Our duel of wits had lasted a long time
Until they accepted defeat giving me respite
No longer wary, I breathed happily, to enjoy
Free run of kitchen, bite here there to annoy

Hating my guts, a professional they’d employed
To capture me, heal their bleeding hemorrhoids
But I come from a stock both spunky and wily, in me
Catcher met his match, unusual protagonist, slippery

Grandma said at time of my birth stars had conspired
Hence I was always in trouble, all reform plans misfired
The professional set many a mousetrap for my capture
My uncanny skill kept me one jump ahead in utter rapture

Our cat and mouse play went on for many months
Until, end of his tether Professional gave up on seventh
To celebrate victory we had a gala party on the eighth
Ceasefire gave us all time to catch our breaths

Then alas, one day the building next door collapsed
Taking down a wall of our mansion that was attached
Life ebbed out of all of us as we scurried here and there
Disgusted, our master sold house dirt cheap in despair  
 
~~
I should be the last person to say anything against temptation,
 naturally, but we have a proverb down here ‘in baiting a
 mouse-trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse’.
- Hector Hugh Munro

Mouse is Not A Thief, It is the hole that Allows Mouse In!

-Herman Jacobs

picture from internet

Deeply embedded in snow
Electric eye mesmerizing
In waves azure, mystical

Every full moon night she wails

For her lover

~~ 

Lovers Tryst 

Drenched in love

Soaking moonlight

Technicolor dreams

Lined silvery bright

 Hotfooting in thick mist

She had kept her tryst

Cupid had shot her a grievous blow

Had felled her by an alien elbow

 The elbow had belonged to an Adonis

Crestfallen he’d cried mercy, blown a kiss

Tears streaming she’d suddenly smiled

Falling headlong in love sans any guile

They kept their trysts where they’d first met

On full moon day by lake and branch lunette

They made plans and wove golden dreams

Eyes ecstatic despite inimical bloodstreams

Six moonlight trysts later this was their seventh

Families sworn enemies and their love at zenith

 Fearful fluttering heart desperate searching eyes

She waited for lover with prayer on quivering lips

Midway to rendezvous brother and lover clashed

Steel to steel rang out that fateful perfidious night

They slashed one another, life ebbing out of both

She languished on tree trunk waiting for betrothed

Thus she awaits her lover every full moon night

A piteous wail rising out of waters silvery bright

Unrequited love never allowed her soul to depart

Eternally waiting for lover, fate had pulled apart

They say souls of these ill fated lovers do meet

Every full moon by shimmering lake and mesquite     

 ~~

Mesquite: hard wood (tree)

Lunette: crescent

 Picture is frfom internet-disclaimer

Every full moon night she wails

For her lover

~~ 

Lovers Tryst 

Drenched in love

Soaking moonlight

Technicolor dreams

Lined silvery bright

 Hotfooting in thick mist

She had kept her tryst

Cupid had shot her a grievous blow

Had felled her by an alien elbow

 The elbow had belonged to an Adonis

Crestfallen he’d cried mercy, blown a kiss

Tears streaming she’d suddenly smiled

Falling headlong in love sans any guile

They kept their trysts where they’d first met

On full moon day by lake and branch lunette

They made plans and wove golden dreams

Eyes ecstatic despite inimical bloodstreams

Six moonlight trysts later this was their seventh

Families sworn enemies and their love at zenith

 Fearful fluttering heart desperate searching eyes

She waited for lover with prayer on quivering lips

Midway to rendezvous brother and lover clashed

Steel to steel rang out that fateful perfidious night

They slashed one another, life ebbing out of both

She languished on tree trunk waiting for betrothed

Thus she awaits her lover every full moon night

A piteous wail rising out of waters silvery bright

Unrequited love never allowed her soul to depart

Eternally waiting for lover, fate had pulled apart

They say souls of these ill fated lovers do meet

Every full moon by shimmering lake and mesquite     

 ~~

Mesquite: hard wood (tree)

Lunette: crescent

 Picture is frfom internet-disclaimer

The Messenger

Chastened wiser
Word miser
Adviser

Womb curled
Tomb unfurled
Combing ties gold

Sun baked sense
Gentle suggestion
Life lessons extend

Tightly curled spring
Ready for upward spring
Backwards forwards spin

Edge of ledge cliff
Fresh oxygen whiff
Messaging in wind

Carriers’ eternal true
Bearers of tidings
Ancient new

At limitless beach
Finger in water reached
Lessons to teach

A poke in the clouds
Message etched loud
Lightening thunder snort

Journey done, on to new
Orbiting and spiraling
Within without

picture from internet
 

A bait
A slip up
Downward dive

A twinge
A blight
To dark from light

A spiral
A viral
Faith on trial

A bit here
A bit there
Ocean from drops

Sleight of hand
Virtue on the lam
Wherewithal grand slam

Masked faces
Sans real traces
True self fading

A trip to Hades
On skates of cowries
Soul invisible in corrupt bodies

VISIBLE TO INVISIBLE

(all pictures are from the internet-disclaimer) 

We are down not OUT

Ravenous dogs of winter came riding chameleon fall hearse
They fell on us brutally tearing flesh sucking our marrow
Satiated they bayed at the morose moon hanging in sullen sky
We mourn not violent rape yet again by heartless curs of winter

Wait! Hold on! Don’t you dare feel sorry for us please!
Our heads maybe bowed as we stand stark denuded bare
But we stand proud, dignity covering our bones gnawed clean
We have no rancor in our hearts nor do we vent our spleen

Just as death is inexorable implicit and the ultimate truth
Seasons too come and go and these bad times too shall pass
We wait to receive an SMS from the anklets of the summer belle
Borne by the wind carriers from across the mountains and valleys

They are the harbingers of good tidings when we will rejuvenate
Wear colorful threads over our threadbare spines stoically supine
We’ve been tutored and blessed by monks meditating in our shade
We will be reborn to flourish n nourish the air n every creature animate

We are alive
We will survive
We will thrive
We are down, not OUT

(first pic. is by sophie Carmalin- 2nd is from my son’s backyard)

 **  **  ***  **  **

 I will Survive

 First I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
without you by my side
But I spent so many nights
thinking how you did me wrong
I grew strong
I learned how to carry on
and so you’re back
from outer space
I just walked in to find you here
with that sad look upon your face
I should have changed my stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second
you’d be back to bother me

Go on now go walk out the door
just turn around now
’cause you’re not welcome anymore
weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
you think I’d crumble
you think I’d lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I will stay alive
I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give
and I’ll survive
I will survive

It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart
kept trying hard to mend
the pieces of my broken heart
and I spent oh so many nights
just feeling sorry for myself
I used to cry
Now I hold my head up high
and you see me
somebody new
I’m not that chained up little person
still in love with you
and so you felt like dropping in
and just expect me to be free
now I’m saving all my loving
for someone who’s loving me

Neil’s Reincarnation- Ageless Love

****

Part two: Amber’s Reincarnation

http://www.binaguptapoetry.com/ambers-reincarnation-997.htm

***   ***   ***   ***

Neil, the famous mad sculptor was an obsessed man. Ever since he could recall, every night when he slept, he felt he was drowning  desperately trying to breathe and save his love and himself from a watery grave.  He would get up, wet and shivering and his hands would itch to etch that beloved face.  Gradually he started sculpting that face and form that haunted and lived with him night and day.   He only drew, painted and sculpted that one particular face on every surface, material that he could lay his hands on!!  His family would collect his finished pieces and after his permission would sell them at a local gallery where his work was in great demand.  Thus his family and he survived on this dream love of his.   Valentine’s day was in two weeks’ time and he had been commissioned by his teacher who was also his guide and master to sculpt a piece that could be entered in the national competition as its prize money was half a million plus a trip to USA for entry into international art competition.    He was very keen to sculpt something unique and was looking for inspiration… 

*********************************
Sohni was the daughter of a potter named Tula, who lived in a Gujrat town in the Punjab near the banks of the Chenab on the caravan trade route between Bukhara and Delhi during late Mughal period.
 
As soon as the ‘Surahis’ (water pitchers) and mugs came off the wheels, Sohni etched floral designs transforming them into masterpieces of art.

Izzat Baig, the rich trader from Bukhara (Uzbekistan), came to India on business but when he saw the beautiful Sohni in the town of Gujrat on the Chenab in Punjab, he was completely enchanted. Instead of keeping ‘mohars’ (gold coins) in his pockets, he roamed around with his pockets full of love. Just to get a glimpse of Sohni, he would end up buying the water pitchers and mugs everyday.
Sohni lost her heart to Izzat Baig. Instead of making floral designs on earthenware, she started building castles of love in her dreams. Izzat Baig sent off his companions to Bukhara. He took up the job of a servant in the house of Tula, Sohni’s father. He would even take their buffaloes for grazing. Soon, he came to be known as “Mahiwal”(buffalo herder).  That name stayed with him for the rest of his life — and thereafter. 

When the people started spreading rumors about the love of Sohni and Mahiwal, without her consent her parents arranged her marriage with another potter.
Suddenly, one day his “barat” (marriage party) arrived at the threshold of her house. Sohni was helpless and in a poignant state. Her parents bundled her off in the doli (palanquin), but they could not pack off her love in any doli (box).
Izzat Baig renounced the world and started living like a “fakir” (hermit) in a small hut across the river. The earth of Sohni’s land was like a dargah (shrine) for him. He had forgotten his own land, his own people and his world. Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, when the world was fast asleep, Sohni would come by the riverside and Izzat Baig would swim across the river to meet her. He would regularly roast a fish and bring it for her. It is said that once, when due to high tide he could not catch a fish, Mahiwal cut a piece of his thigh and roasted it. Seeing the bandage on his thigh, Sohni opened it, saw the wound and cried.
From the next day, Sohni started swimming across the river with the help of an earthen pitcher as Izzat Baig was so badly wounded and could not swim across the river. Soon, the rumours of their romantic rendezvous spread. One-day Sohni’s sister-in-law followed her and saw the hiding place where Sohni used to keep her earthen pitcher among the bushes. Next day, the sister-in-law removed the hard baked pitcher replacing it with an unbaked one. That night, when Sohni tried to cross the river with the help of the pitcher, She discovered, to her horror, that the pitcher had begun to dissolve and disintegrate.
What shall she do now? Different thoughts rushed through Sohni’s mind. Abandon the trip?   Or continue trying to swim without the help of a pitcher — and drown? Her inner struggle at this point is  expressed

 translated   into a song  as follows:

Sohni (addressing the pitcher):

It’s dark and the river is in flood
There is water all around me
How am I going to meet Mahiwal?
If I keep going, I will surely drown
And if I turn back
I would be going back on my promise
And letting Mahiwal down
I beg you (O pitcher!), with folded hands,
Help me meet my Mahiwal
You always did it, please do it tonight, too

(The pitcher replies):

I wish I, too, were baked in the fire of love, like you are
But I am not. I apologize; I cannot help
Hearing Sohni’s cries, Mahiwal, from the other side, jumped into the river to save her. He barely managed to reach her. As the story goes, their bodies were washed ashore, and were found the next day, lying next to each other.  With their death, Sohni and Mahiwal entered into the world of legends and lore. And, in their death the sinners became saints.

The Tomb Of Sohni In Shahdapur City Sindh, which is 75 km from Hyderabad, Pakistan. According to the legend the bodies of Sohni Mahiwal were recovered from river Indus near Shahdapur and hence are buried there.

****************************************************
The border between India and Pakistan had been opened and many Indians were allowed to visit historical places and also the old homes of their ancestors.  Neil’s family hailed from Uzbekistan and a few members had settled in Sindh, Pakistan.  Eagerly he boarded the ship for Karachi, Sindh.  After sightseeing to his heart’s content the cab- driver suggested that as the tomb of the famous lovers Sohni- Mahiwal was very near- would he like to see it and Neil agreed and he had time to spare before his family returned from another place.    The minute Neil entered the tomb, he felt very much at home and his agonized spirit was at once at peace.  He had arrived at his destiny.  He felt he was very close to his beloved.  Then he saw the numerous paintings on the wall of Sohni and Mahiwal and it was like déjà vu-  Mahiwal looked just like him and the face and figure he had been drawing all his life was Sohni!!!.  At once he  felt that itching in his fingers and he needed to carve something quickly.  He cut short his trip and they returned home.  Neil shut himself up in his studio and emerged after three days drained but elated.  This was his best work yet.  He had sculpted the figures of Sohni and Mahiwal in the throes of love, embracing one another and the two faces showed the ecstasy and peace of union of two loving souls and kindred spirits.  The sculpture was mesmerizing as though crafted by cupid himself!!

He won both national and international prizes.  The dreams stopped too. 

All pictures and  Sohni- Mahiwal info from internet- not mine

Amber’s Reincarnation

 Amber was a handful.  She was like a bird of paradise that had landed in a dove’s nest.  Her middle aged professor parents were rather bemused, at this unplanned delivery by Mr. Stork.  Two older sons were doctors and one was a psychologist.  Their New York home had been turned upside down by Amber!

Amber had red hair and emerald green eyes and a boyish body to match. 
Her curly top was unmanageable and to tame it brought tears in her stormy green eyes. She was volatile by nature and teetered between one crisis and another.  Her rages crested like boiling milk and subsided as quickly.  Professors Malloy were certain she was their reincarnated great aunt Tillie as Amber was her spitting image.  Dougie, Tom and Mike adored their little sister and were her adoring slaves.  Amber tried her best to ape her elder brothers and was good in all sports and could chug beer like them.  Everyone made fun of her pug nose but her gamin face with high cheekbones and wide forehead offset it well.  She’d say that having been punched in growing years that was to be expected!

Amber was four years old when the family went to Cape Cod for summer vacation.  That is when her dreams began.  Every night she would wake up screaming. In the dream she would appear to be drowning and beg for help.  The whole family was in a tizzy.  Quickly they gave her sweet chamomile tea to calm her down.  On return to New York, the psychologist brother tried to speak to her and get to know what was going on in her mind but was at a loss as he had known her all of her four years and no untoward incident came to mind.  He prescribed a very mild sedative for such episodes.

At twenty Amber was a world class painter and once the professors had discovered her talent, sky was the limit.  They had all encouraged her every step of the way and she had become a name in the city and state.  There was a brooding quality in her paintings with incredible floral designs evocative of magical Arabian deserts and the Sirocco.  She seemed like a turbulent semi tragic mix of an Irish beauty with elements of the desert wind and sandstorms swirling within.  She had been to Paris and Italy and the artist colonies in the California coast to hone her talent. 

There was a great buzz in the fine arts world about the incredible Sculpture from India by an upcoming painter Neil Sindhwani.  Amber was eager to have a look too.  She entered the circular Guggenheim Museum where the exhibition was being held and gradually made her way to the winning entry.  On seeing the lovers she turned to stone!  She knew these faces! They tormented her every time she had those awful dreams.  She had to meet this Neil guy and get to the bottom of this mystery. 

The whole Malloy clan saw the masterpiece sculpture and was enchanted by it.  Knowing that their beloved Amber had experienced a déjà vu moment, they decided it merited investigation.   Luckily the sculptor Neil Sindhwani was in New York to receive the prize.  They invited him for dinner.  Neil was intrigued and decided to accept.  

Amber was wearing her favorite green dress that offset her eyes and she looked fetching in her sheath dress.  Neil was captivated upon seeing her.  He too felt he had known her forever and at the cost of being rude, he had eyes only for her.  Amber felt the same pull.   Dougie the psychologist decided to get to the bottom of this mutual attraction.  
All preparations had been made and Amber was hypnotized and regressed.  As she was led further and further into her past, she finally became Sohni the potter’s daughter in Sind, Pakistan.   Sohni had loved a young man called Mahiwal but her father had forced her to marry another.  Their love had been so overwhelming that they met in stealth at night.  She swam across the river with the help of a fired clay pot.  Unfortunately her jealous sister in law replaced her pot with an unfired one that melted in the water and even though her lover tried to save her, they had both drowned. 

All those who were present were shook up.  Neil and Amber were those unlucky lovers from numerous lifetimes ago!

Amber decided to visit the Tomb of Sohni in Shahdapur City Sindh, which was 75 km from Hyderabad, Pakistan. According to the legend the bodies of Sohni Mahiwal were recovered from river Indus near Shahdapur and buried there.  Neil promised to accompany her family and her. 

The etchings on the tomb walls were reminiscent of Amber’s painting motifs.  This was a further proof of her reincarnation.  Her parents and Dougie were satisfied about its veracity.  Plus Amber and Neil naturally gravitated towards one another.  Once the families met and approved, they were soon married and Neil opened his own studio cum workshop in New York along with Amber.  They were a team now.  Amber’s dream was a thing of the past.  She had met her other half

pictures are from internet- disclaimer