A Solid Connection

When do you feel a connection, is it when you have spent enough time?

Or is it friendship-at-first-sight, the spark instant and sublime?

Why are our enduring friends, from college or school days? 

By spending time our office pals, should be best friends in that case? 

 

Professional bonds have a different vibe, help you grow and watch your back,

Can help you achieve and advance in life, but the warm fuzziness they lack.

Shared rituals give a new lease of life, I try to speak to my son at ten,

Connection deepens when we both carve time, can share anything man-to-man. 

 

There are friends unspoken, years have flown, yet we can pick from where we left,

Just a casual conversation is all it takes, to recover the intervening years' theft.

The friendship can run on auto-pilot, once we've sufficiently grown close,

It's too sublime a bond to conform, to curve between response and dose. 

 

I haven't spoken with you in ages, and I miss you my dear friend,

I'm sure we'll pour our hearts out, when we meet perchance on the next bend. 

Out Of Tune

I try hard to understand your poetry, you write in free verse,

I've to bend to rhyme and rhythm, my self-inflicted curse.

My composition has to fit in, in 14 lines to be precise,

You can meander, or stop short, be any shape or size.

 

 If I look all around me, what is rewarded or read,

You are playing with the form, rhyme and rhythm be dead.

You juxtapose vivid images, in metaphors mystery bake,

To satiate the modern thirst, traditions and meter break.  

 

By making my poems resonate, I'm committing a crime,

How can a nursery rhyme structure, carry a message sublime?

If we needed a rhyming poem, we would ask ChatGPT,

Your poems reek of the old era, what a shame, what a pity.

 

I've never really paid heed, to what dominates the Mehfil,

I write to touch you my readers, not to win prizes or coffers fill. 

Give Me Some Rain

Going through life, on cruise control,

The 6-lane highway, demands a heavy toll.

You are unconscious, on autopilot, you stop noticing stuff,

Can't stop and smell roses, or you'll be fined sure enough.  

  

Speed and more speed, the destination looms ahead,

If you get distracted by the dew, you'll most likely be dead.

Your vision gets narrowed, only the adjacent cars matter,

When you're comfortably cruising, there's no drive to be better.  

 

Imagine instead, you're stuck in a jam,

Life's at a crossroad, and a door did slam.

You are running low on fuel, your alertness sky high,

Frantically searching for the next exit, can't remain stuck and die.

 

There's no coming to consciousness, sans some misery and pain,

To get roused from the slumber, often requires a strong rain.

Being Pragmatic

Raised with a labor of love, with limited users to boot,

You nursed it with raw tenderness, but no one cares two hoot.

The product is only as good, as the market it captures and grabs,

Till you start generating revenue, the better it is, the more it stabs. 

 

Knowledge amassed, wisdom gleaned, without degrees to showcase,

Sans credentials you can't apply your skills, no one to argue your case.

The resume is only as good, as the JD it seeks to fill,

The only touchstone for learning, whether it can help pay the bill.

 

A slice carved out of your famished heart, not gluttoned by many,

In the daily ritualistic offering, does fast food make sense any?

The poem is only as good, as the prize you can savor and relish,

To win the contest at all costs, may leave you feeling hellish.

 

 I'm stuck in a state of stasis, can't move on, my love,

They say you are only as good, as the fate you can rise above.

A Waste of Time

50 years vanished, a waste of time,

Didn't dent the universe, didn't matter a dime,

Except for the few, who were touched for the better,

How far and long the ripples traveled, does it really matter?  

 

50 years looming, a poetic wasteland,

Writing mediocre poems, in sight no end.

Except for the few, that will pierce your heart,

Make you stop in your tracks, that's the lure of art.  

 

50 years reached, a milestone to celebrate,

Pretend to be happy, and smile at any rate.  

Except for the few, when the mask reveals the self,

You behold the beauty, of sensitivity you can't help.

 

Connection, and living-in-the moment, not to protect them would be a crime,

For the next 50 years I'll happily continue, nurturing them by wasting time.

Give Me Some Sunshine...

The war pinches a little, you couldn't prevent the doom,

A lost friendship stabs deep, hardens you with its gloom.

Some pain you cultivate and curate, others you let go soon,

In the right amount the mud of pain, makes your poetic lotus bloom.

 

There's a dim satisfaction in knowing, you helped prevent a few suicides,

When your friends write a poem on your B'Day, you're bursting with joy on all sides.

For some slivers of joy, you had to work hard, others were thrown in your lap,

If you don't let it get to your head, this wellspring of joy, for your poems you can tap.

 

The loss of a loved one may perturb you a bit, you quickly recover compose,

The equanimity that has over time morphed to apathy, a greater danger to you pose.

Emotions recollected in tranquility, isn't that how poems are supposed to be born,

Each poem has to be discarded post writing, just like clothes old and worn.

 

You wish for me strength and serenity, I wish for me joy and pain,

What's life without a moderate bit, of some sunshine and some rain. 

Will You Please Reconsider?

Your mom said in anger, you're a burden on earth,

You took it to heart, lamenting why you took birth.

Your presence is pure joy, to your dear and loved ones,

Talk of being a burden irrelevant, between mothers and sons.

 

The labyrinth is soul-sucking, you're trapped beyond repair,

You're exhausted by all the running, ready to succumb to despair.

The tunnels are dark and cold, but there's always a way out,

If you wait enough you'll glimpse the sun, as it emerges from the cloud.

 

What use to survive this night, you don't belong to this tribe,

Even in death you stand alone, the voice in the head makes a jibe.

The lack of bonds is imaginary, there's always someone you can call,

And discuss at 4 am in the night, all matters big and small.

 

The future may look dim right now, the battle all but lost,

But to not witness that fickle future, is too steep a cost.

 

PS: Written on the occasion of The World Suicide Prevention Day 2026.