Where have you been?

Long time no see
he said to me
with angry eyes

where have you been?
why did you leave?
not even good-byes!

my shame hung heavy
on my stooping shoulders
for I could not
rhyme my answers
anymore

he kept taunting
needling me
riddling
with his piercing stares

the poet in the mirror

as I shaved
yet another night's useless crop
off a vaguely familiar face

the only thing that grows
on me these days,
I told him
as I rinsed the razor

but where have you been?
tell me, where have you been?
he went on

the same place
I said wearily

as I searched the walls
for a trace of a door

and turned my back on him

the poet in the cracked mirror

***

Raindrops

is it rain
or you within,
dancing in drops
on my parched skin?

*
each drop brings
a piece of sky
each pore
becomes an eye

*
dance in rain
I still do
and the rain dances
around you...

© Rajendra Pradhan

little paper boats set afloat
bobbing up
and down

breathing a lungful
of comments and swimming up
for a while
before sinking finally
to the murky depths
of disinterest

hoping to be searched for
and born again
into another life
or network

© Rajendra Pradhan

Caferati and Shakespeare & Co
These two are fine networks on Ryze, if you have an interest in reading & writing-
You can find me there, whenever I am not traveling.