A NOTE; i have always believed men in love cannot live beyond their amateurish , quixotic attempts at poetry..very rarely do we touch the true blood of a well lived moment..the romanticism confuses us, i guess..hence , i ask you to read these in their due context and laugh it off, if you have to..for , when i sat down to compile , a long time after these were written, the person who wrote these seems very alien to me...as alien he may seem to you
WHY I AM SMOKING THIS CIGARETTE?
we looked at each other
and that
was the beginning
and the end
of a geography drawn with a charcoal stick
by the shaman of love
in that land
we commonly own
but cannot take home
like a piece of stolen cake ,
dwells our little daughter
who will never be born
the color of the blossoms
flowering in her head
we will never see but
always scent
for in the autumn of our lives,
we would stand under an odd tree
that still blooms yellow flowers like spring
while you continue to blush and refuse
like in the teens...
p.s ; inspired by the song- carnival of rust- poets of the fall
is a paradox,
coming with the only streak of light
that drifts into our common room...
the wetness reminds me of darkness
and still air..
and also a pristine voice that
is clothed
only with your prejudices...
it is a nakedness that talks to mine
it is feminine and motherly
and uncold ...
then it leaves me altogether
and
the morning light next day is a perversion-
that brightness is a poison
4.DESERT THE FOUNTAIN
perhaps i could start like neruda
we could retire to our private horizons in a venetian gondola
and there we would kiss till i die..
no, then , i know even dreams are not that merciful..
and romance has not been my forte ,
since we chose to burn the small town down..
everytime a word or a phrase that would twist itself
into that funny place between love and dream
in a cosy poem, presents itself
i dread it, transform it into a passage about
kindness , charity or sympathy
and finally smother it out of existence.....
and then i mourn alone
the slow death of a flower
that blooms in a forbidden city
everytime a man falls in love...
and withers
when his love dries up...
the sadness is in drying up..
and
in waking up at odd times
knowing you cant really love again
....
p.s. thanks be to abbas , who inspired certain lines of this poem and sir ed hart whose words sparkled it
...
again
in a stage where
all the men and women
are already actors
our act is an act
within an act
our dialogues are anticipated
but not rehearsed
our gestures follow the rules
but carry a mysterious symbolism
that only both of us understand
too perfectly
and hence mock the stage
and other honorable actors
but your eyes
and that look
today
were neither anticipated nor rehearsed
those eyes of
an angel
with pristine wings ,
unbelonging and far away
alighting in my lowly earth
just for a light second
that , my dear
was OUT OF THIS WORLD
6..ANCESTRY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND OTHER THINGS
1 millionyears ago , a man appeared out of lake turkana in kenya
he had buried his twelve year old son in its bank,
he had a sloping forehead , half the brain of a modern human
and no chin..
he ventured out of africa .and his sons and grandsons copulated with
the chinless women of middle east and europe..
some of them went to southern russia
and rolled with the wild horses and tribes of the never ending steppes..
they were to enter india
scores of lakhs of years later..
the half brains grew double, the chins appeared out of nowhere.
and the sloping foreheads rounded beautifully,
women and men were presentable.
then in india,
far south of the himalayas, arising from a subspecies
born out of a climatic divide,
a brainless youngman(as they always are, when in love)
is working out his ancestry..
thinking of his ambitions in a queer world
cursing his ancestors for his failed love..
once in a while rubbing his
slightly sloping forehead that
came from the twelve year old boy in lake turkana ..
now described by the archaeologists who dug him out of his grave..
as
A COMPLETE FOSSIL SKELETON EXTREMELY USEFUL IN TRACING THE
EVOLUTION OF HOMO SAPIENS...
- written by the young man with a slightly sloping forehead
december 2009
with significant information obtained out of reading the morning HINDU one thursday
7. A SERIES OF JUDGEMENT DAYS
another time you walk out my door
that was never closed ..
your eyes are on me,
i turn into shades of colors
myriad and unnamable..
is it your color screens
or my chameleon being..
i never wished i knew..
another time you pass that judgement and wait for my eyes..
waiting to see what i would become
under the slowly descending hammer
and broken fountain pen..
i shrink away as a snail would..
away from your pincers
into the web of my own questions
ceaselessly knit by a spinster woman
in her choiceless loneliness..
with a throw of your head,
another time you walk out the door...
you walk out on me..
away from me..
as i watch enchanted, for the one thousandth time ,
madly in crazy love..
and in vain, i try to walk out on myself
through the door that was never closed..
through the door that was never closed
- june 28, 2010
i switch on the audio
this song transports me
thousand years back
when i had visited the earth again
you were in the prince's court
and we sang ballads in his praise
there was no rock music then
then one day
the prince flogged us in the
open
for transgressing the law of the slaves
and shamelessly falling in love
we wondered then,
how long...
2
two hundred thousand years back
we did not need marriage
to make love in the wild grass
one day i left you behind
in search of breakfast
you never heard of me after that
there was no blues then
dying in loneliness
we had wondered then,
how long..
3
the song is over
now i wonder
you left me yesterday
professing radical feminism
(though i agree with you)
while being in love with the whole of your being
your resistance, your callous palms
and your never ceasing bellicose laughter,
how long ....
in yesterday's half-dusk
the twilight girl ;
she is so beautiful,
but i must go..
my thick red blood conjures a canvas
the landscape of a disease
in the hypochondriac's nightmare ...
my body is now a mushroom bomb
waiting to blast over..
but the twilight girl is beautiful
though i must go..
so i feed on my nausea
and travel to the distant desert land..
there , i lie down
and wait...
for the final act...
In the lakes of morning silence..
World is filled with silence
And silence
The latter is an euphemism veiled
Hitherto as music..
I am telling you
One thousand stories tonight..
The music player could be
A lonely tap running in my lonely bathroom..
Or the moon drawing blood on the unseen river
of a forgotten jazz beat ..
What difference will it make?
I have to bide this night alone
Trying not to think of you
confesses in feeble tones ,
meekly failing to cleanse my mind
of your thoughts,
pleasing to my senses
as the convectional rain
of hot summer days...
those eyes which once
dispersed a block of ice
into a solid rainbow
now lie behind
the horizons of time ..
i tire , stretching my hands
in mute despair
when i roll around , feeling the rough threads
of my bedspread and insomnia..
my moustache has grown..
i am five inches too tall..
i look back
at her, that uncertain relationship
with the most beautiful woman of my life..
at our ragged palms bleeding ,
polka dotting the snow of our separation..
as we pulled at the ropes
of each other's hearts,
sometimes pining in the effort,
sometimes wishing it ended..
the blues and greens, golds and whites of
the trails in water
of that crazy eel like love..
now i am going back to the black
of a night that wouldnt give me sleep..
of a dawn that wouldnt assure me
ambitions or tears or relieving failures..
somewhere in the cacophony
of the ghosts, gods , wine and music
i fall asleep
and wake up again...
my immortal beloved..
i have not thought much of you these days..
perhaps you left behind some of your rain clouds
that trail you like a disappointed balloon vendor..
i am down with fever
shivering like an abandoned squirrel
beneath two blankets made of fur...
this winter is cruel, my once sweet love..
a spider is spinning its life inside me
memories laugh at me like the forgotten dead
at odd hours....
and all things around me..
the steel chair and straw mattress
they suddenly have waged a silent war..
while all i want is a hug
and something to hold onto
as i sleep... animate or inanimate ..
so,i have left my lights on,
they warm up my body..
but their stare
is so cold upon my soul..
friendless and unloved...
the last smite of a street urchin's staff
on a man dying of consumption..
the winter has come,
my dear ..
will i survive till the spring
14.LOVE, REDROSE AND COMIC BOOKS
from behind the coconut tree household,
the sun comes up every morning
chasing crows across the day sky
i collect their shadows and lost feathers ..
keep them in a private safe
i think of mother,
when she fed me with riceballs ,
sun was a cartoon in the comic book
nestled between two mountains , always unnamed ..
i reverie her warmth
that first taught me the science of love
i m searching for the lessons i didnt care to take notes ..
love travels like sunlight on water
and drowns deep at nights..
while aeroplanes travel the star studded sky
of a poet’s cliched world..
the groundfloor boy rushes in for the video games..
i picture him ten years later..
and want to hug him and cry..
but i m the secondfloor anna who knows everything
who couldnt be weak..
the crow feathers are crawling out of my safe
drawing on the night ..
keep a red rose on my cemetry
for the love i couldnt give this world
WHY I AM SMOKING THIS CIGARETTE?
i would have preferred
your lips darling
would ve been sweeter
or perhaps
your words
that angrily beseech me not to smoke ..
the hint of love in that sternness
like sunshine through my cracking roof ..
or the scent of your anger
childish and useless;
like fighting your dolls
, advising them ...
codes of conduct in a filthy world
of unkept promises ...
it has been a long time, darling
three months and twenty days
since the last one
..in my world this is
a light year traveled at the speed of snail
but this will be an exception .
just this one..
i want to see
if i can be playful and dead serious
flirt around with lies
and yet be completely honest..
cheat you badly and still be loved
intrude into soft territory
yet not be caught stealing;
still in bed
yet awake to your tenderness
and warmth
the cancer creeps down and
the smoke moves up;
death and life caught in the
the vacuum in between ;
magdeburg's hemispheres and a dozen beautiful horses
trying their might
prying apart a coalition made in heaven ..
but the look in your eyes..
tender coconuts
and kitkat wafers...
brown outside
and white inside;
breaking first
and jelling next;
what are you telling me ..
yes this WILL be the last..
promise .....
your lips darling
would ve been sweeter
or perhaps
your words
that angrily beseech me not to smoke ..
the hint of love in that sternness
like sunshine through my cracking roof ..
or the scent of your anger
childish and useless;
like fighting your dolls
, advising them ...
codes of conduct in a filthy world
of unkept promises ...
it has been a long time, darling
three months and twenty days
since the last one
..in my world this is
a light year traveled at the speed of snail
but this will be an exception .
just this one..
i want to see
if i can be playful and dead serious
flirt around with lies
and yet be completely honest..
cheat you badly and still be loved
intrude into soft territory
yet not be caught stealing;
still in bed
yet awake to your tenderness
and warmth
the cancer creeps down and
the smoke moves up;
death and life caught in the
the vacuum in between ;
magdeburg's hemispheres and a dozen beautiful horses
trying their might
prying apart a coalition made in heaven ..
but the look in your eyes..
tender coconuts
and kitkat wafers...
brown outside
and white inside;
breaking first
and jelling next;
what are you telling me ..
yes this WILL be the last..
promise .....
2 . AUTUMN OF A LOVE
and that
was the beginning
and the end
of a geography drawn with a charcoal stick
by the shaman of love
in that land
we commonly own
but cannot take home
like a piece of stolen cake ,
dwells our little daughter
who will never be born
the color of the blossoms
flowering in her head
we will never see but
always scent
for in the autumn of our lives,
we would stand under an odd tree
that still blooms yellow flowers like spring
while you continue to blush and refuse
like in the teens...
p.s ; inspired by the song- carnival of rust- poets of the fall
3. INTERPRETING LOVE
The wetness in the evening lightis a paradox,
coming with the only streak of light
that drifts into our common room...
the wetness reminds me of darkness
and still air..
and also a pristine voice that
is clothed
only with your prejudices...
it is a nakedness that talks to mine
it is feminine and motherly
and uncold ...
then it leaves me altogether
and
the morning light next day is a perversion-
that brightness is a poison
4.DESERT THE FOUNTAIN
perhaps i could start like neruda
we could retire to our private horizons in a venetian gondola
and there we would kiss till i die..
no, then , i know even dreams are not that merciful..
and romance has not been my forte ,
since we chose to burn the small town down..
everytime a word or a phrase that would twist itself
into that funny place between love and dream
in a cosy poem, presents itself
i dread it, transform it into a passage about
kindness , charity or sympathy
and finally smother it out of existence.....
and then i mourn alone
the slow death of a flower
that blooms in a forbidden city
everytime a man falls in love...
and withers
when his love dries up...
the sadness is in drying up..
and
in waking up at odd times
knowing you cant really love again
....
p.s. thanks be to abbas , who inspired certain lines of this poem and sir ed hart whose words sparkled it
...
5. WHERE ART THOU, SHAKESPEARE?
we go playactingagain
in a stage where
all the men and women
are already actors
our act is an act
within an act
our dialogues are anticipated
but not rehearsed
our gestures follow the rules
but carry a mysterious symbolism
that only both of us understand
too perfectly
and hence mock the stage
and other honorable actors
but your eyes
and that look
today
were neither anticipated nor rehearsed
those eyes of
an angel
with pristine wings ,
unbelonging and far away
alighting in my lowly earth
just for a light second
that , my dear
was OUT OF THIS WORLD
6..ANCESTRY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND OTHER THINGS
1 millionyears ago , a man appeared out of lake turkana in kenya
he had buried his twelve year old son in its bank,
he had a sloping forehead , half the brain of a modern human
and no chin..
he ventured out of africa .and his sons and grandsons copulated with
the chinless women of middle east and europe..
some of them went to southern russia
and rolled with the wild horses and tribes of the never ending steppes..
they were to enter india
scores of lakhs of years later..
the half brains grew double, the chins appeared out of nowhere.
and the sloping foreheads rounded beautifully,
women and men were presentable.
then in india,
far south of the himalayas, arising from a subspecies
born out of a climatic divide,
a brainless youngman(as they always are, when in love)
is working out his ancestry..
thinking of his ambitions in a queer world
cursing his ancestors for his failed love..
once in a while rubbing his
slightly sloping forehead that
came from the twelve year old boy in lake turkana ..
now described by the archaeologists who dug him out of his grave..
as
A COMPLETE FOSSIL SKELETON EXTREMELY USEFUL IN TRACING THE
EVOLUTION OF HOMO SAPIENS...
- written by the young man with a slightly sloping forehead
december 2009
with significant information obtained out of reading the morning HINDU one thursday
7. A SERIES OF JUDGEMENT DAYS
another time you walk out my door
that was never closed ..
your eyes are on me,
i turn into shades of colors
myriad and unnamable..
is it your color screens
or my chameleon being..
i never wished i knew..
another time you pass that judgement and wait for my eyes..
waiting to see what i would become
under the slowly descending hammer
and broken fountain pen..
i shrink away as a snail would..
away from your pincers
into the web of my own questions
ceaselessly knit by a spinster woman
in her choiceless loneliness..
with a throw of your head,
another time you walk out the door...
you walk out on me..
away from me..
as i watch enchanted, for the one thousandth time ,
madly in crazy love..
and in vain, i try to walk out on myself
through the door that was never closed..
through the door that was never closed
- june 28, 2010
8.LOVE IN THE TIME OF TIMELESSNESS
1i switch on the audio
this song transports me
thousand years back
when i had visited the earth again
you were in the prince's court
and we sang ballads in his praise
there was no rock music then
then one day
the prince flogged us in the
open
for transgressing the law of the slaves
and shamelessly falling in love
we wondered then,
how long...
2
two hundred thousand years back
we did not need marriage
to make love in the wild grass
one day i left you behind
in search of breakfast
you never heard of me after that
there was no blues then
dying in loneliness
we had wondered then,
how long..
3
the song is over
now i wonder
you left me yesterday
professing radical feminism
(though i agree with you)
while being in love with the whole of your being
your resistance, your callous palms
and your never ceasing bellicose laughter,
how long ....
then we both wonder
how long
9. THE TWILIGHT GIRL
i kissed her hardin yesterday's half-dusk
the twilight girl ;
she is so beautiful,
but i must go..
my thick red blood conjures a canvas
the landscape of a disease
in the hypochondriac's nightmare ...
my body is now a mushroom bomb
waiting to blast over..
but the twilight girl is beautiful
though i must go..
so i feed on my nausea
and travel to the distant desert land..
there , i lie down
and wait...
for the final act...
10.MOON RIVER
Music falls like the pebbles droppedIn the lakes of morning silence..
World is filled with silence
And silence
The latter is an euphemism veiled
Hitherto as music..
I am telling you
One thousand stories tonight..
The music player could be
A lonely tap running in my lonely bathroom..
Or the moon drawing blood on the unseen river
of a forgotten jazz beat ..
What difference will it make?
I have to bide this night alone
Trying not to think of you
11. UNTITLED-
the morning lightconfesses in feeble tones ,
meekly failing to cleanse my mind
of your thoughts,
pleasing to my senses
as the convectional rain
of hot summer days...
those eyes which once
dispersed a block of ice
into a solid rainbow
now lie behind
the horizons of time ..
i tire , stretching my hands
in mute despair
12. GHOSTS, GODS, WINE AND MUSIC
i am some years past my mother's hugwhen i roll around , feeling the rough threads
of my bedspread and insomnia..
my moustache has grown..
i am five inches too tall..
i look back
at her, that uncertain relationship
with the most beautiful woman of my life..
at our ragged palms bleeding ,
polka dotting the snow of our separation..
as we pulled at the ropes
of each other's hearts,
sometimes pining in the effort,
sometimes wishing it ended..
the blues and greens, golds and whites of
the trails in water
of that crazy eel like love..
now i am going back to the black
of a night that wouldnt give me sleep..
of a dawn that wouldnt assure me
ambitions or tears or relieving failures..
somewhere in the cacophony
of the ghosts, gods , wine and music
i fall asleep
and wake up again...
13. SHELLEY’S SPRING
sweet angel somewhere..my immortal beloved..
i have not thought much of you these days..
perhaps you left behind some of your rain clouds
that trail you like a disappointed balloon vendor..
i am down with fever
shivering like an abandoned squirrel
beneath two blankets made of fur...
this winter is cruel, my once sweet love..
a spider is spinning its life inside me
memories laugh at me like the forgotten dead
at odd hours....
and all things around me..
the steel chair and straw mattress
they suddenly have waged a silent war..
while all i want is a hug
and something to hold onto
as i sleep... animate or inanimate ..
so,i have left my lights on,
they warm up my body..
but their stare
is so cold upon my soul..
friendless and unloved...
the last smite of a street urchin's staff
on a man dying of consumption..
the winter has come,
my dear ..
will i survive till the spring
14.LOVE, REDROSE AND COMIC BOOKS
from behind the coconut tree household,
the sun comes up every morning
chasing crows across the day sky
i collect their shadows and lost feathers ..
keep them in a private safe
i think of mother,
when she fed me with riceballs ,
sun was a cartoon in the comic book
nestled between two mountains , always unnamed ..
i reverie her warmth
that first taught me the science of love
i m searching for the lessons i didnt care to take notes ..
love travels like sunlight on water
and drowns deep at nights..
while aeroplanes travel the star studded sky
of a poet’s cliched world..
the groundfloor boy rushes in for the video games..
i picture him ten years later..
and want to hug him and cry..
but i m the secondfloor anna who knows everything
who couldnt be weak..
the crow feathers are crawling out of my safe
drawing on the night ..
keep a red rose on my cemetry
for the love i couldnt give this world
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