short fictions. poetry. pictures.
A summer night’s dream
Dreamt in many languages
Carving the same name
On whitewashed walls
Squinting against the 3:30 pm sun
Swaying in the reluctant breeze
Always in the same colour
Even when stripped of all colour
I only see you in the peculiar pink
of the bougainvillea of my dreams
Catching the dusty sun beyond my home;
Across a line of borrowed water
Dying, still, between two slabs of concrete;
Grey half-circles under its eyes,
In a hurry to leave,
The day’s pending jobs hiding in twilight
To reappear at daybreak
When a dusty sun rises.
Am I doing the cliché,
looking at a poem, and thinking of you?
Did I make you smile, bitterly,
Looking at this poem, and thinking of me?
There are two magical words in the language of poets:
Qurbat, is one.
You’d know, I’m near.
I had to leave,
The part of me behind,
The one that could not stop loving you.
Moajza, is the second.
It is nothing short of a miracle.
To have my heart pried open,
By a year that is passing.
I looked at a poem,
And I thought of you.
Do you see them, in hundreds?
Dancing to the river’s music
The breeze carried.
Do you see the forevers etched
in their veins?
To be dead tomorrow.
There is a lot hidden, under your skin.
Memories travel unbidden, under your skin.
What countries lie unmapped, unexplored, in wait,
Their languages in riddles, under your skin.
Their dried up oceans have now become heaps of sand,
Perhaps there are pearls hidden, under your skin.
Those sights and sounds and smells you remember so!
They have unsuspected triggers, under your skin.
The shadows that stay up nights, replaying yesterdays,
Their puppet master lives hidden, under your skin.
Sal, you ought to think, before you’re played again,
There is a world forbidden, under your skin.
The ocean takes away pieces of my soul,
I cannot leave, I am the shore.
I wake from nightmares of blinding lights
to your clear voice, whispering,
“Hush! Come here,
Hush! Its okay, come”, and you hang up
I pry my eyes open
I want to see your face, you’re here
before I fall
into a dazzling wakefulness again
into familiar streets, deserted
in a town I think I know
a lone bull in stark sunlight
chases memories to trample
I hide in empty houses
my father waits;
he brought me water
he knows I return thirsty,
with an empty water-bottle;
at a little shop outside the city gates
Isn’t this the ancient mariner‘s curse?
You’re an ocean
And I’ve no water to drink.
Have you been bold enough to write in red?
In life, Red may have told you of its grandiose of love and passion
it’s twin mistresses.
Do you remember a life before that?
When red only glared at mistakes?
I chose to write our lives in red.
I’ll let you decide if this will be one glaring error
Or another, that is love.
How easy it is to write your name;
How easy to make your language my own;
How easily the curves come to my hands,
When I trace the words on your body
As if your skin was paper
And I was writing a letter to…
What is my name?Do you remember?
I must’ve given it to you to keep safe –
That day, when I stripped off
All the masks of dignity and propriety,
And stood before you,
Shrunk,
Me.
Let me hear the shape of my name in your mouth.
Find it tangled in the lines of your hand;
Touch it in your voice;
Tell me my name,
For I have forgotten.
I picked a few empty shells
along your shore.
Empty homes of your children
now long gone;
Echoing you, the breeze, and
their conversations with the sand.
I wear them around my neck,
at a home away from you;
Little kisses, a sunset, and love
rest on my bones.
कड़वाहट की मीठी ख़ुशबू
मोहब्बत के अफ़साने कुछ
धीरे से गर्माते दिन में
मिल जाएँ अनजाने कुछ
ये ख़याल मिरे तुम लेते जाओ
आधे हैं पैमाने कुछ
शाम हुए जल उठते हैं जब
आते जुगनू और परवाने कुछ
अधूरी बातें, ख़्वाब मुकम्मल
धुँधले कुछ, पहचाने कुछ
बातें करते सन्नाटों में
रिश्तों के ताने-बाने कुछ
कुछ यादों को भूलो तुम भी
दिन बीते, और शामें कुछ
ढलती शामों में बहने दो
यादों के वीराने कुछ
amapola 