

It's a good thing that
Unlike what WhatsApp 
Has made of the text message,
The good old way of leaving texts
Hasn't totally been
Eradicated as a practice.
With a normal text message
I have the liberty to just hope
That my text was seen.
I mean, I'd rather prefer that
Than to sulk in my anxiety
About the whole one tick,
Two ticks and blue ticks business.

So when I text someone,
Not WhatsApp,
Just plain text with a 160 character limit;
I know that the person will
Most certainly see the message
And know that I texted them,
And that's it.
My part's over.
I don't have to know
When my text got delivered 
Or when it was seen.

It's outrageously buoyant of me,
I'm aware.
But I think we're already too much
Forged in the cobwebs
Of our Qwerty,
And under the grid
Of tantalising networks and communication.
Because someone very wise
Once explained to me
In a humble place without any Wi-Fi
That sometimes,
We don't need to get back
Even when we should.

-K.G.

EAU-DE-TOILETTE

Yes, he is your over-sized jeans
And resemblance of a skinny teen
The same guy with
Misused eau-de-toilette
That quirky, indignant scream. 
But wasn't the skinny in him
This fat that we are trying to breach
And trying to reach
To a better number
For our dresses
And then we could festoon
Our already beautiful tresses
To become the fabrication
Drawn from strange addresses
And leave no stone unturned
To build up a dream
With blue polished nails
And dainty high heels

However so
If you’d want to know
The truth about his simple life
Full of the pseudo every things
And the sulky continuity
Of his moody, observant eyes,
The thing is, my friend,
That he did know the end
He did sense the vivid textures
He did judge in his indifference
He was not the first rave
He was not the last rant
He was, a possibility of possibilities
One, that only could have been

-K.G.

BEST OF JOURNEY

I had lodged the suitcase
Far back, into the highest shelf
Therefore, I presume you will
Encounter some difficulty
In bringing it down
After where we rested it
Forgetting that you and I
Could ever need it again..
Watch it!
The dust residue might blind you
While you're pulling it
Down to the grounds
That you and I now stand upon.

Since it's vacant now
I hope it accommodates
The various fancies
Of your vacation
In it's vacancy.
Just how, it had once
Made room for
Your and my things
To be stuffed alongside
A hoard of sentiments
And our bottled inhibitions.

Is it not remarkable, dear friend
How the bottles could sustain
All jerks and yet maintain
The mark of true excellence
As it washed down
Both your and my regrets.
Is it not a matter
Of any less fancy
How our fabrics
Had filled in the curvy
Contours of the glass,
To cushion the friction
That had to exist in between
Anyway.

It's a long way to go
Towards where you're headed
With all the high-headedness
Shriveled to accommodation.
I wish this was an attempt
Made to hold you back
But it's not, no!
The far more competent
Would be at it already, isn't it?
But among clothes and books
And vivid essential supplies
I hope you remember
To take along your fountain pen.
You know, for safety,
You said the pen's mightier
Anyway.

-K.G.