hearts and stones

You're all heart and i'm all stone, say the sharp crystals 
floating down at this midnight hour
hearts, love and things of the dense variety
fall, give in, are slaves to gravity.

You- a stone over time but the core, snow
just water and air.
A lightness of spirit that only comes
with a lightness of heart.

second in the series

Once in a while

“Fight your heart once in a while” you say,
you, who makes a living out of doing just that
constantly, everyday, heartlessly
you, who lives with the constant need to listen to the mind…

And at the other end of the line, me
Me, who lives to listen to every beat, every rhythm of my heart
me, who accepts with love every tantrum that it throws my way

Maybe that is what happens to the best of us
Once in a while,
I learn to fight my heart
And you learn to listen to yours.

This is the first one of a series, started today between a friend and I, where he tells me a line and I create a poem on it.

100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”

DEDICATED TO THE ONE SOON TO BE MARRIED: Reshma & Dave
wishing you both a lifetime filled with love of the Neruda kind.

 

Windblown

Its one of those nights, when the night leaves you
alone amidst strangers, friends, lovers and elves, the fireplace is teeming with
ashes of unvisited islands and unlived mornings
and despite the heat from the fire, there is no warmth in the air
the mirrors behind the eyes reflect an empty room and a passing shadow
of a familiar weave and pattern
the fragrance is oddly familiar and so is the humidity
the untouched cutlery, sheets, the windblown candle and
the sleep that comes out of the need to escape.

The winter of our discontent

Many a Shakespeare and Steinbeck have penned these lines.
For what describes this chill in our bones,
the constant drizzle, the monologues of absence,
the cacophony of eight stomping feet.

For what will bring back the years
of innocent faith- “The years” they said
would make it fine, this brisk draft
and its eyes feline.

But look at this dreary landscape devoid of shine,
brimming over with dust and grime.

Oh look my dear, indeed this is yet
again, the winter of our discontent.

In the wake of a hurricane

Again, the storms recede only to make tunnels

of silence, to find debris, and other swinging

tchotchke of greener seasons and the cadavers

float up onto the surface foaming, frothing

…

And yet the heart never gets used to

these routine nips and bites

the first gentle, then persistent tugs

on well folded corners of the night

…

Inane and unguarded, it is never prepared

not even with a million blinking lights

and a hundred warning sirens.

not even with a storm in plain sight.

While you passed me by

In the flurry of sifting through my life with you

there are bags of sugar and salt that I left unopened

bags of sweet promises and savory friendships.

…

As I look back the bags refuse to dissolve into the horizon

the more I walk the more I feel the weight of them on my back

and the more I wonder what would’ve been

…

Had I opened up to find joy from less trusted sources

and let myself run amok among drizzles of unfamiliar laughter

Had I not stopped and stopped while you passed me by.

What could be

Its how you always run into moments of time

people and rain-sprinkled trees lining a certain tarred road

and for sometime you assume their shapes.

 

Sitting under a hard edged lamp many years later

none of those moments make sense, they dont fit in neatly

to where you are and where you want to be

and you start to forget that feeling;

 

Fifteen fan-palm leaves

seem to be the only witnesses to those undone nights.

Singing elephants

What is it about the present moment that is never sipped with relish
And that only when it is on the brink of falling back into the pathos of time is it really understood and valued

What is that compulsive need to have a portal into anything that is away, an escape even if for a fleeting moment

What is with these backwards feet and a mind with memories of elephants
And the constant pull to all other directions except the ground beneath.
Now. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow.

Minutes of a ticking clock say to a cuckoo that lives for the next hour.
Sing now.

The lonely ones

The truth is, we always find a way to look beyond history

even if the details are blurred and bokeh-ed

 

The truth is no one waits for you and you don’t wait for them

despite what a certain winter-girl in the children’s books may tell you

 

Is it not right that after a point no one really matters?

that beyond a certain threshold of tolerance the doors lock down?

 

The truth is there aren’t enough people that respect the solitary

and the truth shall always remain that the solitary are outsiders

 

In a world full of nods of agreement and polite smiles,

of what is acceptable and what is right-

 

The solitary shall always be called the lonely ones.

(there is no other way in sight)

Separation

 

 Your absence has gone through me
 Like thread through a needle.
 Everything I do is stitched with its color.
-- W S Merwin

Footsteps

And you wait for the footsteps

in your tiny hopeful heart

they are always drawing closer

getting louder

 

And you stand by the door, then at the balconey

looking down at howling dogs,

they love these insolent nights,

you squint until you see

the feet and the knees and the chest and the heart.

 

And they turn a corner to what you assume is only a five minute flight home

they never turn up, their bodies do,

their souls sit in corners of those cursed nights

too scared to bring light

too scared of happiness.

 

Too scared of life.

and so you wait.

अपनी जुबां

आज-कल अपनी जुबां के लफ्ज़ कहने को मन करता है,

तो मैं इन हवाओं से बात करती हूँ, ये तो एक ही हैं,

यहाँ भी, वहाँ भी,

सोचती हूँ कभी तो उड़ते हुए मेरी आवाज़ पोहोंचेगी,

वहाँ, जहाँ इसे समझने वाले हर सड़क और हर मोड़ पर खड़े हैं, 

शायद उन्हें ये लगे की ये आवाज़, यहीं कहीं है, 

इसी मिटटी में रहती है, कहीं आसपास ही गुनगुनाती है |

फिर सोचती हूँ कैसे रहते हैं लोग अपने आप से दूर, इन अनजान मुल्कों में, 

क्या मोहोब्बत नहीं इन्हें अपनी रूह से ?

ऐसी क्या चीज़ है दुनिया में जो इतनी प्यारी है ?

अपने आप को भुलाने के लिए क्या इतने समुन्दर पार करना ज़रूरी है ? 

ये काम तो हम बंद आखों से ही कर लेते हैं ||

Another world

In a parallel universe, where I’d sit next to you reading Steinbeck

you’d blink your eyes open and shy away from the sun,

 

Its relentless the Indian sun, you’d take my book and cover your face with it,

In a parellel universe you’d like Steinbeck.

 

That is to say, you’d like words, the sheer romance of them,

the song words that I love so much, you’d like them in meter and rhyme.

 

In a parallel universe, you’d read poetry to wake me up,

and we’d spend the day lost in Nerudas and Cummings

 

You’d love my books and smell them with equal passion,

perched on a windowsill, in a parallel universe,

 

you’d understand my verse.

The bougainvillea, the sunset & I

For a minute we sit, the bougainvillea, the sunset and I

in a minute the sun starts to dance, revealing the real colors of everything around

when he’s done, tired but happy he pauses on his knees and asks us to sit next to him again,

he has stories to tell. The kinds that are collected over years of ripe living.

He doesn’t tell them, he only covers my eyes with his palm, the beautiful colors

of the sunset evoking in me my own sunset stories, that bring me back

many years to a simpler time,

and slowly we catch each others fingers in reassurance,

the fluid rays beaming through mine, making them almost transparent.

Simpler times are indeed in the mind.

Nothing really changes- on leaving

The sun peeking out from avenues of the city,
Many tiny dreams hang like lanterns on windows facing each other

A scramble of feet, of nannies, dogs, the elite and the homeless.

Sometimes I feel nothing really changes, no matter how many roofs you have on your head
And how many cities you switch

The heart is essentially a homeless urchin
Sitting on a busy streets with all it’s hoarded living wrapped up in delicate muslin.

Rain in a different country

The droplets of water hanging from the railing

reflect an upside down world,

The tree just outside my window, waving

from a different country

Inside,

the smells of my country persist

The friends persist,

so do my dreams;

Of looking out and finding the colors,

the mud, the songs of familiarity

Of a rain which slaps you with its speed and smells.

Of not having to fly over days, countries, continents, sunrises and sunsets

to reach what I carry in my kitchen cabinet.

The Winter Sun

Somehow in the spaces of time when you feel utterly lost,

from a sudden pause, a vacant week,

arrives empty

in your letterbox, post marked for today;

…

You will sit and listen more carefully to the sounds of people walking

down the staircase outside, then walking up, by you,

…

You will notice a song who used to be your midnight friend, playing

in the background, as you look up and finally

start noticing things too close,

…

like particles in air, that become visible only with the sun

the particles that encircle and dance

as you breathe.

13 Ways of Looking at Insomnia

I
Deep love for big dipper
eyes open, not missing
a speck, a grain, a drop of light

II
Mind, a minute a mile
familiar blur of subway tiles

III
Broken bones and restless sighs
an accident, a mistake, lost in time

IV
A late brunch,
a leisurely Sunday
long stretches of time

V
I shall not mourn,
a voice my head
a telling sign

VI
A scratch on the back
and sounds feline

VII
Kindred souls and sympathetic smiles
pajamas and pillow fights

VIII
Spirits in a glass,
a party and red wine

IX
A wish to be granted
a holler, a cry
a young hopeful mind

X
A mind that ticks
in no particular rhyme
a lost soul and a different chime

XI
In blinding lights and noises
eyes that reflect too much,
and don’t know the time

XII
Encounters in familiar places
positive and negative spaces
Undone, amorphous pillow-cases.

XIII
A rocking chair, and a book
untouched sheets
and sterile nooks.

Done for Creative Writing Course at SVA.

Looking for Poetry -Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Don’t write poems about what’s happening.

Nothing is born or dies in poetry’s presence.

Next to it, life is a static sun

without warmth or light.

Friendships, birthdays, personal matters don’t count.

Don’t write poems with the body,

that excellent, whole, and confortable body objects to lyrical

     outpouring.

your anger, your grimace of pleasure or pain in the dark

mean nothing.

Don;t show your feelings

that are slow in coming around and take advantage of doubt.

What you think and feel are not poetry yet.

 

Don’t sing about your city, leave it in peace.

Song is not the movement of machines or the secret of houses.

It is not music heard in passing, noise of the sea in streets

     that skirt the borders of foam.

Song is not nature

or men in society.

Rain and night, fatigue and hope, mean nothing to it.

Poetry(you dont’t get it from things)

leaves out subject and object.

 

Don’t dramatize, don’t invoke,

don’t question, don’t waste time lying.

Don’t get upset.

Your ivory yacht, your diamond shoe,

your mazurkas and your tirades, your family skeletons,

all of them worthless, disappear in the curve of time.

 

Don’t bring up

your sad and buried childhood.

Don’t waver between mirror

and a fading memory.

What faded was not poetry.

What broke was not crystal.

 

Enter the kingdom of words as if you were deaf.

Poems are there that want to be written.

They are dormant, but don’t be let down,

their virginal surfaces are fresh and serene.

They are alone and mute, in dictionary condition.

Live with your poems before you write them.

if they’re vague, be patient. If they offend be calm.

Wait until each comes into its own and demolishes

with its command of words,

and its command of silence.

Don’t force poems to let go of limbo.

Don’t pick up lost poems from the ground.

Don’t fawn over poems. Accept them

as you would their final and definitive form,

distilled in space.

 

Come close and consider the words.

With a plain face hiding thousands of other faces

and with no interest in your response,

whether weak or strong,

each word asks:

Did you bring the key?

 

Take note:

words hide in the night

in caves of music and image.

Still humid and pregnant with sleep

they turn in a winding river and by neglect are transformed.

 

-translated from Portugese by Mark Strand.

On writing about love

“The easiest pitfall while writing is to write about love,

because i’m afraid you will get too sentimental,

Write about it by all means if you are a love cynic,

but I guess you are too young to be cynical about love.”

 

-Professor McKinzie in the Creative Writing Class.

I am Vertical- Sylvia Plath

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one’s longevity and the other’s daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them–
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

Lost and Found

Words shape thoughts,

thoughts of cotton, thoughts of fluid

thoughts of

mercury.

…

Words becomes lines,

lines of a jumper, lines of a notebook

lines of clouds

sky bound.

…

Words written in ink,

inking of past, inking of future

inking of the spirit

found.

The Turquoise Door

Every morning since the last 10 years Devika wakes up at precisely 4.30 am to perform her daily prayers. Her day thus begins and is calculated in precise intervals made up of her tasks. Her movements are swift and calculated, gliding through much of the day this way, she wonders where her hours disappear. She works from home as a freelance artist, and hence there are days when she has to invent work for herself, and then there are days when she doesn’t have time to even look at her reflection in the mirror the whole day. She started wearing white sarees with a gold border after she visited Kerala(a southern state in India) a few years ago, and felt they suited her the best amongst everything she had ever worn, and decided to wear sarees from that day on. She stands out in the western-wear clad young women on the streets and likes it that way. She ties her important keys to the end of her saree, as she tends to misplace things easily, and as a result all her sarees have a knotted end. The white and gold fabric gives her dusky complexion a prophetic glow.

She dislikes mobile phones and keeps one only to satisfy her parents, and now Vivek her fiancee, who lives with her. She keeps her house spotless and immaculate. All furniture is handpicked by her from various craft emporiums, to create her dream home. There is a room at the back of the house she keeps locked, the turquoise color of the door a sharp contrast to the warm hues in the rest of the house. The keys of this door, she lost a few years ago, and since there was nothing important in the room to begin with, she soon forgot about it. Yesterday, Vivek asked her about the door, she suddenly realized she hasn’t opened that room in close to 2 years, almost as long as she knew Vivek.

She decides to get the door opened by a locksmith, and clear the room to make it her Art studio. As the door is opened, a cursory glance reveals some objects that she had forgotten in her busy schedule. A close examination reveals objects collected from three years spent as a nomadic artist travelling in Europe, Turkey, Japan, and Sri Lanka, on various art residencies. A few polaroids are enough to launch a strong bout of nostalgia. The girl in the picture, even though only 3 years younger looks actually 6 years younger, she looks happy and carefree, and is not afraid of being alone. The beret, the paints on fingers, the flowing hair, the arm wrapped around her waist. She wonders who that arm belonged to. A tight affectionate hold, and a look of wonder in her eyes as she see him. Travel was always her first love, but she chose to be in one stable place after she got engaged to Vivek. It was her decision. What would that girl in the polaroid be doing now? Where would she be? In Paris perhaps sipping coffee and biting off rainbow colored macaroons. Those moments seem like bokeh, bright, shiny, yet out of focus. She sets the polaroids back on the shelf, and goes through the rest of the items, each one invoking a particular memory, smell, space, an altogether different past. She spends her entire day there, sifting through and putting the objects back, carefully arranging them exactly in the spot she found them. She looks at the time, and realizes that Vivek would be back any minute, she also remembers that she had scheduled two client meetings, which she has now missed.

As Vivek’s car pulls up in the driveway, she quickly darts back to the kitchen, to prepare some tea, looking back to ensure the turquoise door locked firmly behind her as she left.

Done for a creative writing workshop at School Of Visual Arts, NYC

“Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”

-says Winnie the Pooh via NYPL

Do you remember the somnambulant nights?

The warm mattress beckons with a warm striped quilt, where I can tuck my head and escape from reality, so fast, running to reach the world where I belong truly. Where nothing is permanent, yet nothing temporary, where everything is a figment yet everything has a deep rooted reason for being there. Where nothing can be deciphered and everything is a mystery. Where no one in the world except me can design what happens and what doesn’t, who enters and who doesn’t, where I can meet you and sit endlessly, under the ghost-lit tree, where we can talk, falling asleep on each others shoulders, listening to the birds chirp as the night turns into many mornings. This chill in my fingers today, reminds me of that time, when hours could afford to stand still and the nip in the air was just enough to sit close by and talk for 37 hours and more.

Never running out of conversation, or love. Never running out of somnambulant smiles.

Super Sad True Love Story- A Review

“Today I’ve made a major decision. I’m never going to die.” writes Lenny Abramov in his diary, and the first sentence of the book. And immediately, one is curious to know more.

The book is set in post literate American culture and traces the lives of Lenny Abramov and his love interest Eunice Park. Lenny is middle aged, balding and out of shape son of Russian immigrant parents, and is working as the Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator (Grade G) at the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, a firm that specializes in life extension, while Eunice, hails from a Koren immigrant family and is the daughter of an abusive father and an exceedingly submissive Korean mother, she has finished her studies with a major in Assertiveness and Images.

For Lenny it is love at first sight, while Eunice struggles to make herself love him, is constantly repulsed by his looks, often calling him “nerd-face”,  and afraid to look at them together in the mirror. But as the story progresses, she grudgingly, hesitantly starts to value his loyalty. What binds them together however, is their struggle with their own inferiority complexes, and Lenny’s complete devotion to Eunice. The points where Lenny is overcome with unbridled love for Eunice, are the parts that give a deep richness to Gary Shteyngart’s text
“The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons —
it was systemic and it was complete.” is by far, the most evocative and accurate description of love I have ever come across.

The story take cues from the current American financial situation and extrapolates it into the future, creating a dark vision of the future generations, their environments and their reactions to it.

Every time the tone shifts from Lenny’s realistic diary entries to Eunice’s teenage, pornography studded, shallow exchanges through her äppärät (a device that is the centre of everyones lives, and live-streams all that is still considered private and sacred, willingly), one cannot help cringing. Perhaps that was the intended reaction as the book, like a pendulum oscillates between the superficial nature of future communications and the disconcerting but touching account of love and loss, which leaves you deeply uncomfortable.

Gary Shteyngart’s dystopian vision of America is indeed disturbing, so much so that one doesn’t know till the very end, and even after that, if they should absolutely love the book or absolutely despise it. His America of the future while teetering on the brink of a colossal meltdown, is inhabited by people who find books ‘smelly’, who want to live forever, who shop at AssLuxury and JuicyPussyline for nippleless bras, communicate through a Global teens account, and are constantly assessed through the street-side credit rating poles.

This vision of America while written to be severe, fails to elicit any sympathy, but causes an unrest that one cannot begin to give words to.

The part that keeps the narrative together however is Lenny’s relationship with Eunice, and his parents, his daily diary entries, and his endearing struggle to love New York. Clearly demonstrated in this line from Lenny’s diary “Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it’s not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.” .

In pieces, throughout the book you are forced to dislike Eunice less, when looking beneath her words, you find a vulnerability that leaves you stunned with its poignant sadness.

It is this poignant sadness that hits you hard, at some points in the book, while leaving other parts acutely emotion-less and desperately satirical. Only after reading the book, does one realize, how aptly it is titled, a perfect mix of the deep melancholy sparkling through the pages and the biting crudeness embedded in the language.

This is a book that consistently smells of grief and the inevitable decay of human society, wafting through the air, as you turn its pages, and is truly a Super Sad True Love Story.

Go Read!

The Year That Was

 

A year of regrets and afternoon naps
new shores and marauder’s maps,

Of heart shaped secrets
and bellowing gaps,

Of biscuits and books
and solitary nooks,

Of petrichor eyes
and sheepish smiles,

A year together, a year alone
Of whistling djinns and vagrant bones.

A Super Sad True Love Story

“The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons-it was systemic and it was complete”

- Lenny Abramov in a Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary Shteyngart
swoon

In a blink

Never there,
These winds and cries for help
Witnessing desperately;

Never there,
These helpless appeals
Humming;

Never there,

When I’m lost
Not to be found
You will sing-

Never there,
And then resume.

Swiftly,
In a blink.

Returned

In all the years, the one looming truth.

I can see now fading, in an old red telephone booth.

…

A teenager rebelling against my own old self.

I can see now returning my rulebooks of wefts.

…

Of foundations that seemed so deep rooted,

now unnecessary, stand refuted.

…

Of the joys and pits and widths and depths

shrunk and hollow and narrow and bereft.

…

Of new truths and new lights

Of new sights with big, bright, brown eyes.

Days like this

There will be days like this,

sitting alone, in recovery, when the mind that runs a minute a mile

slows down, to chew on the things that really matter.

…

is flummoxed by the rich creamy feeling of feeling

in this narrow laned and always chained city

in this grey stoned and very marooned city

…

Even if for a few hours before the world falls down,

even if it is by force of recovery

by chance

by accident

…

The feeling of feeling that socks you in the gut

with its force and vastness,

with its blur and sharpness.

…

The love that is always around, if not in sight

then just around the corner,

if not in flight,

then just around

the feeling of feeling.

Maggie and Milly and Molly and May by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Day light saving

Sixty minutes of sunlight, now an hour early,

sunkissed songs, waft in the spaces of my mind;

in between perfumed conversations, the numbers on the clock,

spell out a magic hour;

…

The hour of songs that, located in memory-space

from decades ago, have since begun to

shimmer with repeated invoking.

…

The magic hour of half stringed conversations,

that gradually piece together to form,

a sunlit journey worth writing for.

The Unfastened Heart

Over time, certain knots, loosen,

knots that were tied hurriedly to keep two disparate ends together,

with the faith that, in knotting twice, three times, over again will

fortify –

invisible threads that tie our hearts,

a million tiny strings tied end to end,

to form the webbing of time,

all coming undone, little by little;

 

The unfastening of hearts is such.

Of a dream and other quaint places

In the spaces of this dream that turns

two this year,

 

Another one, spread itself under my feet, uninvited,

a bit too suddenly, too swift to be seen in clarity,

without a whiff of white and black and most importantly grey.

 

Grey, that is formed of a medley of notes,

some muddy, some inaudible, some pastel, of now

 

Some others, more fluorescent and vivid.

brilliant luminous colors that peek from

familiar folds of old singing diaries.

 

Songs of a dream and other quaint places.

At last

...

and keeping with our custom,

there are bits of paper

in this pocket,

Useless,

I know,

but I love them nonetheless.

Dont know why,

But then, that’s how one loves right?

without much reason.

Scheherazade by Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

 

 

IF YOU FORGET ME by Pablo Neruda translated by Donald S. Walsh

I want you to know one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon,
at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live
it will be in your arms without leaving mine

Declutter

Lets declutter our lives.

Of people, Of places,

Of milestones, and lost races.

…

Of uneventful childhoods, of bookcases,

of ruthless lovers, and their romantic phases.

…

Lets declutter our lives.

Of a past that no one faces,

and of happier futures that the whole world chases.

Erratic Winds

These things happen, or so I hear,

between the moments of wishing and getting, many a winds whirl by.

 

Not the ones that break your back, or the ones that howl.

Winds that pick you up and drop you in a different wish.

 

These things will happen, you say,

I hear you. I agree.

 

Reservior

For some, its a well shaped room,

with them at the centre. Centre of all the well and beyond,

much beyond the well as well;

All the bricks all the cement, streets, windows and trains

all lead there.

…

Garnering, acquiring, collecting, swallowing

everything and everyone, is for them. is them.

Nothing leaves, is given, offered, donated, not for anyone.

Its all in there somewhere. Stashed Greed.

जीवन की आपाधापी में

Came across this brilliant brilliant poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan on the web. Must read for those who understand and appreciate hindi poetry.

जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

जिस दिन मेरी चेतना जगी मैंने देखा
मैं खड़ा हुआ हूँ इस दुनिया के मेले में,
हर एक यहाँ पर एक भुलाने में भूला
हर एक लगा है अपनी अपनी देन-लेन में
कुछ देर रहा हक्का-बक्का, भौचक्का-सा,
आ गया कहाँ, क्या करूँ यहाँ, जाऊँ किस जाहा?
फिर एक तरफ से आया ही तो धक्का-सा
मैंने भी बहना शुरू किया उस रेले में,
क्या बाहर की ठेला-पेली ही कुछ कम थी,
जो भीतर भी भावों का ऊहापोह मचा,
जो किया, उसी को करने की मजबूरी थी,
जो कहा, वही मन के अंदर से उबल चला,
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

मेला जितना भड़कीला रंग-रंगीला था,
मानस के अन्दर उतनी ही कमज़ोरी थी,
जितना ज़्यादा संचित करने की ख़्वाहिश थी,
उतनी ही छोटी अपने कर की झोरी थी,
जितनी ही बिरमे रहने की थी अभिलाषा,
उतना ही रेले तेज ढकेले जाते थे,
क्रय-विक्रय तो ठण्ढे दिल से हो सकता है,
यह तो भागा-भागी की छीना-छोरी थी;
अब मुझसे पूछा जाता है क्या बतलाऊँ
क्या मान अकिंचन बिखराता पथ पर आया,
वह कौन रतन अनमोल मिला ऐसा मुझको,
जिस पर अपना मन प्राण निछावर कर आया,
यह थी तकदीरी बात मुझे गुण दोष न दो
जिसको समझा था सोना, वह मिट्टी निकली,
जिसको समझा था आँसू, वह मोती निकला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

मैं कितना ही भूलूँ, भटकूँ या भरमाऊँ,
है एक कहीं मंज़िल जो मुझे बुलाती है,
कितने ही मेरे पाँव पड़े ऊँचे-नीचे,
प्रतिपल वह मेरे पास चली ही आती है,
मुझ पर विधि का आभार बहुत-सी बातों का।
पर मैं कृतज्ञ उसका इस पर सबसे ज़्यादा -
नभ ओले बरसाए, धरती शोले उगले,
अनवरत समय की चक्की चलती जाती है,
मैं जहाँ खड़ा था कल उस थल पर आज नहीं,
कल इसी जगह पर पाना मुझको मुश्किल है,
ले मापदंड जिसको परिवर्तित कर देतीं
केवल छूकर ही देश-काल की सीमाएँ
जग दे मुझपर फैसला उसे जैसा भाए
लेकिन मैं तो बेरोक सफ़र में जीवन के
इस एक और पहलू से होकर निकल चला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

 

via here

Never Apt

Such is the meanness of the human spirit,

to keep everything, to own all,

but to never commit, to owning, to keeping, to cherishing

even the closest of them all.

…

Such is love,

to want proofs and tests, and galleons of salt water.

and yet be realised only in, I.C.Us and hospital corridors.

even for the dearest of them all.

…

Such is the tragedy of loving in a human way.

never complete,

never open,

never apt.

never at least to last.

…

Can the world not shutup,

for just one grateful day???

or half?

a minute?

blink

To not feel, is to grow,

or so they say, the ones with

content, conscious lives.

…

to not express is to die a little,

or so we say, the ones with

transparent eyes.

…

so here, i, stuck in limbo,

for i am briefly (i hope) with the ones

that express without feeling, without joy, without hope,

without sadness, without guilt, without vulnerability,

without the ability to translate and decode, the

cipher left in my mind, by my now foggy eyes.

…

so pray for an edge. for my eyes to find a permanent state.

to see without the mind tampering with vision.

…

to find my feet with my eyes.

of curses that occur suddenly

can i carry the burden or someone else’s mindless mistake on my back all my life,
And pretend that there is a reason to it,
And console myself that it could be much worse

Why should i?
Let it prick and remind me
Of the form that blind trust takes
When it is let down
When it leaves you numb
When it does the kind of damage
That is irrepairable

There is not enough anger in me
For such insensitivity
For such carelessness
For the devil flitting across

Do i smile then?
Forgiving is a sham.
Its all overrated.

only melting can erase the ink
Of uncaring deep , mistakes.

Forgiving is out of question.
Curses more natural and fair.

Brown

The color of the human soul, is brown.

the marks it leaves, are a deep reddish brown, like a wound.

Even though it rained this morning, I noticed,

the color of the ocean.

now is brown.

waltzing again

Its like waltz, this constant indecision,

this constant cacophony of needs, of fears and of vocabularies

one step forwards, and two back

a side step, a swirl, a headrush, and back to position.

And then in this step-keeping of a seemingly organised dance form,

your eyes meet mine, our feet and bodies glide in perfect harmony.

So what, if the music will last only for a little while longer.

and then we’ll stagger again, to find our balance, our feet,

in this unknown, unpredictable form of togetherness.