Winnie the Talking Poo(c)h

I thought I saw a piece of chocolate on the ground

"That's poop, no doubt" said my good old hound

When he was a little 4 month old puppy, abandoned, he lay in a dirt mound

My little Winnie, in a white plastic bag, with unimaginable cruelty was he bound

If it wasn't for his plea, if it wasn't for that extraordinary sound 

The words "Help me" would have been lost, in the city hubbub, they'd have drowned

A happy day that was, for a forever home Winnie finally found

I named him so, because he won our hearts, and was thus rightly crowned

Talking dog or not, I couldn't have imagined a cooler, more loving family member around

His best talent, however, went beyond his vocab, it's the speed at which food he downed

After fourteen years of gorging mouthfuls of meat by the pound

I trust his sense of smell and walk past that chocolate coloured poop, during our breezy afternoon round

Wham Bam

I drew him a diagram

Explaining the value I derived from being active on Instagram

He said it was a total sham

That so much of my time be devoted

to content created by a phone's cam

But I'm not in it for the glam 

Whiningly I expressed, aching for

a pop of diazepam 

At War with Words

Do you remember?
Words were the first friend you made
When you were on your own as a child of nine
When reading time at boarding school was once a week in that Hogwarts-like library
Your journey with words has been long and enduring
From being a passive reader of them
To a voracious writer of them

Writing is embedded like a video on a page in your soul
It’s up to you keep that video on autoplay, or mute, or to comment it out
You can’t erase it though, try as you might
It’s your burden to bear and prize to ply

The desire to turn away from the ambiguity of authorship, or to wish for your vocabulary to shrink, these are all very escapist

No one ever warns you or prepares you for the tsunami of words coming at you, coming from you
You think you can be absolved of your art,
But it’s that very art that keeps your head on your shoulders
You know you can’t resist the seduction of it
So go ahead, I’ve just filled up your Faber Castell with the blackest black ink that you love
You have a duty to yourself to fulfill

I have a lot of Sunday poems lol

If this were a regular Sunday
I know exactly where my whim would take me
I’d not be living with trepidation
Imagining I’m Corona positive
Just because the Dunzo guy touched my hand for a milisecond

If this were a regular Sunday
I wouldn't be moping around with a permanent scowl
It’s like ear wax in the ears of Robinson Crusoe
Would he have asked his man Friday to fetch a twig?
Maybe fashioned a earbud from soft yellow petals?

If this were a regular Sunday
I wouldn’t be obsessed with sketching eyes
Filling in the eye balls
Making sure that I leave a hole of white around the dark iris so the eyes look realistic
I’m always enamoured by the symmetry of eyes
How two things that never see eye to eye - literally - can be so aligned, alike, attuned…

If this were a regular Sunday
I wouldn't be marinating in last night's pyjamas till late afternoon
Closing my eyes in the silence
I wouldn't be concentrating long and hard
Imagining I'm far away without a mask and free as free can be

If this were a regular Sunday
I’d be on the beach about 432 steps away
The sea breeze wouldn’t ask for permission
"Oh, could I sweep you away?"
It’d casually threaten my growing frame and then give up for a more mobile prospect ahead

Wrote - Woven

There’s something about us this Sunday
I can’t put my finger on it,
But then again, I can’t put a finger on you

You’re a few hundred kilometers away in your land-locked city
You miss the sea breeze, you say

Being so far apart
Silences can be imagined
Manifested from the lack of face-to-face

I can sense your trepidation
There is such an urgency to reunite
I'm symmetric to you and we're on the same page

Despite the distance, we manage to hold on to each other
I write you 5 words off the top of my head
And you weave me a sweet story

Sunday Sleep

Some days, like today, as you wake up, you’re still asleep
Seep induced lucidity stays till the very first sip of chai
But then after the chai cup is rinsed
After the slow Sunday shower is taken
Somehow sleep, like a pesky pest, tries to sneak back in
Sometimes in the linger of a blink a few seconds too long
Or in the meditative reflection of staring at the "enter" key on your keyboard while the laptop fires up

It’s always those few minutes before sleep, I find, that are the most delicious
The randomness of theories only the confines of your own mind can comprehend

On Sundays like these, I like to take a nap not around acceptable nap-times
The more unusual the time, the better
When you nap from 6 PM to 7 PM
Or even 11 AM to 12 PM
That’s when your mind really reveals itself to you through complex dreams, or indescribably deep, coma-like sleep

Post Lockdown

This time will be different

When I take the elevator to go downstairs after work
I’ll not linger on the street waiting for the auto
There’s no need to rush
Taking the long way home
I’ll do the 15 minute walk

When my dreams wake me up at 5.43 AM three days in a row
I’ll stay up
I’ll fight the laziness inside
Grab my pink Reeboks that have been unworn for months
I’ll do the morning jog alongside sleeping dogs

When mom’s toothpaste is finally over
I’ll replenish 2, instead of being forced to use the one
I’ll relish the fluoride goodness of my Colgate
And it will bother me no more that she presses on the top of the tube as I’ll be pressing down

When I hear your voice change
When it goes quiet like it used to
I’ll go quiet too
Fighting my stupid impulses
I’ll finally find the strength to leave it alone

When iTunes accidentally shuffles the Lockdown playlist
I’ll smile with knowing
I’ll think of all the insomnia, the longing, the restlessness
And then I’ll hit "next"

💙

For the longest time I’m seeing blue

I sleep facing the window
I used to sleep facing the curtains
But I flipped to the cooler side, where I can be right under the fan
I happen to be right in front of a blue light
I see it when I’m just about to doze off
But it’s starting to feel like it sees me just the same

I dream in black and white
Because I have no memory of colour when I recall my dreams
But off late my dreams are kaleidoscopic
Maybe it’s because I’ve been sleeping in
When the sunlight warms my eyelids
Somehow when you have bright light over closed lids
It looks like the colour blue
And that’s how I dream the blue

The days bleed into the next
The nights blend into the next
And I feel blue

Seeing blue
Dreaming blue
Feeling blue
And today I’m even wearing blue

Blue has been a mood
It’s been a song that I can’t stop singing
A verse I can’t stop writing