Story of a River

A river cannot be spoken to
It will never agree with you.
A river is not a lover
It will never give in to your charms
A river is much like sand
It will slide through your palm

Like a winged bird
A river must be serenaded
A river must be heard.

Where I Find You

Where have you gone?
My tender muse
Fled with your scent from my palette
My tenant of misfortunes

Have you fled where the grass doesn’t sing?
Or to a city where you find only winter
And no one smiles?

Awaken the night that
Sleeps in your hair
Enfold me in their darkness

Summon your purple stars
And let a few fall
So your wishes may come true.

Unleash the sleeping waterfall
Behind your ear.
So that you may reach me
In tears or a river.

Let me drink the moon water
From your eye
Let me be intoxicated in
The search of you.

And when I have reached the shores
Of my wisdom
I will lie peaceful
Like your lips in the morning

Find me
Through the sighing waves
Through a shadow dream
Find me, and collide.

Find me and find yourself
You begin where I end.

- for Suzanne

Some Can Call It a Prayer

Don’t depart
My tender muse
Though your scent has fled
Everyone is a mirror for your face
Where crimson words are bled.

It is here I go
From room to room
Good tidings I hope to bring
The beauty that is lost in the gloom
Shall be nursed to sing.

Mother Nature

Wrote this for my cousin's cousin, who lives in Mumbai...

You would not want anything
To happen to the sea
If you stand still and listen
To the waves running, dying and being reborn
At night.

Yes, there is life on this earth
In things that do not breathe.
A grain of sand, apple lines, river stream
Homeless clouds, fields of green grass
Glistening, well aged rocks may seem silent at first
But they all speak the language
Of nature.

And then there are sounds
That rise and fall
Of the eagle perched on a branch
Sparrows that make a home
Tigers and Leopards that hunt and succeed
Lizards and snakes that always warn
And then proceed.

Tusks, skin, claws, teeth
Wood, food, shelter are not reasons enough
For us to kill and maim
Or trap everything that is beautiful and not ours
And must be used, no.
For a caged bird will only sing so much
Until it erupts
Like the lava in the fury of a volcano
Like poison in the acid showers and the air
Like the cold that shall soon surround us all.

Save them, because
The only thing that needs to be forgiven
Is us.

Flower Wither Not

Flower wither not
Brave the flames of the sun
Take the spears of the rain
Spread your roots and shine.

When autumn casts its shadow on you
And when the wind breaks
In dry whispers on your back
Sing of the seasons that shaped thee true
Speak of the gold
You took from the earth.

And when winter summons every leaf to bow
When its minions stoop to be unkind
Tell a tale of the fire in your heart
Your youth will beckon the thaw
In our minds

And soon, when the day is done
Your song will still be sung.

Flower wither not
Brave the flames of the sun
Take the spears of the rain
Spread your roots and shine.

Work

When i get to work, I won't be done for a long, long time.

Sun

Sun illuminates what the night can't.

A simple piece of blue plastic looks so nice in the day when it washes the walls of my house with its glow.

You have to be there to see it.

Brave

I'm not afraid of the gushing water that lies ahead.

Yes, and let them laugh at my boat.

Boy

I'm sinking.

Boats

Empty, abandoned boats always make me feel melancholic.

Fishermen

Anyone with clean feet is an outsider.

Storm

I was glad as the storm passed by silently.

I'm afraid of lightning.

Art

The best type of art is the one that can't be made.

Sky

Have you ever fallen to the sky in your dreams, instead of just falling down?

Crawling

I live here, and in many other places where you don't bother to look.

Intruder!

They're not invading.

We did.

Tooth Fairy

Dentists have a weird sense of humour.

Pills

Take one if its broke.

Prayer of the clouds

I'm not religious, but it was very cool to see a man praying in the sky.

Rain

Coming back home on a rain swept road makes me think of you and your hurt more than ever.

Father

I thought i wont tell anyone of this moment.

But just like you, sharing it is my way of making it special.

How shall I speak of your dark hair?
That shrouds your moon face in mystery.
How shall I unfasten the roots that spread?
To hear you respire next to me.

Glimpse upon me through midnight’s eyes
On the heights where we lay
The wine on my lips when morning cries
Will ebb like sea today.

How shall I be lost?
On a mirage on your skin
Where I find a lonely desert, and
Wet earth that oft’ takes me in.

Seek me in the chambers of your mind
From where I shall never depart
And if I drift away into your valley of silence
I may yet be an inch from your heart.

And what am I to do after the rain has fallen?
When I find all my thoughts have run aground
How shall I wish the time to surpass?
How shall you be found?

Find me through your dreams of winter
Where the world, it seems, seizes to spin.
And you and I are left to wander
To find ourselves from where we begin.

The Touch of Whispers

The memory of your touch
Resides between my fingers
When you with your hair undone
Are born again
Naked and fragile, like
A ball of yarn
Ready to unwind.

The touch of your feet
Is a waking dream
A walk on the clouds
The ocean floor.

The touch of your lips
Is petal dew
As fresh as a leaf
Full as a summer fruit
Smooth, like riverbed rocks
That shimmer at night.

To touch your hands
Is to feel the soul of a traveler
A map of hidden fortunes
Where the lines are all blurred.

The hint of your dream
Is another step in
An open crevasse
That vanishes
As we wake.

And soon
Your back uncoils
Like a lazy river,
You cut me with the star of your skin
Burn me with your fever.
And I am left in search of a face
Before your voice returns
With a name for me.

If
We can
Travel
Through
Silence
We can
Speak
Just
The same.

You, Silence & I

My silence is a silence of sand dunes
I need the voiceless wind
To sing.

I will surrender at your feet
An army of me
Swoop down, and gather me
I will remain in circles
Unlike the meandering rivers
On your palm.

My silence is a silence of the sky
Ever changing, lost to the water
I look up, but
I never know
From where the clouds came.

I will vanish in your eyes
Without any shape, like
A distant memory
Of making love while the world slept
On a hot summer afternoon.

When I turned to you, and said
Our silence is precious and simple
Like the moon
We may change with time
But our light remains.

Noise inside the quiet

Why do i follow things which lead nowhere? Give my homeless thoughts a name and i will take each day as it comes. If not thinking about the past is a gift then always thinking about tomorrows must surely be a curse. There is too much noise inside when you're not around. I begin to doubt if i am ever ready for anything. Rid me of my silence, keep yours from me.

Upon Tracing Her Steps

Between falling snow and the dew lit grass
You will find me as you wander pathless.
And what of the sunsets we didn’t share?
We will exchange silence
And watch it rise instead.

Divide your eyes
Between the green and the blue.
Frame a mountain
Or cup it in your hands.
Catch the rain
Give each stranger a name.

May those be damned
Who say there is nothing to see.

A temple of rocks, spiral winds
Mountain dogs, swirling bells
Singing trees, prayer flags, rising steam
Swollen pillows, homeless clouds,
Wait for you and me.

Into the White

Waiting for an explosion
Two cold green eyes
See nothing but winter
And broken twigs.

On a chair or on a wheel
This land is whiter than my thoughts.
She will always know where I’ve been
It might rain but it won’t.

We depart with keys and circles
I said I’ll meet her there
Beneath the sinister yellow moon
Which shines unaware.

It will satiate my hunger for shelters
If you left me here alone.
Deep in the forest
The bird makes a home.

Maybe I heard my name
Down where the river dried.
Walk with me to the places we know
Or let me go into the white.

25

She looked like a scar as she said those words,

''its been 25 years''.

I didn't know whether she hurt or had healed.

Eventide

I knew
Mirrors could be forgotten
When love came
In the form of you.

My passenger
You smell of everything familiar
Ebb more easily than you would know
And travel within without a sound.

Timeless, is what you are
For time won’t change your beauty
Your beauty will keep on changing
With time.

You have the depth of an ocean
But forgive me
I forget the tides
When skies are clear
Beneath the lights.

Don’t break like a cloud and
Forsake your shape
Like faces lost in a dream.
And if it makes you smile
You can give me a name
It’s all I need.

Don’t fade like the dawn
Like words on a wall
Like a tear in my clothes, stitched.
Like a healing wound.

And I promise
To be the same.

Winter lady,
Only keep silence from me.
Be with me like a stain.

Lotus

Ive never seen a Lotus bloom, they have been ruined and overused by the BJP party and in various places of worship where it just looks ugly. But come on, if the leaves are so nice, how will the flower be?

Hide

We've kissed in places where art is made or forced out of people. Where statues stare and seem to be moving. Where people take shelter from the sun and creepers and vines come out of anywhere and everywhere.

We've kissed in places where people quench their thirst. Where pigeons call other pigeons and stare till we're done or its time. Where staircases are forgotten because people are too old and they'd rather stay down, or children are too scared to go in the dark, where two pairs of eyes chase each other and shine.

We've kissed while beautiful tall women dance or middle aged men play their flutes or sip their tea and its the perfect background music, everyone else is oblivious to how it all comes together.

We've kissed while water runs out, overflows and is enough for crows and sparrowes.

We've kissed in places where people can see through the walls and maybe no one is watching but everyone knows.

This is all the same but each kiss is different.

Winter

Winter's the best season because it often hides what usually looks ugly in summers.

Addiction

Yes its true
my brother's addicted.

Yesterday's dream

I cant recall the last time i dreamt of hell.

Hell is a big construction site with demons swinging on chains in my dream.

No red sky.
No lightening or thunder.
No sound of whips cracking in the distance.
No sound of people shouting or screaming with pain.

My hell is silence.

'Choose between your heart or your soul', my dream left me with no choice.

That's probably why i woke up before it got over.

If you ask me, i was glad i did.

To the Waves

Silent
And rising
She comes and goes in waves.
Falling
And smiling
She never leaves a trace.

Her spells and boundaries
Spill on my page
When I, drifter and she,
Moonlight
Dance without a face.

Still
And waiting
Like a storm untamed
The wind and sky
Know her many names.

And the way she returns
Will never be the same.
Her footprints will vanish
Along the path she came.

- for Suzanne

Song About Roads

Verse 1

The moon burns twice

In day and night

But deep in your eyes

It only shines bright.

When the war is lost

And nothing is what it seems

Take a drop of the sun

Make a memory.

Chorus

If the roads only take us

Round and round

I'll throw away the map we found

Find our own way out.

Verse 2

In our youth, we were free

To find our way back home.

But we lost our way through the trees

Ate all the breadcrumbs.

In my sleep, I turn

Towards you and say

If you don't know the start

We can share the end.

Chorus

If the path only leaves us

Down and out

I'll throw away the map we found

Find our own way out.

Friend

Today i was happy it rained a little.

I was happy that the birds got fresh water to drink in the morning.

I was happy thinking that you were.

I was happy because the lonely pigeon outside my window found a friend.

City of mine

Sometimes when I travel around in Delhi, to go from one place to another, everything comes and goes in patterns, the sounds envelopes you and things seem bigger than they are from a certain height because you're in one of it's veins, cruising past the other inhabitants, in your own world at the same time. The city feels like an organism, constantly dividing cells and evolving, forever growing. Sometimes when you come out after a lot of days, you find it has changed. The way sunlight fell on a certain column is not the same, it smells different, there are holes everywhere like bruises and scars and water is constantly overflowing, it is truly alive. Even if I go away for a while, I always want to come back.

Face

It's funny, when you see a face like yours on the street - it always passes you by too fast and makes you think about little things...is that how I walk? Am i really that short? What do I think about when i walk? Does the breeze always move my hair that way?

For those five seconds, you're not yourself.

Spring

Spring is always nice and makes me happy. It's like nature's way of reaffirming -

'life finds a way'.

Shadows

...I dreamt of shadows the other day, before the dream was over, they all merged into one.

1 minute poems

At night, when the breeze dies down

When the birds awaken, and fly around

I think of you, lying in my shell

Promises I make, things I don't tell.

-------------------------------------------

The moon is in your eyes,

It stays low, but its on the rise.

A shadow falls down on everything you leave

There is a light upon everything you seek.

Shedding Roots

People may live for little things, accept their destiny, whatever that means, but maybe no one really wants to badly belong to something or someone or something anymore, i don't know if people yearn for simple things anymore, everyone wants something they cant put their finger on, everybody needs something more. Sometimes when i feel content with where i am, who i am or what i am, there's this weird feeling in my head that i should be dissatisfied with everything, even a little bit would do. And then there is the world which tells me that this isn't the way to be and i can't be this way forever. People live with so much noise inside these days its shocking how they don't go nuts. The 21st century has made us our own slaves, we are bound to doubt ourselves, to hate ourselves and to always compare our achievements with something bigger and better - and that readily available like a huge billboard with neon lights somewhere out there...you can't miss it, you can't escape it. We've come so far from where we were, we don't know where we began from. But hasn't it always been like this? Judgement day is always near. The world is always melting away since the day it began, but our day of reckoning is different from the others because it is OURS. If people don't know about how things started, they want something to hold on to...i guess that's how finalities come into the picture, and the future is always uncertain, and the end is always near, as Morrison puts it.

Our feelings and thoughts are precious...no one knows it like us, no one can or will understand - only we do. We are the only one. Its funny no one has a friend inside. Things can get pretty lonely there, yet everyone seeks solitude and obscurity. To not make sense of the world is the way to be. If fiction's already out there, then everybody's already decided what their reality is, in their minds

Half

Because words wont matter

Soon

When there is no poetry

In being a man.

No hair to tame

Or spells to utter in the hour

Of the moon.

Realise

Your heart is a lonely crowd

Returning home

Dodging puddles

Walking with a door

Looking for walls.

I greet the friend I see

Wonder about the half he

Left behind in drawers, matchboxes

Beneath his bed

Playing with boundaries

Adorning masks.

Maybe he looks for faces

As he walks the streets alone

And takes the one he likes

Gives it a name

Calls it a home.

To hide deep within yourself
Is to close your eyes and trust the wind
When there is no path left to wander
There are no waves to make you swim.

But a voice shall call,
Faint, familiar, from before
You’ve soared the depths
And seen barren lands
Now rise to the shore.

Rise like the sun,
With curious footprints on the earth
And head like a bubble from afar
The sky will fill with all your dreams
Time and tide shall shape who we are.

So trust these words, they are all I have
To pull you out from the dark
No one’s a stranger, who passed us by
Silence will live no more
In the ocean of your heart.

- for Nitin

Lonely Star

It was today, that she

Hung her star in the sky.

Laughing

A timid thing on her palm

That changed shape,

Grew thorns

Became red.

A little like her heart

Vary of strangers

Burning for all

Shining for some.

Doom, Impending

When the edges break

The grains make sand

Water makes an ocean

The shape adorns a form.

Hands ache fingers

Roots wish for light

Flames pray to be still

Vines caress summer, survive.

And darkness has no beginning

For it has no end.

But the shadow is a circle,

It only grows bigger.

And all that is left,

A silhouette

As the waves approach.

A million thanks!

Just got interviewed!

http://bloginterviewer.com/music/hitchhiker-aazar

thanks to Mike!
:)

Midnight

Midnight burns away too fast
Leaving childhood on my tongue.
When I slept safe, without walls
Without a sound.
With a fear of silence
And what lay in the darkness.

Midnight crawls away too soon
Early for voices
The morning rushes,
And brings to light,
What we know we will find
Shadows running on the streets
Toes that grip the floor
Empty glasses and ashes.

Midnight flies away too slow
Like a bird late for spring
Sprung from her cage
Tired and reminiscing.
She curses every feather
And never looks down.

And like a familiar bruise
When midnight is through
Every shape has a name
Her scent remains.

Where no one knows of the days to come.

In my head,
She sings of roads.

Nada

Money shall be the first to go.

Rings and other circles of gold & silver

My pearl white dress with pin holes

A little yellow now

All the spoils of my wedding.

The rain will fill the air

With teacups, trophies and medals

Knives and spoons and sound of plates crashing

Bronze shoes that belonged to my son.

Nails will be holes

And painting frames would reveal

How my house was with

The forgotten colours i grew old.

Wax soldiers deformed by summers of youth

We were hunters of moments

That became prey to smiles.

So the pictures must go, all of them

The ones that are hidden

And the ones in grey.

The urns that were crafted by my father

Were never meant for keeping ashes

So take these secret keepers

And store your darkest ones

Till the time is right.

Clothes will be given away in the end

I will be as I came.

And when the walls are bare

The ghosts will be gone.

Today I will wear an empty room.

*based on an excellent short story of the same name by Judith Ortez Cofer.

The Road to Jaffa

The road sings to me
The mountains are chasing me
Bound by land that has been flattened,
Are people who haven't seen the sea.

The sea turns twice
On the belly of her mother
Takes whispers from the wind
Watches shadows grow and sink
Turns into a demon when the clouds rage
Then returns to the shore
To kiss your feet.

With these feet, I'll walk
To singing children, oranges,
Unreal tomatoes and fake bread
To pieces of outdated paper that
mean nothing.

Beyond the green, barbed wires
Landmines, tanks, half footprints,
Olive trees without branches,
Masked men, martyrs,
Rivers of blood and crying women
Broken bricks, powder and white ghosts, to find

A road that cries to me
Headless mountains that are facing me.
And bound by walls that have been raised,
Are people who can feel the sea.

The people sleep at the feet
of the earth.
Dance in the dying rain, in homes
Where no ceiling remains.
Lie awake at night when
The sky cracks open.

They are caught in this city
And in it's veins.

In a violent heart.

{ read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa }
{watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBbPUxbjiuc }