NEW YEAR 2016

Fresh ideas,

Fresh series of ticklish, tricky situations,

Fresh assortment of flat and round characters,

Fresh multitude of fragile, flirtatious and faithful gestures,

Fresh repository of

Four-colour and clichéd impulses

A new page in the Grand Narrative

Waits for the dawn 

To bloom and open it

Before us

In a few hours,

A curious world will wake up

To another scene of

Romance with time,

On the everlasting proscenium of

LIFE…

© DEEPAK DARSHAK: MAVERICK MONOLOGUES

THERMOSPHERE

Grub Street grasses
Grow taller, enveloping
Horrific dungeons, proliferating
Bludgeoning holes

Trudge along, tramps!
Trudge along, paltry
Trotters! Your 
Tatter-boats need to be 
Soft-footed,
Sharp-eared,
Blank-eyed, 
While passing through 
The zone of 
Predating freaks 

© DEEPAK DARSHAK: MAVERICK MONOLOGUES 

DEVIANCE

A Thucydidean thoroughfare

For the gathering and

Dispersal of wildest of

Thoughts, thrives on

Deep inside

Dizzying mobility,

Gravitating pulsations of

Notion tides, Obfuscations

Rooted in imbecile fantasies

Flurrying through neurons,

Feed to a latent strength

Lunacy is their word

For all this, which

I call a way to see

The world differently   

© DEEPAK DARSHAK: MAVERICK MONOLOGUES 

DELHI: WINTER 2015

Siege of mist,

Bemused Sun,

Boulevards crowded with

Phosphorescent djinns

And phlegmatic yuppies

Snooze and snore in the

Arms of

A translucent darkness

At noon

© DEEPAK DARSHAK: MAVERICK MONOLOGUES 

WAY OF THE WORLD

Proliferation of lies
Paves the way

Manipulating geniuses are 
Readying to perpetuate 
An atmosphere of decay

The stench has already begun to 
Spread,
Will soon be everywhere, 
To people with sensitive noses, 
The world will be either foul 
Beyond a remedy, or 
Manageable for a while 
With some nervous prayer, 
While to those sans such noses, 
Everything will still be 
Absolutely fair

© DEEPAK DARSHAK (December 2015) 

ANOMIE: A SOLILOQUY

Someone or the other
Keeps peeping through
My words,
Images,
Phrases, 
Puns,
Whenever I admire
The beauty of the Moon

It’s often too difficult to
Delete their presence
From the leaves of life
Just by a few clicks on
The screen

Let me go elsewhere,
Do something else,
Or
Create a new solitude,
To spare the eyes
The pain of spotting
Callous strangers
In a dilapidated house of memories

© DEEPAK DARSHAK (December 2015) 

ALIENATION

‘forgetting came
like a deluge,
and took away
the treasure of memories

marooned on a
deserted isle, I find
unfamiliar voices
surrounding me like
hillocks without passes’
© DEEPAK DARSHAK 

BUFFER ZONE

a generation of 
words departs, another 
comes into action 
with a new regime of 
underpinnings, promising 
isles between
the urge to escape and
the urgency to stay on
© deepak darshak

FEARFUL PROSPECT

Snow-clad summits

Have departed from

My dreams

Graying has freed me

From the fear of fall,

But the fear of

Being alone,

Multiplying with

Each ascent,

Seems too difficult

To handle 

© DEEPAK DARSHAK 

AMERICA (AN OLD PIECE OF MUSIC REITERATED FOR THE HARDCORE AND THE RENEGADE)

AMERICA!
If this may please you,
I am ready to twitch 
My flabby old waist
To your wild tunes

AMERICA!
I am ready to surrender
All my haggardly notions,
My muffled passions,
Ossified slogans of protest
To the grand cacophony
You reify

AMERICA!
If this may please you,
I am ready to lose my blue and gray
Into the pandemonium of hues
You signify,
As I know
I am no longer anything deeper
Than an aging nincompoop, 
A garrulous braggart with a fad for

Racy hyperboles

AMERICA! 
There is no need for you to fear,
I am only the ghost of a rebel
Lost in a cave
Located far from the world of voices
That matter anyway

(©DEEPAK DARSHAK)

LETTER OF THE HEART

  A letter

  Zooms out of

  The alphabet, asking me to  

  Feel its spread for

  Her presence   

This used to be

The first letter of

 My love’s name

In life’s

Another time zone

Years away  

© DEEPAK DARSHAK 

QUESTIONING FAITH

My faith denies

The immortality of gods,
Their totalitarianism,
Their tyranny,
Their omnipotence

My faith says that
The gods too grow old,
They too die like us,
It stops the gods from
Poking their nose
Into the frontiers of my life,
My faith
Grants me the freedom
To depose them,
To replace them,
To choose them,
And to create new gods
If it is necessary anyway
To fill in the void
Caused by their
Prolonged absence
© Darshak

CARNIVOROUS COW

a drove of cows in our neighbourhood 

has tasted human blood

we are afraid we may
Soon see a new species of 
carnivores stomping around 
our houses to trap and 
get away with our gullible kids 
© Deepak Darshak

THE SKILL OF SAYING NOTHING

it’s needless to 

scratch your hair and 
dig up your mind for something big 
all the time

learn to say nothing albeit 
musically, with a measure of
charming precision, and you may 
end up receiving accolade 
from everywhere 
for your great rhyme 
© Deepak Darshak

A BIRD’S FANTASY

Her throat was

Possessed by a monster,  

But she had

A big heart to sing with 

In her caged isolation

All through the night

The music came from

A deep longing 
To reach the sky,  

There were stars, the moon, 
And the glow-worms and the moths    

Making the audience,

There were cascades, the cliffs, 
The thickets and canopies far and wide

Building the venue 
For her performance

The night sang with her

And she felt she was free 
She was free for ever,

From the compulsion of 
Having a vulnerable throat

That could be possessed, 

And the fear of a monster

Chasing her  

© DEEPAK DARSHAK 

REALITY BITE

The face can’t lie…

Sometimes, I try

To hide my wrinkles,

Ungainly spots of aging,

Epidermal rotundity,

Obtuse cheekbones,

Flatly nondescript nose,

Thick lips closed like doors

Not used to opening

Too frequently for smiles,

Testy eyes that seem to be losing

Interest in pleasant guiles

Sometimes, I try,

I still do,

But fail to weave

My prosaic features

Into a piece of poetry

When my face

Comes into full public view

© DEEPAK DARSHAK 

DELIRIUM: A RETROSPECTION

it was so much  

like going away

from myself,

like deserting my habitat

To find shelter on

A shaky isle of cacti

Array of words

That filled in my blanks

Created mirrors and

looking into their

spooky depths often meant

facing a lump of  

bamboozling estrangement

© DARSHAK

THE CORE AND THE PERIPHERY

differences are

volatile,

they will disappear

one after the other

in a fleeting succession

icons of

the quintessential indifference

will, however, stay on,

playing with generations of

small and big differences,

judging their value,

feeding on their intensities,

and

creating new ones   

to supplant the evanescing,

aging, decaying players in the game of

differences

(© DARSHAK)   

COMMON SENSE

It’s not difference…  

It’s indifference

That matters and

Makes the real difference

…..One that judges the worth of

All differences,

Gauges their relevance,

Sets tune for

Their choruses,

And

Creates scope for

Many more to

Crowd our little, lonely planet

© DARSHAK 

THE ROSY DISTANCE : A DOGGEREL IN EXILE

Rose! Rose!

Lovely little rose!

You are so close

That I sometimes feel like

Getting carried away

By your fragrance,  

But there is an obstacle

That keeps me off

By a distance

Rose! Rose!

Lovely little rose!

My heart knows

Without a pretense,

You could have been
Closer, much closer perhaps,

And quite within

My own fence,

If only

You hadn’t had

Such a big, bulky nose!

©DEEPAK DARSHAK 

AWAKENING

the ballads

I used to ink

with my sweat and oil are

getting eaten up by

termites, or turning into

anonymous pariahs  

  

to avert their extinction,

I’ve started taking lessons

on how to disintegrate

my decadent oeuvre into

smooth slogans and

elastic, reader-friendly taglines

 © DARSHAK  

MULTIPLICITY

the mirror has

multiple depths

to play with

my eyes

each plunge into it

leaves me

with new marks of

metamorphic isolation

© DARSHAK

DIDI AND GOGO

From one tree

To another,

They would travel  

Searching for roots

They were leaves

That

Refused to die and

Preferred instead to stay   

Hanging between  

A thirsty autumn and

A wanton spring,

On an isle of

Broken dreams

© DEEPAK DARSHAK  

LIVING…. THE TEMPTATION!!

Living the way

We did, was

A big, feisty temptation

Life was painful,

But we couldn’t leave it,

We never wanted to

Living the way we did,

Was the hope that some day,

life itself would bring in the remedy to

all the pain it had given 

© DEEPAK DARSHAK  

RETICENCE: STRATEGY OF THE HARD-HEADED

A barrage of sly pejoratives

was unleashed to find holes in

his patience

He sat in their heart, soliloquising,

blunting their fangs with a reticence

That was impermeable

© DARSHAK  

REVERSE VIEW

yes…

we are different

not because

we can use pens and pads

to create amusing contours of

life , its rugged topography,

its climes , its everlasting flow  

it’s because

we know the skill of

repeating ourselves

without sounding repetitive

© DARSHAK

MNEMONIC DISSOCIATION

barren witticisms,
inane jokes,
tiring pleasantries,
insipid pokes….
mind the careless maverick goes on 
buying all sorts of stale, old,
unprocessed food for consumption

to avoid diarrhea,
a friend suggests,
I must clean up
the memory box
at regular intervals
© DARSHAK

SNAPSHOT OF A SUMMER MORNING

coalescing vines,

arms in the breeze,

perforations peep

through the footfalls of

a mid-summer dawn

(© DEEPAK DARSHAK)   

AFTERNOON REVERIE

They will come back
Bringing in fresh queries, virgin curiosities,
Unresolved mysteries, unanswered enquiries,
And spread around
Like clusters of grass mellowed with dew,
Spreading around, gripping
The quiet copse and its virgin green,
Ending their wait for
A tactile presence of
Raw aspiration and hope
               
In a proximity of paradoxes,
A wrinkled old gown bound to a wheelchair
Will gradually wake up to a beatific smile,
A pair of broken specs kept in a dusty corner
Will begin to move about,
A bunch of toys kept in a decrepit shelf will
Find back the trail of frolics and gambols,  
Some eyes will have tears,
Some lips will have smiles shining in darkness,
Some voices will break in
Stretching out across generations
While narrating the stories of
Bravery and surrender,
Loyalty, betrayal and protest,
Retrieval and loss,
Victory and defeat
 
This summer,
Each brick of our old house will stay awake
Witnessing a search for the magical key
To the wild of dreams,
Connecting        
The old to the new,
Darkness to light, day to night

Between

Two banks of the sky
©DEEPAK DARSHAK

UNION

wet whispers, sultry sighs, intimate locks…  

buccaneering tides   
flow on, Drenching passionate cliffs,

quenching the restive thirst of chinks

night makes a blanket
to hide the merger of 
rivers without brinks

(© DEEPAK DARSHAK: IN THE WORLD OF INDISPENSABLE OTHERS)

FAIT ACCOMPLI

shades of gray fatigue,

shapes peeking through

dehiscent wrinkles, slants
and curves forming  

countenances of ennui…. 

lukewarm fingers

make the last-ditch effort

to complete a painting

on the rugged canvas of

an eventless day 

PROLOGUE

yearning for

sleek, sweet modifiers

made a blue-eyed bard

out of everyone   

in the feast of rhetoric

… and they battled on,

trying to surpass one another,  

eying the moments of

freedom to be with the Lord

in His secret chamber of

proximity

© DEEPAK DARSHAK    

CHANGING CLIME

Grammar of the game

Has changed

Rules for

Genuflection and

Pantomiming have

Become rather flexible

The clime of adjustment

Grows new ears for

The mock heroics of

Sterilized pragmatism

© DEEPAK DARSHAK

ICARUS

Your tragedy

Does not sadden me,

It amuses

Because I feel

You must have survived

After losing your wings

And falling into the sea

Icarus!     

I feel your presence,

Everywhere,    

A pride too big

To be subdued, 

A faith too confident

To be challenged, 

Waiting to be

Melted away and sunk by

The enemy within…

Your deadly hubris!   

(© DEEPAK DARSHAK)

CONFINEMENT

From one corner of

His room to another,

He has been moving for

Years, searching for a

Wardrobe to lock his wounds

And blunt them forever

He’s forgotten

To feel surprised

When he comes across

A squirrel

Jumping out of

The bush into

His solitude,

He’s forgotten

To feel enchanted

When he sees

A nightingale

Perching and singing

In the tree facing

His room’s lone window

Only when

He falls asleep,

He feels something

Happening in his mind,

His old pals, their loitering

Limericks, escapades, stories of  

Jagan the boatman , an old canoe

Calling him for

A stroll on the waves

Under the Moon

He weaved

His stories gently into songs,

A minstrel’s transparent

Voice rising in the arms of

The gentle breeze, spreading across

The dark vales of the night,

Leaving the world

Spellbound

Sleeping souls woke up, 

And we could see

The stars smiling though

Ruffles in black waters 

Beyond that, there is

Nothing he thinks

He should remember

MANNEQUINS

Out of blanks,
We grew trails, the night
Passing by, melancholic
Sighs, unheard, shards of
Melting gestures peeking 
Through slits of ossified
Ennui, we felt jerks in
The casuarinas, dry
Rustles, inadvertent mergers with
Murk, concourses without
Fidgety footfalls

In a boulevard, ensconced,
Under the belly of
A barren tower, chlorinated
Ambiance eating up
Patience, we waited,
Exhausted gasps, whispers,
Fumbles assuming the pitch of
Prayer, till silhouettes of silence
Could catch one another by calls

(© DEEPAK DARSHAK)

CHLORINATION

Words reek

Inside me, with

A heap of

Fractured meanings    

Clean me, o silence!

If I can't throw
Them away,

Let me have
The strength to
Dissolve them 

(© DEEPAK DARSHAK) 

REIFICATION

Raw notions

Go missing

In the theatre of

Hell

An array of

Double-domes and

Longhairs have

Replaced the mavericks

With a streak of

Orchestrated confusion,

And their aging

Makes the night thicken

And swell

© DEEPAK DARSHAK

ANONYMITY: I LIKE PLAYING IT...

Anonymity is
A game

I play this
To reduce 
The burden of
Discovering a name

(© DEEPAK DARSHAK)

JULY SHOWERS IN DELHI: 2015

Wheels 
Have stopped moving,
Mechanism of life going
Haywire, 
Delhi weeps and pukes 
And turns into a
Quagmire
© DEEPAK DARSHAK