Joy-killer

A shrivelled old joy-
killer, humourless
executive, executes.

- Max

Repel

Actos and wisemen
see through each other, and by
an instinct, repel.

Change

Change is an ugly
melody that turns sonorous
when you absorb.

- Max

Inner Fire, Outer Chill

The fumes you perceive
aren't tobacco, but from
my heart on fire.

- Max

The cold dunking you
perceive is not water - just my love
trying to douse fires.!
- Alaka

Outer chill, inner
fire, am in a limbo -
Good Lord, what is this?

- Max

Outer chill balances
inner fire - what a perfect
state of equilibrium.

- Alaka

Equilibrium
or stasis. Cessation of
creative instinct.

- Max

While they jangle ice
cubes, I fiercely guard
an inner fire.

- Max

They dangle change in
front of me - I fiercely guard
my status quo.

- Alaka

Status quo, comfort
zone, secuirty blanket -
suit the very old.

- Max

End of the world

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
the master calls a butterfly.

- Richard Bach

تمنّا

جب بھی ھوائں جھومیں ،
جب بھی گھٹائں برسیں ،
دیرنان ایک تمنّا
سینے مےبں کسمسائ

شہب ملیہابادی

Matching wits

They came, they saw, and
they lost. How does one match wits
with one's own teacher?

- Max

Work in progress

Work in progress.
Caution. Go slow.
But we couldn't be
half as slow as
these overgrown
foetuses rotting
inside mounds of
corruption.

- Max

Inwards

It seems peculiar now,
that priests at school
gave me a medal
for moral science.
Trained flier,
I delve deep
to dredge muck and sludge
with increasing reluctance.
My eyeballs
often turn around,
inwards.

- Max

Levellers

Traffic jam: one crore's
Mercedes or two-rupee
bus ticket - we wait.

- Raamesh

Disasters man-made
or naturalare such blind
levellers, indeed!

- Max

Clay modelling

Learnt clay modelling
once, shaping abstract events
today rings a bell.

- Max

Numbers

Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem!

- Longfellow

Hope

Hope exists so we can
spring back to life.

- Max

Spring in winter

When it is not spring
why do people put on shrouds,
and call themselves sane?

- Raamesh

Spring exists so that
we can all hope.

- Alaka

Spring exists because
even the high priests of sense
must know what life is.

- Raamesh

Spring exists so that
faith shall live.

- Alaka

Spring exists so that
sober propriety is not
allowed to kill joy.

- Raamesh

Reality is a
persistent illusion than can be
cured by alcohol!

- Max

Spring exists because
the world needs something that can
counter sanity.

- Raamesh

Spring
is madness,
is idiosyncrasy,
is eccentricity,
is abnormality,
is insanity,
is explosivity,
is terror,
is damnation,
is ruin,
is claustrophobia,
is pacific serenity
frothing inside,
placid on unruffled surface.

- Max

Spring exists because
every year everyone must,
atleast once, go mad.

- Raamesh

Persephone pours
the wine of summer folly
in Pluto's dark cup.

- Monica

bring it on, dear persephone!
i abide not want
but dress in spring's robes!

- Laura T

Romans

If you don't do as
the Romans do, hungry lions
are waiting for you!

- Max

Glimpse

Saw you as a mere
glimpse, and life moved on as
a train to nowhere.

- Max

Mind's eye

My mind's eye comes home
to you as soon as day's
trivia peters out.

- Max

Memories

Some places I
avoid, your memories leap
at me in a gush.

- Max

Inner fire

Hispanic passion,
Latin sensuality,
jazzy improvisions:
an inner fire blazes.

- Max

Rain

Is this rain some kind
of curse on us for being
so brazenly louche.

- Max

Groans

Mortal man's mortal
remains, dust unto dust that
groans immortalize.

- Max

The bottom

How do you cope with
the bottom bottoming out?
Enjoy the freefall?

- Max

Drops: an exchange between poets

A dolphin splash drop upon the blue ocean,
A midnight dew drop upon the grass flower,
A bouncing rain drop upon the lotus leaf,
A drop, one of a million, million moments in one.

- Hershal Pandya

In a drop one can
see a rainbow, can one do
that with the ocean?

- me

Drops that make the ocean -

one from from the tears of a woman betrayed,
one from dew on a fresh-blossomed petal,
one from the blood of a fallen tyrant,
one from the drool of a child beholding sweets,
one from the labour of an unknown ryot,
one from the wrath of a vengeful storm.

- me

Just inches below the placid surface,
an oceam teems with a phantasmagoria of colours!

- Max

Disgusting smells, soul crushing noise,
people clamouring with needs,
painted smiles with limited sincerity
doling out humanity drop by miserable drop.
Industry.

- Max

Death

Dead tree trunk amidst
florid green vegetation.
All things end someday.

- me

Life is just cyclic,
my dead bones could come back as
ah! a blood red rose!

- Max

Dead tree trunk amidst
florid green vegetation.
All things recycle.

- Alaka

Cremate, bury or
throw to the scavenging birds -
dead, we fertilize.

- Max

In every end
waits a beginning, coiled
to snap into life.
- Max

birds are chattering like seeds
on naked branches
last days of autumn

how naked i have become
bark, rock, and birdsong
gazing at mountains

as i have lost everything
i know but one thing
everything must die

fill me with your chattering
let me remember
spring will come again

i know no better life than words
i know no better death than none
i sweep the shards of pain away
and enter into silent song

- Laura T

Words speakto their own worlds,
measuring outlines of things,
become moments' shards.

A Poem's overflowing vessel
shatters softly, fractures
into Mysounds.

- Laura M

Broken dreams, do you sweep them
under a carpet of mindnumbing chores?

- Max

One wholesome cell of you I am god,
But, religion and prejudice divideth my soul,
Thus spreading the cancer of HATE!

winter always turns to spring,
but this summer
has Gaia wondering......

- Laxmi

i languished o'er death
i burgeoned with the flowers
spring liberation

- Laura T

who's dying first.
Bring in the crowd
Ribbons and balloons.

- Dipalle

Air empties out,
now I float through life
liberation at last oh death!

- Tasneem

Pebble

A pebble in the
riverbed unmoved, unmoving
water rushing around it

- Alaka

Me:Pebble of river bed
Shamed,suckered
Clothes washed away.

- Usha

a dead fish floats above me
but i am unmoved
unmoving, stone hard

river rock hardened lava
yet time will find me
chase me into sand

- Laura

A pebble on the
riverbed, I was once an
uncrushable rock.

- Raamesh

Bricks

Your creeping Yes is-
often an edifice built-
with droll bricksof No.

- Max

In your palace of
nos, I can always find a
small brick that says yes.

- Raamesh

The quake-
That single fault
One yes brick.

Non-stop rain-
the trees do not cry
Why do I

- Usha

Counting

Thoughts straitjacketed
into dangerous apple shape
five - seven - five

- Alaka

still my hands are free
and i count on my fingers
while i speak in tongues


apples oranges
my soul knows no boundaries
country or language


it simply sings out
a lightning strike of thought-light
creates its thought-will


haiku is this thought
haku is the space between
the eyes blue sky night


i know nothing now
i shall know everything then
resting in this space


i suspend my disbelief
like a ghost i sit
wait watch om shanti

- Laura T

Counting is easy now
One two three
My abacus knows

Talking, mom showed me how
Eyes voice and tongue
In leashed creativity.

I flinch,fling my words
But always ready to
Scurry into muddled mediocrity.

Independance Day dawns
every year, scars
Notwithstanding.

- Usha

On listening to a concert

On listening to a concert
For a while
we inhabit a structure of mellifluous sounds
a cathedral, with the sun flowing through stained glass
For a while
we balance on whorls, spirals, sorties, and crescendos
into purple nooks, on neon platforms
For a while
we shiver in the cold electric ecstasy
of torrents bursting turquoise crystal
For a while
we are coddled in the warm glow
of loving notes that caress and cocoon
For a while.

Reality

How unreal,
incoherent the world seems,
as soon as the trance breaks!

- Max

What is reality?
I do not know:
I dream.

- Monica

i make inferences
i test materials
then wash myself clean
in possibilities

- Laura T

Sudden rain

Sudden rain like
sudden anger leaves me wet,
limp and woebegone.

- Max

Shadows

We carry inside
ourselves victories and defeats
as pale shadows.

- Max

Trance

How unreal, in-
coherent the world seems, as
soon as the trance breaks.

- Max

Sun

Cloud-cloaked sun fools birds
and beasts but flowers
smile nodding wisely.

- Max

Tsunami

Poem written by a boy who lost his parents by Tsunami...

"sea! I'll Never
forgive u anymore
even if ur waves
touch my foot
million times..!!

Sorrow

He that increaseth knowledge,
increaseth sorrow.

- Artur Schopehauer

And

"You think because you understand 'one' you must understand 'two', because one and one makes two. But you must also understand 'and'.

- Sufi teaching @ excerpt from Truth, Lies & Advertising, pg 23

Memories

"Memories, Never
come back with
excuses after I've
forgotten"

- CSP

(Max didn't give the full name)

A head

A head is a mesh of
crimson crinkles; a
head is a prison. A
citadel of reasons;
an anthill of
seasons.

- Teena

Mammoth beasts

Thru' a fogwall the
Khandala hills look
like mammoth
beasts gone to
sleep.

- Max

ग़लती

यूँही सारी उम्र, एक ही ग़लती करते रहे
धूल थी चहरे पे, और आईना साफ़ करते रहे

मुश्ताक़

नमाज़ी

हमको गली में देखकर ख़ुद को छुपा लिया
जाने यह दुश्मनों ने उसे क्या सिखा दिया
घर उसने क्या बनाया मस्जिद के सामने
चाहत ने उसकी हमको नमाज़ी बना दिया

- मुश्ताक़

तुम्हारी आ‍ँखों में जो कशिश है

Version I

तुम्हारी आ‍ँखों में जो कशिश है,
मेरे दिल की वही तो ख़लिश है,
जलना तड़पना झूरना सुकड़ना सिमटना
बस मेरी रूह की समझो वह रविश है,
आफ़तों की लहरें और हमारी तिरछी चाल,
समझो वही तो ज़ुम्बिश है,
ज़फ़कशी गले लगाने कहाँ बदनसीबी हुआ,
मेरे लफ़्ज़ों को निखारे वही तपिश है
रहे ग़फिल ओ मदहोश उम्रभर मुश्ताक़,
यह हकीकत, वही तो नालिश है.

- मुश्ताक़

Version II

तुम्हारी आ‍ँखों में जो कशिश है,
मेरे दिल की वही तो ख़लिश है,
जलना तड़पना झूरना सुकड़ना सिमटना
बस मेरी रूह की समझो वह रविश है,
ज़फ़कशी गले लगाने कहाँ बदनसीबी हुआ,
मेरे लफ़्ज़ों को संवारे वही तपिश है
रहे ग़फिल ओ मदहोश उम्रभर मुश्ताक़,
यह हकीकत, वही तो नालिश है.

- मुश्ताक़

यह मिलना भी क्या मिलना हुआ

यह मिलना भी क्या मिलना हुआ,
जज़्बों से लदबद जब दिल ना हुआ,
हर उम्मीद की कलि लहराती रही,
एक अरमान का ना खिलना हुआ

- मुश्ताक़

ताज महल

कुछ पत्थर में फूल खिल जाते हैं,
कुछ अनजाने भी अपने बन जाते हैं,
इस क़ातिल दुनिया में कुछ लाश को
कफ़न भी नसीब नहीं होता,
तो कुछ लाश पर ताज महल बन जाते हैं

- मुश्ताक़

Rain

Even a little
rain gives me new eyes, the
farthest hill sparkling.

- Max

Clouds

To the wildly rolling
army of clouds,
my city's transparent.

- Max

Trojan horses

The world's darker when
gray clouds your brain. Trojan
horses - ruthless, thorough.

- Max

Microcosm

Virtual reality's
worthless if one's mind's
a microcosm.
- Max

Amis

Deux amis restent vrais
au poète, agitation,
un vif oeuil.

- Max

Politicians

These are no clouds, more
likely souls of corrupt
louche politicians.

- Max

Orb

The orb half or full,
the oceans it does pull, as
we learnt at school. Cool.

- Max

Clouds

The fatigued army
of clouds today made
wayward clumsy jousts.

- Max

L'esprit

Les yeux qui voient tout
et le bouche qui dit plusier -
l'esprit maitrises les deux.

- Max

Pearls

Am a leaking tanker,
scattering pearls before a
parched eyeless world.

- Max

Time

Time - comes n
fixes bags under ur
eyes, slips silver
streaks in ur hair,
adds a waddle to
ur gait, turns ur
guileless face
heavy. Time heals
smoothens scars
erases thorny
memories...

- Max

Old man: an exchange

Old man sleeps on road
covered in flies, a builder's
hoarding looms above.
- Me

Old man oblivious,
flies ravenous dutiful,
builders hoarding.
- Max

Old man at sea
below and above
prevail's builder's realm.
- Narendra

Death

Dead tree trunk amidst
florid green vegetation.
All things end someday.
- me

Life is just cyclic,
my dead bones could come back as
ah! a blood red rose!
- Max

Dead tree trunk amidst
florid green vegetation.
All things recycle.
- Alaka

Cremate, bury or
throw to the scavenging birds -
dead, we fertilize.
- Max

In every end
waits a beginning, coiled
to snap into life.
- Max


Discussing death?:

who's dying first. Bring in the crowd
Ribbons and balloons.

-dipalle


[speaking of balloons and death!]
Air empties out, now I float through life
liberation at last oh death!

- Tasneem

flowers

i languished o'er death
i burgeoned with the flowers
spring liberation


(moineau)

Laxmi's poems

One wholesome cell of you I am god,
But, religion and prejudice divideth my soul,
Thus spreading the cancer of HATE!

winter always turns to spring,
but this summer
has Gaia wondering......

---Laxmi Birajdar

chores

Broken dreams, do you sweep them
under a carpet of mindnumbing chores?

- Max

shards and fractures

Words speak to their own worlds,
measuring outlines of things,
become moments' shards.

A Poem's overflowing vessel
shatters softly, fractures
into My sounds.

- Laura Mercer

Laura's poems

birds are chattering like seeds
on naked branches
last days of autumn


how naked i have become
bark, rock, and birdsong
gazing at mountains


as i have lost everything
i know but one thing
everything must die


fill me with your chattering
let me remember
spring will come again


i know no better life than words
i know no better death than none
i sweep the shards of pain away
and enter into silent song


- Laura Tattoo

Hunger

When I was hungry,
my hunger gnawed up my bones
When I was at peace,
the world fixed its snout on my puddle.
When I was ready to fly,
my feet were leaden.
(c) Max Babi

Heaven on earth

Heaven on earth is
a grotto where I sit
enthralled - a library.

- Max

City life

City life - a wonky
sonnet, country life:
crisp pithy haikus.

- Max

समन्दर की गहराई सिवा

समन्दर की गहराई सिवा मैंने कुछ जाना नहीं
फ़लक-ओ-अब्र की ऊँचाई सिवा तुमने कुछ जाना ही नहीं
तड़पे हैं, तड़पेंगे मुसलसल दोनों,
ग़म-आश्नाई के सिवा हमने कुछ जाना ही नहीं

- मुश्ताक़

I've never known anything apart from ocean depths,
You've never known anything apart from cloudy heights of the sky,
we both have writhed and will keep on writhing ceaselessly,
Having known nothing but pain-soaking conditions.

- Max

ज़माने की निगाहों में

ज़माने की निगाहों में तुम्हारी इश्क़ एक चाल थी
नियाज़मन्द हैं आपके जबके ज़िन्दगी बेहाल थी

- मुश्ताक़