1.

1.

O spring! Why do you refuse to go?
The koel should have sung ages ago

My longing is so long that I long for longing
Even when fulfilled, it cannot go

Odysseus too is tired of adventures
His palace and queen bring him woe

Centuries of struggles have brought no joy
You, O Kalki, are a cheat, I know

“Age of liberty!” they shout, “Plenty has arrived.”
Only a skeleton is knocking on my door

“To hell with you,” said God to creation
Orphaned ganas now run the show

I have thrown my pen away. But lo!
Starved similes, O Shivaprakash, cry out: O…

2.

2.

Your next life won’t be at all in the future
But in the past golden age, I am sure

Who said time moves on and on? Though devoured
By future, I am caught by past, your lure

Progress at all costs is today’s mantra
I have fallen into an ancient well, sweet and pure

Spare me my foes, the suns of todays and tomorrows
Restore moons drowned in seas as I, in you

Be reborn as a lost dazzling jasmine grove
So I like breeze can wrap around and play with you

Welcome back, O light jeweled Atlantis before
Flood takes you away from my famished view

Future is banished from my broken durbar
Where you, my phoenix, dance at flame’s cue

Cease my gazelle-eyed gazal, Shiva said. You are back.
In my broken heart what will you, my desire, do?

3.

3.

The poem is a stubborn pilgrim ill-fated
Whose arduous journeys are ever defeated

Whatever be his destination, it’s not reached
To reach somewhere else he is fated

The dreamland of gardens and angels draws him
But only in direst hell is he appreciated

Yeats wanted to reach his passion, Mod Gonn
Cold, geometric statues were to him allotted

The poem is a river never reaching the ocean
But with a stream or river it is mated

The heavenly downpour meant for earth heavenlier
But halfway as a cloud kamadhenu it’s arrested

The poem is the brother of all revolutions
Whose burning hopes are pick-pocketed

Lovers vowed to be always together
Are mysteriously ever parted

I have challenged destiny that I will reach you
Knowing well again that I will be routed

To wait O Shiva forever is your heart fated
Waiting in waiting alone is sated

4.

4.

It’s not the pink you wore that drove me mad
But the pink of sunset that made me sad

You came before me like the pink sun
That sets on me, an empire, gone bad

How do you know pink is my desire
And wore it before being so told?

In that irresistible dimple, your smile’s friend
I saw all secrets fully betrayed

A furtive glance or a treacherous glance
Is more eloquent than what’s said

Between the pink of sunrise and of sunset
I am lost. Won’t you hold my hand?

In a pink ocean I am drowning like day
Which, to start with, was pink-made

Before night engulfs me with inconstant stars
Envelop me O pink before I fade

Blue and black is my sky’s eternal nature
Still a pink moment will make me glad

By a pink moment was my eternity made
Scattered ashes O Shiva are by pink waylaid

5.

5.

Four yuga’s have come and gone
What remains?
Good-bye! Four seasons!
What remains?

With four flowers I have decked

Your silken hair
So that their four-fold scent
Still remains

In four sounds your name
Is sweetly contained
When I say it to the four directions
The whisper remains

Here, my four fatal poems,
Your four precious ornaments!
Even if you throw them
The longing remains

I have sung of freedom
In our chains
Which after Shiva passes
Still remains

6.

6.

Why do your sweet lips taste bitter. Why?
Why does cold wind in your hot breath sigh?

What arrested the mad heart’s beating?
Like mad dogs shot, desires lie.

The sheikh has got down heavenly fruit
Which, for me is rotten – nothing of the sky

The princess found her beloved’s body
Wounded in a lotus-lake, refusing to die

The revolutionaries founded the new order
Over which, look! Eagles fly

The desire to win makes all goals die
But, itself, like Shiva, refuses to die