Trickle

I have no recourse for the winds of future
Where the embrace of arms
Is closer than France.
Where doused, like leaves in a pond,
we swim freely over voices of youth
that can’t explain love
like knots they can’t untie, undo.

I’ve no remorse for the loss of time
I set sail with my paper boats each day
Into the corners of her mind
Hanging to the corners of her lips
And swinging from the corners of her chin
Till I, myself, am cornered.

But she runs and lies
Between words and whispers
Between timing and silence
And I exist in the space
Between her eyes
Between her lips as they part
To utter fiery words
Or I lie in dried shades with dust of time
Finally, I find her.

Like the winding road inside of me
That leads to laughter and madness
Madness of a holiday where you forget age
One day I’ll forsake you
Like the stolen moon
In a sparrow’s eye
And carry your laughter
Buried deep in the forest of me.

Take me like the pages of a book
You read when you were young
See me as a door
If you don’t know me yet as a
Wall left bare
With an open window.

Half baked

Dripping from my rain cloud
Are ungentle words
Walking without an umbrella
I am soaked in curses and things
I wrote at the back of my high school notebooks
I am scratching my past on a green blackboard
Wishing it'd spell some truth.

Words weigh heavy on the mind
I was a font in lower case and you, a case of missing letters I tried to find
I gave her a needle and became a thread
That went through and she
Pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled
And in that
Pushing and pulling, of my knots and stitches,
I sometimes forgot to see myself as an old sweater coming undone
And turned into an old shoe box to put your memories into
She said I saved too much.

Now words weigh heavy on the mind
And love bears a resemblance to everything unkind
With her mouth poised but closed
She always used her fingers to speak
Her fists to write and her eyes to sing.

Now there is only silence that sleeps besides me in my bed
The grassy park of romance is now a parking lot
And I’m known to vanish or only fire blanks
Like giant tanks without ammunition
I stand here wishing the wall could punch me back.

But words weigh heavy on the mind
And love bears a resemblance to everything I wanted to find
With her face closed she lay with silent eyes
On the bed I made
With weapons drawn she said"You must be unkind"
"Unkind?" I asked
Yes, unkind. To be and survive.

I turned away like a grain of sand
And slept with a dream of the sea.

And rose above the tides to say,Give me an ocean of waves
Not a dead sea where I float lifeless
For I am a mellow ghost haunting no one
Be true to the wind and trust the shores I've been
Tossing and turning with your tides
Let me swim within you
Don’t be calm
Speak like a storm
Sing like a swarm of birds
Gathered above the rolling waves
And know you will find me washed
But unchanged.

Fires

I'm words for hire

But my eyes are tired

And my voice is gone.

I've burned bridges

But I don't set fires

Just to see how

High the flames would go.

May

May you be the season
That autumn loves to loathe.
May you be the reason
For clouds to part and pour.

May you be the answer

For all minds to wander free.
May you be the river
That quenches every tree.

May you be the tale

Of a thousand gleeful faces
May you be a poem
Found in hidden, tender places.

May you have wings

That teach you how to soar
May you win all fights with peace
And never keep a score.

May you be the eternal flame

That burns from within
May you find an ocean inside
May you learn to swim.

Maps

Stay where you are

I've no maps for your eyes

No directions whatsoever for your body

And while our waves intertwine

I only wish to caress the sand

Of your skin

But stay where you are

Sometimes I think

You're better from a distance

For distance

Doesn't let me see

You going smoother with time

Washed like rocks by the sea

And I walk through your silence to say,

“The night is but a river,

Flowing from your eyes.”

Stay where you are

Tangled in the morning

Like your hair at noon

In the unruly wind

Where you trudge closer

On haunted rides

Through razor sharp tales

Hiding from thirsty beaks of crows

And as your neck becomes the road

That lays out shining before me

Where I go dancing in circles,

Let my whispers treat you well

Stay where you are

Or be here now

Open window

Sometimes

The afternoon

Sleeps like a lazy dog

By my window

Hiding from the sun

And while in the shade,

You remain a beautiful ghost

I sound like a stone unturned.

Mumbling to myself beneath the surface

Becoming an island

Drifting like a tale

Away from your stories

Over evenings stretched out into

Secret promises of the rain

Where doused, we make our way

Out of clothes, and

Into words

Fleeting like deadwood

Above conversations of smoke

That fly out of the window

I forgot to close.

The Moth

In her eyes

In her endless eyes

In her gentle, warm, endless eyes

Like the darkening sky

Lie sleeping galaxies, waterfalls

The moon itself.

Like her warmth, that haunts me still

She whispers to me sometimes

Between the sheets

Of an empty bed

Where she gathered me at dawn

And lay me down at night.

In cold of the night, where my will breaks again

The galaxies and stars are dying

The steel of words, melting

The broken string of her instrument

That rings no more.

So I recede

In her eyes

In her endless eyes

In her gentle, warm, endless eyes

Not merely a moth content with reaching the flame

I must dance with it, too.

Reflections in the Dark

It’s July

The roof of the sky is falling

And the storm in your arms

Has kept me away

But through the pages

Of a memory set on fire

I remember you

Like a tree wrapped in light

Wading through

The darkest forest.

I’ve learnt silence is

Closer than we think

Like the ocean at my feet

Or the people standing still

Like weather beaten mannequins

And that I only sing to myself

As your flame dances

Above me

And my words melt away.

I still recall the red shore

Of your lips

And that green gate through which

You made your way

To watch a gentle river flow

And birds with their flame

Melt me to my bones.

But oh my evening moon

My midnight flower

As forever departs and future beckons

Know you were always well clothed

In garbs of light

And I was always

Naked in your presence.

Tired Gamble

In the gamble of everyday

Between what is lost and what is left

I was washed with your flame

Summoned by your voice

And taken by your hunger

But now your words are a trickle

From a broken ceiling.

I was woven

In your story

Lonely as a room

Empty as a house

Made into a home, and

Now I’m a shore

Where the waves only recede.

I’m tired of writing you

Like a road

That goes nowhere

 I’m weakened by singing

You like a song

That you can’t hear.

Lose

I must lose it all.

I must lose because I don’t have anything hard or ugly or cold or bitter inside. I don’t have a struggle. I was born in a simple family to loving parents. I was bound for normalcy. But what is normal? Is it a fence we build for ourselves or a wall others raise around us? I think it’d be best to call it a state of motionlessness. Of not going anywhere. Like trying to swim in an ocean with no waves. Or maybe that’s what our indecisive brains try and tell us – to move away from the comfort we burrow ourselves in. however, like the roots of an old tree, our beliefs fasten themselves into a ripe ground of youth and age till they’re too rigid to change.

The only thing I've ever learnt from life and love is that sometimes we should close our mouths but we should never close our eyes.

Now I rage without a reason. I burn without a flame. My voices have no words anymore.

I must lose it all.

The Tides

Will the river meet the ocean tide?

Where the mountains end and the sun does hide?

To forget and float away like a stringless kite

Is what I often wish to do.

To see the world in her eyes through sunlight beams

To never question these threads merging into tender seams

As night turns to day and a blue evening leans

My arms are doors that lie open for you.

Today, I wish to fly like birds that brave the wind

To be naked and shed this dying skin

Even though they oft meander, my thoughts are pinned

To a wall of words I raised and drew.

And yet, I arrive only as a letter

Only to be gagged, bound and tethered

Yellowed, unopened and set upon a table

Weather beaten and never to be read.

So find me a place where my bones can rest

In the rising tides, I was summoned by your zest

Now I tremble as you remove your dress

But I’ll hold you close like the words you've said.

*photo by Pranita Kocharekar*

Breaking

To break your silence with a spoon

To cut your voice with my words

To touch your flame with my tongue

Is to break you.

Say a word and time will fall,

Disappear.

Translate my gestures

In a broken language

Or build a shelter, and

Be my home

And I will make you.

Let the fire withdraw

Like waves from your eyes

Beyond this empty shore

The tides rise and fall, like

Words lost inside words.

Let me gather all your scattered shells

And I will take you.

Storm

I wake as a poem

Lost in your pages

Once again, in your tired arms

In your cloudy eyes

In your restless wind.

Lost, in your body poetry

I rest within your eyes

And listen to your hair sing.

Through the puzzle

Of the rising sun

I carry your silence

Through my tides

Waiting for the storm to pass.

Woman of Words

Let your words spill out of me

Words that I write alone

On your back in the dark

Words like fruits I pluck from your eyes

Words that shine on the silver

Of your moon skin.

Let them enclose me like your

Arms on a dark street

Till there is nothing else

But words and you and me.

Let your words drown my memories

Lead me to newer lands with shores of hope

Where I find you smiling at every corner

And the trees utter your secrets

With silent words.

Let me be your empty page to conquer

Let my lines spell freedom for your winged words

And I will plant my words

Like kisses on your tired eyes

Watch the tendrils bloom into flowers

And roots fasten themselves down

Into your warm bosom.

And with words, we will

Paint pictures that speak

Sing our songs to reach the sky

With words, we shall brave

Sliver of serpent tongues

Trapeze and traverse this trepid time

Till there is nothing else

But words and you and me.

Inches

Sometimes you're so close that I could just reach out and touch you. But I don't. Sometimes when I don't see you looking my way, I keep staring until you do but then I feel like a creep staring at you so I stop soon enough. I hate putting on this mask and walking into a cubicled world where I must pretend I've never held you or will never get to. I hate how I don't have a good idea about what I am doing or whether its alright and you seem sure about things and when you're not I've nothing conclusive to say.

The Sailor

If I was a sailor on the

Ocean of your skin

I’d be thrilled to be capsized

In your tides

To rise and fall with

Your thunder and love

Lost in the music of your storm

Wet with the tongue of the sea

Charting my own course to rest on

Unsure, but steady

Trusting the stars in your eyes

Turning and playing with your waves

And while you wash me with foam

I wish I’d drown.

Hate

Sometimes you just want hate to consume you. So much so, you wait for someone to wrong you. Pure white like fresh milk, that’s no way to describe hate, but it washes over you, until you and its shade are one.

Beyond the Line

White and grey, outside a blue facade
Of steel and concrete
A flurry of pigeons in the sun
Windows open like a gaping mouth
Or a million veiled eyes
Lost in the crowd.

Woman in the Waves

The face that soars above mine

With eyes brown as the earth beneath my feet

Is the one I whisper to

And hold.

Your lips, as wet as a sea shore

Moist from a resting tongue

That lashes like a wave

Awakens from slumber of the night

Uttering bitter truths

Parting ways and coming together

Like my answers,

Your tides come and leave.

Your hands enclosed in mine like a summer web

Must surely brave the weather

When the sun keeps its promise, and hides

When fine yarns come undone

And the sky is most vile.

Shivering in the cold shade

As the water rises, she whispers,

‘Meet me halfway’

And I pick up my roots

And walk.

Shoes

I look at the ground more often than I used to. Looking up is not what it used to be when the sky looks the same everyday. Those who usually complain that people's faces look the same should look down more often, because their shoes certainly don't.