Upon Looking Back On All Things Past

Speak of the days that went by

Or the beauty which gives you wings

The ocean i find in your sad eyes

A heart that wants to sing.

I've always known that sadness

that beckons closer for it calls

The melancholic song of the night

Is the most beautiful of all.

More beautiful than whispers

More sublime than the rain

In her arms i find no sleep

And i find no pain.

In that cold, dark night i have tried

to shape many a different thing

To find stars fallen from the sky

And the joy it would bring.

But stars are mere pieces

they lie broken in our hands

Like the heart of a woman

Like the soul of a man.

So i return to you with sadness

that has made my mind its home

And with it i've waded through darkness

Silent, empty and alone.

Let's travel to a world pure and blue

like the one in your song

Lets start spinning and never stop

Before the season is gone.

Dream with open eyes

Chase me with your smile

And the light will cause every eye to ache

At the coming of the dawn.

*photograph by Suzanne*

A Photograph We Didn’t Take

I recall

Winters that passed

Like a blade of grass

Flowing with the autumn wind.

The smile on my face

Your hair in the wind

Out of place

The patience of elders wearing thin.

All my names

And all her letters

People with umbrellas

Can't embrace the weather

But poets always make mistakes

and muses never hesitate

We crawl back in

Run for shelter.

And in our eyes

The faces we meet

Down the street

Names they will never know.

No one will see

the ground beneath our feet

Places where we used to go.

On The Run

(Verse 1)

Come, lets burn this house down

It speaks to me no more

Let's travel to a different place

We haven't been before

(Pre-chorus)

And we could change our names

We could look the same

And we can eat all day

On the trees where we'd lay

(Chorus)

But time, time...will you let me be?

Time, time...can I please be free?

(Verse 2)

You hide from the sun

When the day has just begun

And when the sun goes down

You're nowhere to be found

(Pre-chorus)

And we could change our names

We could look the same

And we can eat all day

On the tree where we'd lay

(Chorus)

But time, time...will you let me be?

Time, time...can I please be free?

(Verse 3)

Yes we are on the run

To call a place our own

And when we're almost done

We won't be alone.

(Repeat pre-chorus and chorus)

(End)

questions

'Whats with you and cracks'? She said.

'Time and again I find myself in one', is what I didn't.

Cracks

There is a void.

A gaping hole.

A chasm full of echoes.

A mirror cracked.

That's me in between.

trees

when they cut the trees down

there were green bruises on the ground.

Where I Stand

I live at the edge of my city
A spot of fading green in the corner
A world within a world, and getting smaller
Of blue swords dividing the land
And people in the cracks
A stranger to paradise
Stranger than paradise.

Everyday the mirror of the sun
Is who we are
We, who used to ache with silence,
Now speak with the same.
Our conversations with voices across the river
Our love
Just a passing of the seasons.

Here I fought a blue beast
That brought me the gift of fear.
Here I lived a yellow night
That left you in my veins.

Again I break from my shell
As clouds break over the dawn
And I rise
And I wait
For the music to come.

After the Rain

After the rain
Everything is silent
When the world sleeps
In its own wound.
And I wait for you
To raid my mind
While the circle breaks
Around the moon.

After the rain
Everything is pure
And untouched,
Like first steps.
Where new colours
Rise and fall
And the world is a canvas
When the sun sets.

After the rain
Everything is hollow
When the sky caves
Into the earth
There are no idols
To be followed
As the statues crumble
And turn to dust.

After the rain
Everything is fallen
Touched by your hands
It is alive
And I, in my dreams
Dream of the moment
When I find all this, and more
In your eyes.

Grain of Sand

On this page
I am
Without strings and words
My tongue racing through
A desert of emptiness
Here there is no wind.

There is no path
Weathered by your feet
Nor a tree
Seasoned by the sun

My friends, there is no time.

It is here I lie
Underneath the stars that burn
And it is here I will be
When my face becomes theirs.

Here they fall
Strangers dressed in silhouettes
This land of mirrors
Without a name.

And it is here that I lie
Like all that I have lost
Consumed.
Unparalleled.

All Her Names

Shall I call you a cloud
That brings the promise of rain?
Or a street that leads me astray?
Shall I name all the seasons
As day turns to night and your face appears
Or should I lose myself in the
Nameless sound when wings are drawn.

Shall I count the number of
Strangers we have met and all your questions?
Or rather, the things we forget and
Never mention.
Confusions, complications
Between detours and destinations
Multiplications and divisions, is
The way we have lived.

Shall I call you a book
Whose pages are yellowed with time?
And each whiff brings to mind
Secrets of yesterday.
Friends and foes that held you close
Made you their own
Within stories where you find yourself.

But no, I shall call you a tree
That is as free
As its roots
Which never pick and choose where
They want to go.
Whose branches are not boundaries
Marked territories
But something that makes it beautiful.
And now naked, as you sway
In the autumn wind
I lie in your shade and wait for spring.

Into The Night

(Verse 1)
Love, it’s been raining lights
All throughout the night
Won’t you hold my hand and fly…away
See, the stars are all aligned
In a purple sky
Won’t you hold my hand and fly…today

Hey don’t give up too fast
‘cuz the only thing that lasts
Are the things you wanna save…yeah
I once fell beneath the cracks
And there’s no turning back
But know it’s never (too) late…yeah

(Chorus)
And I don’t know
What they mean
When they ask me
To believe
There’s no reason
There’s no rhyme
To lose our voice
Into the night

(Verse 2)
And words…they can bring you down
And you smile without a sound
When no one is around…now

And like the human touch
Sometimes words don’t mean too much
And silence too, is a sound…now

(Chorus)
And I don’t know
What they mean
When they want me
To believe
There’s no reason
There’s no rhyme
To lose our voice
Into the night

When The Sun Goes Down

...an incomplete song

Hope lies in uncertain things
No one knows what the future brings
So much horror when there’s no sound
And there is a light when the sun goes down.

So much is gone, we were lead astray
But not al is lost, let’s learn to live.
So much has died, it’s gone away
But not all is lost, we’ll find a way.

The Shape of Colours

Hope lies in uncertain things
The look in your eyes when I depart
The breeze of your skin
That shines as it leaves.
The healing of the sky after the rains have fallen.
There is a light when the sun goes down.

Red, like your skin
When you lay on the grass
Burning naked feet
Diamonds in the sun.

Oh my lady of the water,
Till noon, I’ll trace
The shape your shadows make.
And when darkness arrives, shapeless, we
Become a silhouette.

Truth lies in the silver of the night
In the braches that sway, and
Roots that shiver in the cold
In the whispering wind and roads that
Take you where you want to go.
In secrets that only silence allows us to confess.
In the shining moon that undoes your dress.

Oh my lady of all seasons
You say you will wait for winters
After summer leaves like,
A stranger through your door
And a yellow leaf on the ground
Announces autumn.

The Beginning

When her hand lay lifeless at the break of dawn
An unironed crease, she
Reminded me of a wave that
Returns to the ocean
Leaving the shore washed, clean and pure.

And as I remembered all the things
I’ve learnt to hold,
Wheels, nameless colours, names, stories and strings
They were your own, as
You are to me.

But tell me, for no one else will
Of a mother’s pain that gives life.
Sing to me the songs of harvest
Of the village you left behind.
Simple secrets, like a bird’s nest
A river
And cracks in our ceiling
Teach me how to speak with silence.

Teach me how to be the rain.

And more, for when the boy in me
Meets the man I will be tomorrow,
I remember

We began as we are,
Strangers to ourselves
Without roots or maps and lines

Scattered footsteps in the sand.

Vidharbha

My mother must die with my own two hands.
Here, we can turn
Death into gold.
But what will I do with this gold?

Shall I melt it and make it rain?
On this parched land of mine
Where every wishing well has dried
And promises are turning into cracks, like
Wrinkles on my forehead.

Should I crush it and plant it in the sand?
Watch it grow day by day
So that it may give me fruits, wood and shade
On this parched land of mine.
Where birds don’t sing in the morning
And at night, I have to
Find reasons to sleep.

Shall I beat it and throw it in a pot?
Cook it for my children
Who should never go hungry.
Who should run and play, for
It is their age.
On this parched land of mine
Where there is nowhere to hide.

Or shall I shape it into a sickle,
That my fathers used to yield?
And slice my own throat
On this parched land of mine
Where I can’t watch my wife
Repay the debt I owe to mother earth
With her own flesh.

Ordinary Day

An ordinary day began
When the sun rose the same.
And I didn’t believe the future
They try to sell me
With news I didn’t buy.

Because things written on paper
Do not last.

Prose

Oh, to write
A rhyme without a rhyme
And call it poetry.

My Lady's Home

In my lady’s home, the curtains dance.
They whisper as they reveal
The sun they hide.
While summer sleeps in
The playground of her youth,
And remembers the lines racing
Through her smile.

She needs no armour for
Battles in her dream.
She needs no shelter for pictures,
Of childhood in the rain.
She never knew any spells for little miracles,
Like toy soldiers and pencils that defy shape.

In my lady’s home, the trees sway
And in the moonlight, she says
They come alive.
While she gazes outside the window
The breeze plays with her dark, dark hair
Her eyes mirror a city
Shining in the night.

She needs no words for the songs she sings.
She needs no reigns
For a heart untamed.
And why pray today
For a better tomorrow?
A silent hymn never broke our chains.

And sometimes in my lady’s home
I hear the sounds of freedom
The breaking of the waves
Rising of the sun.
And I become a slave to all I’ve seen
To the beauty in her eyes
When the day’s begun.

Morning Lullaby

(Verse 1)
In the morning, when
The sun will rise
Half in my sleep
I’ll kiss your eyes.

And then you’ll ask
Is this the end?
I’ll smile and say,
We’ll meet again…friend.

(Chorus)
And with these words
I’ll take you far.
‘Cuz in, in our dreams
We’re just who we are.

(Verse 2)
Summer’s in her shoes
Lines through her smile
Forget my autumn bruise
Fruits of denial.

(Chorus 2)
Some say, I’ll never learn
Anything, so take me far.
Meet me in our dreams
Where we’re just who we are.

(little guitar thingy)

Now tears are flowing,
Climbing down your smile
Like trains and mirrors,
This will pass you by.

Here Comes the Rain (song)

(Verse 1)
When bodies glide
In a silent room
Strangers wait for the afternoon
I sit alone and sing.

Let’s forget, wrong or right
Who’s the first and who’s the last
There’s always time to think.

(Chorus)
Here comes the rain – 2
Washing down again
Here comes the rain.

(Verse 2)
And when we met
Words were bled
Thoughts meandered in our head
It all just ends too soon.

I remember, everything
Places I’ve been to
Things I’ve seen
I’ll never leave this room.

(Repeat Chorus)

(Bride)
Now I haunt
This empty space
I’m an autumn leaf
Flying in the wind
And all I’ll say is…

(Repeat Chorus)

Untitled and Incomplete (song)

(Verse 1)
Stuck in the attic
You move through letters
You curse all the static
Caught in your head

It seems that you doubt it
The course of the weather
Sometimes it’s good to find
What you’re lookin’ for

(Chorus)
Cuz…don’t we breathe the same, love?
Don’t we need the same…?

If I (song)

(Verse 1)
Have you seen my woman?
She was born in the rain
Have you seen that child?
With songs in her head?

Like a picture in a frame
She’s tried to be free
Oh, it’s all the same
Can’t you see?

I’d ask you to stay
Just for a while
If it helps you to stand
If it makes you smile

(Pre chorus)
The time for starters
Has gone out of hand
What doesn’t make you a woman
Will it make you a man?
And rest assured, I’ll do all I can

(Chorus)
If I could, then I would.

(Verse 2)
Did you see my woman
When she danced in the rain?
Did you see her cry?
When her thoughts, they bled

And I promise I won’t take
Most of your time
Unless it helps you to stand
And if it makes you smile.

(Pre chorus 2)
‘Cuz these thoughts in my head
You wouldn’t understand
Does it make you a woman
To not be a man?
And rest assured,
I’ll do all I can

(Chorus)
If I could, then I would.

(End)

Hold On (song)

(Verse 1)
And to those who preach
Could you look around and see
What have you done?

And to those who know
Tell me the truth
Is this what we've become?

And I forgive, I forget
Just an inch
An inch is left
Of this resolve
Don’t let it go.

(Chorus)
When time itself slips away
Could we hold on...?
Could we hold on...?

Innocence is lost today
Could we hold on...?
Yeah, hold on...?

(Verse 2)
Neighbours fighting - left or right
Promised land, take me back
I don’t want nowhere to belong
...to belong

And I forgive, I forget
Just a breath
A breath is left
In this heart
Don’t let it part

(Repeat chorus)

(Bridge)
Why can’t difference ring the same?
Pointed fingers, (with) everyone to blame
Why can’t we stop this war?

(Repeat chorus)

Fingerprints (song)

(Verse 1)
Roads will take you where you wanna go
But who will show you where you wanna be?
If you think you've gotten too far from home
I’ll smile and hush your eyes to sleep

I’m not in this, i listen to you
Never say a word above to me

(Chorus)
cuz I still wait for
And I still wait for...you
And I bleed

(Verse 2)
I sing this one for every broken heart
Don’t know who you were, who you are
She’s not in this, always next to me
Sing and laugh again, set me free.

(Repeat chorus)

(Breakdown...or something like it!!)
Fingerprints are climbing up the wall
We crash and burn (but) we never take the fall
You’re not in this, I speak the truth
The only thing I could not be was you.

(Repeat chorus)

(End)

An Unfinished Song

*something i started two years back but still havent managed to finish*

So sweet when she rolls on the floor,
Heaven in her heart
But in her eyes,
All I see is hell.
There are colours she spoke of today,
But when she dried up and twisted
All that’s left was grey.

Oh she’s walking down the hall
Thinking of her future
Those little eyes of her,
They cannot pretend.
And I’m all out of my excuses,
I’ve fallen hard and dirty
Goodbye woman, this is the end.

Yesterdays

What do you want with yesterdays? She said.

‘To not know what I need to forget’

I replied.

Dreaming Backwards

In the blue of the night,
When words rise from the ground
Aching, bending, swaying
Like a woman awakens at dawn.
Like smoke in a chain of rings together.
I will return to the shade of our time
To the unspoken word,
And just a smile
To the rhythm of our steps in the sun
To the shadows in which we fused,
And were lost.

Banjar

There are ghosts in the wind
Above a land left dry.
And behind the veil, a million eyes
Waiting.

The rivers run through history
Now misshapen
Devouring, bellowing
Without lament, like
A beast
Sleeping.

Empty are the houses
With just a stain,
‘mian ki ma chudaye’
And we the people,
Are like forgotten trees
Of our land.
He, who does not bend,
Always cracks.

Look now, don’t turn away
Delol, Patiya, Gulbarg, Naroda, Vatwa
Sayaspur, Gayatrinagar, Juhapura, Chamanpura,
Asarwa, Behrampura, Sehrkotda, Malpur
Modasa…are just names?

There are children and their mothers
Coming from the smoke.
And coming from the words
Are men no one knew.
Locked away like official affidavits
In unofficial places
Are secrets that only silence reveals.

And there is a silence in cracking, blackened walls
A silence of blood dried amber.

A silence that echoes a thousand screams.

*for the victims of Gujarat riots of 2002*

Culture?

Today the police ignored calls for help from an old lady whose house got robbed last night and didnt register a case of sexual harassment when a girl wanted to press charges against her live-in partner.

Instead, they went to a park.

And beat up two lovers sitting together.

Luxuria

It’s a fever of the veins
The last drop of rain
In this desert of strangers
Who pick and choose
What they can’t alarm or defuse
And pass it off as danger.

I Remember

When talk is easy
Our mouths - a pistola
And separated, we fly with our words
Into the divide
It is times like these, I think of
The road I am walking.
Of the strangers that have passed me by.

And sometimes,
I think of my world
A prism in a bubble,
The colours dissolved.
Faint, as my reflection in your eyes.
A photograph, maybe a decade old
And a shelter from the rain,
Cradled in my arms,
Like a mother to a child.

When the fever of yesterdays subside like,
Moonlight from my door and,
Waves at the shore, we shall
Sing and play games with our masks.
And become two dreams, entwined
To haunt our nights.

In such times, I will remember,
A washed out room
And an evening canvas
Where the yellow sun of my autumn
Sank behind your eyes
When I learnt to speak in tongues
And wishes were let loose upon the wind,
Like clothes hung out to dry.

Today

I wrote a song today called Here Comes The Rain after playing constantly for something like two and a half hours.

When i finally stopped, i looked up, the sky looked beautiful.

No One Knows

Running through ruins, we are
Chasing the sun, almost half now.
Avoiding threats from wanderers with stories
For a price
In similar ways we avoid
Our eyes from straying down a familiar road.

And when everything is devoid of shape,
We are devoured by circles, for,
It is in circles we dance
Before the waves come,
Take us away.

Forever young and foolish
But it’s not enough, and soon,
We must make our way back.
Before the witching hour
Before this secret turns to glass
And breaks.

Through days like these
Or when we meet in our minds and embrace
Forever wary of the eyes upon us
Eyes that know we are not the same
When we walk these streets now.

And as midnight burns to dawn,
We travel
From wind to whispers
From fist to fingers.

Everyone is watching
But no one knows.

the part you avoid.

Ive never been good at talking about things once they are over(...or maybe i am...but only in my head...damn), and maybe it annoys me how good you're at it...yes...YOU. Maybe thats the only thing I am really pissed off about, more than anything. The sad thing is how we get used to...this...to everything, like nothing ever happened...we never bleed, we're not allowed to...we restrict ourselves...to walk by the same road, to smile in the same corners where we huddled in winters and shared secrets, to watch the day turn to black, to wear ourselves out, like sweaters we must pass to our siblings after they stop fitting...sigh, gravity always wins...but I smile now, down is the new up...thank you for everything.

Polaroid

Through half black slanted eyes moving rapidly,
Gliding from door to door
Watching strangers, foes and friends
Across the room, you know
Sometimes they’re all the same.

And in the same room, we
Watch the day pass in black and white
Devoid of colours, a Polaroid
We become whispers, trapped
Like moths to a flame.
Like a reflection, re-arranged.

Like they keep secrets in China.

At times we talk in pictures.
We take the breeze that flutters prayer flags
And fly away to other lands.
Places where our grandmothers’ stories
Held their sway
To a time when our fathers were lovers
And our mothers didn’t believe
Everything they heard.

And sometimes,
Sometimes we speak in symbols,
In signs we made our own.
But we never say a word.
They will never know
Our language is one.

The Way of the Rain

The rain finds a way
Through shattered, broken windowpanes,
And cracks in the ceiling.
Through keyholes in the walls, and
Peeling white plaster.
Through the doors that only open for some.

It makes its way
Through borders and barbed wires
That can’t be bought or cut.
Through places with names we can’t pronounce,
And gaps in praying hands
Maybe open or closed,
Lifted to the sky.
Sliding down your neck and chin,
Into your bosom.
Through the song of the bird that,
Has learned to sing.

And it will come,
From the news in the television and
Songs on your radio.
From mouths and eyes that refuse to shut,
From the crevices on your skin
Bones that are dried but not hollow.
And through the wind that blows
Across these shores,
The rain will find a way,
Drown the sentries of your heart.

Avalanche

And when the evening arrived,
The mountains rolled down.
That was how the avalanche was started
With just a kick,
To a pebble.

Education

Don’t preach
What you can’t do.
Everything that goes in circles
Will come back to you.

The Middle

There is no void
Or gap.
There are no cracks.
For you come,
In the middle of everything.

Sang Tarash

I feel proud
Of what I’ve created
How it has been
Loved, lost and hated.

The Stain

In every white,
I can see your black.
And like a nostalgic stain, or,
An unforgettable
Tear in your dupatta
You’ve always been there.
At a distance,
Looking at me
You can’t be erased.

Walls

When excuses turn into stones
We get
Thoughts of freedom
In our head.

Maybe

Promises
Are like rivers.
They flow into the ocean
And get lost.

Turning

Once I saw a girl
In the rings of smoke
And I realized that time forgets
The secrets her lips hold.

Pathetic

Thus came Zarathustra


and emerged victorious from the bathroom.


How pathetic.

Mumbai

Some days back in Mumbai, producer Ashoke Pandit and director Shashi Ranjan took out a rally demanding Pakistani artistes not to be given any work in the entertainment industry, threatening to disrupt shootings wherever Pakistanis are employed.

Blatant jingoism, celebrity candle marches with feigned speeches at the end, sudden hatred for politicians and new found love for the Indian army...

A terrorist attack is a terrible thing to waste.

Simple Man

I am a simple man

Who finds it hard to tell his grandmother

He loves her.

But you should do it

Before it gets too late.

kids

There lies a magical land beyond these barbed wires

It's true.

A place full of toys and miracles

And other kids that call out your name.

We'll know for sure when

We cross over to the other side.

Othello

Sometimes I feel dumb

Gullible and naive

duped by the world.

Remember the time I played Othello in that play?

old

I wish we could grow old together.

Because I already bought that house in the hills

And now I don't know what to do with it.

Cake

Only I know for sure of the times I've been a real asshole.

Like when you bought me a birthday cake,

and I ran.

Truth

Sometimes it sucks but,

It's good when people don't point out my good habits.

That way, I won't lose them.

If I am an alien, I wish for my mother ship to come and pick me up just about

now.

A Night In These Shoes

Sometimes I feel like a glass bowl falling off a table, breaking into a million pieces. And you would come and put me back together, make me new.

I think I just heard my grandmother coughing really loudly. Its 2:30 am at night. There is no place lonelier than this bed.

Today I laughed so much I had tears in my eyes.

Hello, I think you’re beautiful. Bet you’ve heard that before.

Later on, I tried to call her on her birthday but she didn’t pick up the phone. Now my birthday is round the bend and I strangely wish for her to do the same, and not say a word.

Last night I woke up with a jolt from a bad dream and saw a silhouette of a large man standing at my bedroom door.
I never realized how tall my brother is.

Today I took a picture of myself and could not decide why I’m not photogenic. Maybe it’s because whenever I smile in front of a camera, it’s never real.

Today I sat in a room full of microphones and didn’t speak. But I am happy. This is who I want to be. I wish I could tell you. I wish you could see me now.

Strange Daze

Today the sky looked like it had Johndis...(is that the correct way to spell it??)...Johndiz, Jhondiss, John-dhish! What a weird word.

And I felt like a fat string on C sharp tuning being struck with with chord forms, i dont know where the abuse was coming from...but it was there, maybe in my own head...i dont know.

Never before have i seen so much death and disease around me...in my house and in the world outside...its so easy to kill and even easier to point a finger, maybe soon these things will take over our ability to think if they havent already, but i hope that never happens.

What do i say now? Dont want to say the obvios so i shall refrain, practise discretion which was given to me by those around me...thank you for the venom, fuckers.

Porn wont take you far, reality is stranger...try getting off on that.

And here's a something about the weather that Nagma did not predict...winters will be colder this year.

Naked

Naked, you are
Someone you are not
When clothed.

You let it slide,
The garb that hides
Seashore lines, apple’s crescent
I watch the moonlight shining,
Clinging to your skin in darkness, where
There is nothing left to peel.

And I’m doused
In every inch of you.
Lazy quicksand, beautiful
When my breath on your navel
Moves those little snails,
They crawl and shy away inside.

My fingers trace the dawn to come,
As we smile and hum our songs of tomorrow.
When all finalities are reached
And the banalities approved, avoided
We are left but final with ourselves
Naked, under a blanket.

And after all premonitions have
Come to pass, you
Ask to be moulded
Made new,
My hesitant muse.

But naked, you take,
A different shape
From your disguise.
Like sand from an hourglass,
In my hands.

Vagueness

Let me in
I have been waiting
Patiently
By your door
Lose control
Give out, give in
Surrender.

Hold me down, I’ve been running
Though these steps won’t take me far
For I find you everywhere I go
In words and rhymes and deepest scars

I am blue like your skin
Like the bruise that raids
And burns your smile.
And I am back where I
Started.

Square one
The rain,
You know,
That sort of a thing.

Song of the Sparrow

Running through your words,
I can see where
I’ve been coming from.
I run through my streets just the same
With a different shade.

Swimming in your skies
I can say I belong to a stranger place.
It’s not the same
From such great heights.

I was there beside you when
You saw the field burn.
I was hovering around you when
They took the statues down.

Mama don’t run from
The voices in your head.
When they throw you in a room
Make you confess.

Father be good
To you daughters and sons
Your quivering hands were never meant
To guide that bullet in the gun.

You say, ‘what of the rats
That ruined my brother’s meal?’

Don’t you know by now?
Painted fingers
Don’t always spell change.
But the hands that have none
Shall write me down again.

Fear That Gives Us Wings

Everyday, the same
Shouting at the sky
Feel my heart collide
With her to break.

Everyone, the same
I can’t tell you what I’ve been doing
You, who goes to sleep at 11:00 pm,
With you I laugh.

I won’t get to sing with the man upstairs
And my songs will never rhyme
Or slide on my tongue.
I won’t get to dance with the girl downstairs
No one stops this rain, a picture in my head.
Spiral web, my spiral web
Poems in my dream that you took
None on my page.

Reasons are blossoming outside my window
Too far, they can’t be plucked
And made my own
Because you want them back.
You want it all back.

I am not ready for the fall
But I know it is fear that Gives us wings.

Epilogue

Here time waits for you to pass,
Prayer flags mutter your name in tune with the leaves.
And the fireworks arrive just in time
They point a finger and mirror your eyes.

Dancing down the valley, you
Crept closer during conversations
Your hands grew rough as we carved
A road through that hill.
I waited at the turn
For strangers that never came. Though,
Echoes were heard
And songs were sung,
The setting sun got the better of us.

Remember how we learnt to laugh at
Locks at chains and similar things?

An old man with trees’ roots and maps
And blue of your skin that showed me the way
I was lost in your world, in forgotten cities.
But now the silence of the sun, that
Yawns, aches and rises to find
The candle has melt, the smoke is gone
And maybe a dog
Still waits for us by the waterfall.

(photo by Priyani...thank you)

untitled

I say love, it has taken too long for
Me to find hopes and miracles, but you
Built a nest, kept it all safe
Inside.

Maybe I never leave, I just keep
Drawing circles, raising walls to make
You stay. But I’m not here, I disappear
Tonight.

Just A Whisper

Silence lives beyond those doors
It answers no one but speaks
To some. I too, have tried to chase
That smile but it fades like
Water from seashores after the
Waves are gone.

Maybe we are but pawns trying to
Be kings or queens. Shake us when you
Hold that tree and we will come down
Swaying in the wind like an autumn leaf.
Call to us through the fog, we shall sing
And serenade, as you please.

This song is not the last time I
Hold my head down and confess, like
Graffiti on the wall which no one will read,
If you have run all your life, it should be
Easier to walk.

Inch

I think I think too much. I think I feel too much. I think I can’t run when I do.

I think I have to start again. I think I am getting tired of it. I think I will do it now.

I think I am uninspired. I don’t think anymore. I think I will be replaced.

I think I am a dreamer. I think that’s not allowed.

I think I believe in miracle drugs. I think she has no faith in medicine.

I think I just do what I am told. I think they are always right.

I think I have always been too quiet. I think I want to scream.

I think I am wrong. I think its okay.

I think I still need you sometimes. I think you are not coming back.

I think I will give up. I think I will get up again.

I think I am not going to die now.

I think poetry is still there in me. It runs through my veins. It beats through my heart. It breathes through my lips. It drips from the nib and the pen will never run dry.

I think I am not afraid to try. I think you are. You always have been.

I think I am passive no more. I think I love you. I know.

I found my inch. I am keeping it.

Song to Say Goodbye

Run, like magnets
On the wood
Slide like paper off the wall.
Fly, like wishes in
The wind
Out of the frame, the box.

This new hurt
Is unlike anything
You scratch the itch
Peel like second skin.
And lately, I have
Come undone
Like her dress
A ball of string.

Take a dive,
My paper plane
You’ve learnt how to soar.
Teach me, and
I will try
To not follow you anymore.

You will sing this
Just the same,
Moving pictures in my mind.
Chase me
An umbrella in
The rain
I’m not too far behind.

Passing Through

Certain strange things
That make me want to cry.
The fresh smell of newly cut grass
My grandmother’s skin
Top of a baby’s head
Kerosene

I know its time to go when
The ground is yawning at my feet.
But I smile,
Not tell anyone.

Inside,
I think of you
When the shadows become longer
And the fire dies down
When the night is awakened
And no one is around.

In the morning,
Not easy when,
I’m alone with myself and,
My hand goes out to touch you,
But you’re not there.
It’s just the summer breeze
Passing through.

Ayya

Pure poetry, she
My grandmother in her sleep
Nodding,
Yes and no and yes.
War and truce.

Her belly,
The tides with,
A whirlpool in centre
Skin is pale and has lines that stretch
Like a newly washed shore
The waves gone.

And like the water
She is not of the same shade
From afar.

Her eyebrows,
Scattered sea shells today
That glisten like pearls they hide
From the sun.

The stories that rage
When it rains
Come alive
Inside
Where she takes nothing in
And gives back sunken treasures
From her heart that grows weary
But beats, still.

new leaf

Brain :''...initiate the 'angry young man' phase.''
Heart :''OKAY''

The Rambler

Anti social
You’re soaked with touch.
I think I’ve had too much here,
Bodies glide in a silent room,
Silhouettes wait for midnight,
Morning
Some for the after noon

And who’s seen you?
You who were born in the rain
I remember everything
The swell and the shade
Of your dress
You tears and shouts
In darkness

I don’t want forgiveness or sympathy, for I am not sorry for anything. And maybe I am scared because, I think it would have been easier to, converse if your face was cloaked by hair, but know for sure that I was always willing to try. And in a room full of strangers I will never act my age (for what is my age?), maybe just maybe you’ll see that the only thing that scares you the most is what you have inside. It may come true like something that lasts.

And maybe you will change you mind
Maybe everything will be okay
After tonight.

Photos

Looking at photos of people you don’t know is easier…they are not that different from people you know in photographs though. They are smiling, laughing, making funny faces, holding hands, pulling someone, hugging, touching, leaning, sleeping, jumping etc just like your friends in photographs, but its okay to look at someone and not remember anything because you don’t know them and you probably never will. It’s easier when something that freezes time doesn’t remind you of anything.

Writing everyday is hard. How did the others do it, others who are dead and long gone? If not anything, I guess it’s important to be in love. I guess it’s important to feel something…anything. I believe we should just keep burning forever with some emotion or desire. But burn too much and it will make you weak.

I wish I could walk away from most things that have departed from me. I guess sometimes it’s hard to accept that the closer you get to something, the farther it moves away from you. Ever felt like a magnet with its poles reversed, like you attract nothing? But sometimes you should let things go. Maybe people just want to be free. Maybe I am very uninspiring and never give anyone a chance to stay or remember something I said. I just don’t know anymore.

There was a time not long ago when I saw heart attacks, apocalypse, end of the world, but I stopped thinking about it (…stop thinking about it!!)

It hurts to think that to some it doesn’t matter at all. A sense of loss is just a slight glitch in their life, just a minor alteration, and they deal with it perfectly. Why the hell am I such a nervous wreck without any confidence whatsoever? Why do I keep holding on? Why do I need a confirmation or an affirmation of the pain inside being physically manifested in the real world? Why can’t I do anything about it? I am not that old but I guess I am tired of starting again and again from the same point. No, it’s NOT ‘beautiful’.

Advices stop meaning anything when you just don’t want to listen. Advices don’t mean anything when you know they won’t help. Time doesn’t heal everything when it is time itself that reminds us of what caused the hurt in the first place.

They call me a dreamer. They say I give them hope. Why do I keep none for myself?

The festive season is on and I feel more alone than ever. I feel like no one wants to come and see me and I am only running after people…could my mother be right? The subtleness of Eid will soon give way to the chaos of Diwali and after the fireworks will die, the dim lights of Christmas will shine in the night. All this will soon wash away and the only thing that will be left will be the silence of the coming year. But where will I be on these days and what will I do?

Maybe I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Maybe I just keep telling myself the exact same thing because I am here every year. Maybe nothing has really changed. I just don’t know anymore.

Remember Me

Someday,
Like rain at my porch
You will shade me of many things
To come

Without a sound
We come tumbling down
The hill we seldom climbed
Not tell anyone.

And our voices glide
When the clocks mutter midnight
Then you’re left with making faces.

You’re slow and wild
Just like a child.
Never tamed
With a name
For all your places

And I’ll wait
For you to come
It has begun.
I can see the end is near.

When one day
You will learn to fly
All I’ll ask
Set them free
Teach me how to land,
Remember me.