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.

Remembering You

Show me pictures of yellow streets
And all your walls
Without a name

I want to see your city shining
In shades of white
I want to see it dressed
With red lights

I want to dance
In all your haunts
Hear stories from old men
Then lose my way.

Remind me that happiness
Is still worth its weight in gold
Find me
In blue of the night
Within bodies that shouldn’t be sold.

Spin this path
Like my grandmother’s hair
Black and white with a little brown
Take me to your lost green land
Where I’m waiting to be found.

Last Life

Your name
Comes to me
In silence
When we talk
Or maybe that’s
Not who you are.

Lately, I have been away
It seems that I have gone astray.
I am chasing shadows in the dark.

You know I swim
Then I drown
We are always either
Lost or found.

On someone else’s page
Through better days
Hold our breath and stand aground.

The roads point
In the same direction
This merge is nothing new.
Look up to the sky and
Find your reasons
Coming back to you

Or take me as I am
Before we fall away
When words refuse to speak
And I lose myself.
Into your eyes,
Off your smile
Another black and white
Empty space.

Rewind

No more shards to
Piece what is broken.
It came from below when I
Wasn’t looking

And to see you now is to
Wait for winter
To kiss the rain
That slides away.

Stuck
In the middle of
This page
On my mirror
And these walls and,
Teacups and conversations
Alive, breathing, in
Every street I walk.

It seems that you are in the way.

In my eyes, words repeat,
Fall and wither.
Not make sense,
When
This web won’t mend, but
You will heal.

And if they ask,
I will tell the others of
The songs in your heart
Without a tune

There are some things
We must feel, but
Never know.

Me. Now.

Should we tear this body in two?
Watch it become separate
Like chromosomes divide?
See the ashes flow in the river
Sing it like you have to hide.

Crash

I was spinning dreams on a wheel
When a butterfly crashed
On a glass
Beating its last wings.

Then the powder rose
And fell like dust
Over the tint, after which
A sound was heard below a din

And as the candle flickered to show us the way,
We let some wax
Run down our chin.

Familiar song?

They hurt
They sting
They burn
The shards that remain
As you come and fall around me
Tell me you wish for this to end.

The Way You Were Before the Way You Are Now

It’s a quiet world,
This city life
Where no one sings today
And you cast your webs
For no one’s eyes
You come down with the rain.

Lost in a haze of silhouettes
In the clocks that keep time
You light another cigarette
Wishing the reasons would rhyme.

And though you’d rather be somewhere else
With someone else by your side
You’re going to tell yourself it’s alright
You will tell yourself it’s alright.

Sliver

You tear a smile
You wear a shoe
What am I to do?

You wait a while
I am into you
Well what am I to do?

The spoils of war
These battle scars
The future won’t make you
Who you are.

The folds in your dress
Make me lose myself.

You count the reds
Now pull the thread.

The lights shine over you, down
The king of yesterdays
Turned my heart out.

And till we swerve, we never blink
Swallow the same wave
Ring the same nerves
Get distorted again.

And when I tell her

I am over this,
She wonders
Could she take it all back?
The sounds heard before a crash.