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Butterfly boats

Do the butterfly boats know
The sea’s heart in its depth?

Only  wind knows deep sea
Stirring its deepest feelings.

Butterfly boats are flapping
Their wings empty of  wind

Like crows that remain froze
In sky, not finding dead fish.

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Virus in harbor

Now the virus has a field day
Hopping , from body to body.

Death is mere nucleic protein
Dressed to kill, men and fish,

Seller and buyer on a harbor,
Mom and her kids on bellies.

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Heist

The fishing boys are in home,
Planning  morrow’s fish heist

When fishes will be captured
As  dawn breaks and be sold

In the fishing harbor by mom
Who will weigh them in kilos.

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Saffron in lock-down

New dawn breaks on the sea,
There is no 10′ O clock office.

Swiggy’s are off their saffron,
And the boys will play monks

Covering mouth with scarves.
Sun rises on sea in its saffron

As in a monk’s detached robe
On a discourse on transience.

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Lock-down

Policemen shall devour the nights
In their mountainous mouth caves.

A beach patrol car comes whining
And hushes sea hum for a minute.

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Wind in the sea

In  evening, the winds howled

Behind balcony window glass.

Our windows rattled like shells
Clanking in a shell seller' s bag

After shells turned ghost homes

Empty of former sea creatures.

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Daily stuff

There are daily crows at dawn ,
They who wake up a daily sun

From sleep’s dailiness in West.
A daily sea puts a sun to sleep,

The sea who wears as a crown
Daily on head,  high on its sky.

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Blood in my eyes

My  sea is a water and brine,
White as a moon lather walk.

Blood  is my sun on the boil,
Every morning high on a sea.

Now I see  blood in my eyes,
Waiting for it to enter its sea.

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Water

Water sploshed in coconut skull,
As we shook head to empty sky.

Now we live near the sea where
We do not know sea from a sky.

We are old and dry ,not knowing
The shape of the water to come.

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Temporary  pool

A temporary pool quivers,
With its broken sky inside.
It has a poet in his pieces.

It is a sea's image in rock
When a  moment is made
Each time sea hits a rock.

(Remembering Hilda Doolittle's poem The Pool)

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In the heart of light

Night's crows turn less dark
With rocks more glistening.

Men look made up in boats
Bodiless actors  in a drama.

They stand in heart of light
Stealing the light from fish.

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Death is colourless

On  time and theme of colours,

Boy dives to probe  sea's inside.

So many are  colours displayed

On face it can see with no eyes

Their own resplendence by sun
Turns pure-white plastic pearls

That may not be much interest,
By carcasses of passing turtles.

( A boy drowns in the sea celebrating Holi the festival of colours)

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Mud and lather

I am composed of red earth
That rises to blue-green sky

I am composed of  blue sea
An empty sky ,a red fat mud .

I decompose as a fine dust,
A sea's lather at  dying sun.

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Mynahs are shy of sea

They are shy of  sea near sky
And its beach that washes up

A dead turtle and  sea- snake

Crows grapple with on beach.

But actually they land on  sill
To peep inside at satellite TV

In which exotic forest's  birds
Chirp their songs on channel.

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Dark deeds

Crows grow dark by their deeds,
Emptying the turtles of contents

After trapped in fish men’s nets.
They turn red in tooth and claw.

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God comfort

We have hibiscus buds in  eyes,

Threatening to bloom darkness.

While we await the doctor's call
We look for angels in the glass

Who will bring us  glad tidings
And comfort of God in heaven.

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Unruly sea

Lately the sea proved unruly
Entering a beach’s food carts.

Its saliva drooled on walkers
Gushing in the walkers’ soles.

It entered cook – pots in huts
Perched on an embankment

And fisher women’s kitchens
As men went fishing far away.

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Shadows on the beach

Some are men of no bodies
But light's shadows at dawn,

Others live a death moment,
As dead turtles of live crows.

Some are just fishes caught,
In the men's upper moment.

Others are rocks on  beach,
Flaunting their green dress.

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Our photographs are made,
In the inner country of eyes.

Some men are of no bodies
But light’s shadows at dawn

A few are silhouettes at sea
Gaining into its inner heart.

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Sea's hum fuses our narratives
As an indistinguishable prattle.

No meaningful narrative flows
From our non sequitur events.

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Nausea exists in existence,
And not in  belly at storm.

It exists outside the body,
A sea raging in yonder sky.

Nausea is body out of sea,
A turtle for  dawn’s crows

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What once made big holes
In the underbellies of ships

Now lies dead like a turtle
Washed ashore by the sea.

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The monster  submarine
Is man-made sea animal.

It once made large holes
In bellies of enemy ships

Now is carcass like turtle
With hole under its shell.

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Feet come under a wave
Inside the walking soles.

Sea turns the soul sticky
Like the dear one’s loss.

Turtle lies dead on sand,
A shell emptied by crows.

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He carries his canvas bag
And disgorges sea-things

Among the beach’s rocks
For beach walkers to view.

He blows his pretty conch
From hollows of stomach.

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The decrepit rag-picker picks
A plastic or two, from beach.

Snails  are still in their sleep,
In the last night’s sand holes.

A beer bottle’s shard shines
A dawn on a night’s memory.

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The poet tells her curious cat.
Get off my chest, bum hole !

To leave a little spring in Feb.
Get rid of every body's death.

Get off my chest , you death
Says a  sea ,wave after wave.

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A ship in sea digs sunlight
To lay it out on the beach.

Crows eat a sun off  turtle
On its death in fishing net.

It is a February in evening.
Sea has early meal at sun.

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Sun brings out men in sea
And dead turtle on waves.

Women needle an old sun,
Sitting at dead submarine.

A ship in sea digs sunlight
To lay it out on the beach.

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Old lighthouse

It has now no light in its eyes

And can no more guide ships.

Now old ,retired and defunct,

Hear its tales in  wind on top.

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Beach crowd

Walking in beach crowd,
You pass through men’s

Edges while they yours,
But not through bodies

Toward food and drink,
On beach as waves rise.

Here walks man’s edge.
An elegy rides his belly.

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Sea rocks

All through night, sea  rocks
Stay calm, beaten by waves.

Some rocks wear polka dots
Like holiday makers in Goa.

Tiny rocks flaunt their green
Against orange of the dawn.

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Crows have  use for dead turtles,

Who find no use for living crows.

Both dead turtles and live crows
Find no use for the dead flowers

And  stuffed likeness of the god
We worshiped  the previous day.

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Behind the glass, the sea fades
And an imagination takes over.

Everything fades, even the sea.
Imagination fades in the glass

Where the lips move to mutter
And mutter fades behind time.

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I stand here by the lonely sea
And I swear by the lovely sea.

I run my fever by a lovely sea,
Behind my sad-assed balcony .

(On reading John Mansfield’s poem “Sea Fever”)

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Men in boat turn silhouettes
Accusing fingers at a far sea.

On shore, an old light house
Is all cracked up in laughter.

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Living by sea, we have realized
We have not marked our earth,
Like lions piss in a jungle to do.

Bodies pass far too many times
And smells evaporate too soon.
Earth goes interminably like sea.