Ballad

 

forgive me if i laugh you are so sure of love you are so young and i too old to learn of love. the rain exploding in the air is love the grass excreting her green wax is love and stones remembering past steps is love, but you. you are too young for love and i too old. once. what does it matter when or who, i knew of love. i fixed my body under his and went to sleep in love all trace of me was wiped away forgive me if i smile young heiress of a naked dream you are so young and i too old to learn of love. - Sonia Sanchez

Mouthful Of Forevers

I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edges
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.
This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
of your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.

And I will not be afraid
of your scars.

I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.”

- Clementine von Radics

Kavita se Kranti ka ek asafal prayatn(feeling Mudi tonight)

Kya bataon kab mujhse kavita chhoot gayi
Roti ke chakkar mein tanhayi rooth gayi

Kavi mitron se milna tab kum hua
Mehfilon mein jana jab band hua

Bacha-kucha saali mohabbat loot gayi
Kya bataon kab mujhse kavita chhoot gayi

Kavita roothi, kalam phooti
Mohabbat ne duniya looti

Ab ye padh kar lag hi raha hoga aapko
Sar mein dard ho hi raha hoga aapko

Kalam meri thi laal, padey-padey bhagua ho gayi
Kya bataon kab mujhse kavita chhoot gayi

Phir ek mahashay gaddi pe baithey
Chaudi chhaati pe aise ainthey

Pahlaj aur Gajendra ko bhi bithaya
Kehtein hain bahuton ko marwaya
Nalanda se Amartya nikal aya

Sunaana tha sach magar keh kar jhooth gayi
Kya bataon kab mujhse kavita chhoot gayi

Aese mahaul mein kavita bhala kaun likhta bhai
Kavi mitron sang mil kar maine andolan kiya bhai

Do ko goli lagi, do paagal huey do ko jeevan raas na aya
Mohabbat gayi, roti gayi, kismat ne na saath nibhaya 

Sar mein dard toh ho hi raha hoga aapko
Ab ye padh kar lag hi raha hoga aapko

Kaise ghar mein ghus kar mujhe CBI koot gayi
Kya bataon kab mujhse kavita chhoot gayi

Ab ye aalam hai ki laptop pe sar patakta hoon
Apne ma-baap tak ko main ab khatakta hoon

Kya likhoon, kis par likhoon, kiske liye likhoon
Likhne se kya hoga, kavita main kyun likhoon

'Kavita khao, kavita pehno, kapde pe kavita likho
Jungle sab katenge ab, ab kapde pe hi kavita likho’

Jaate-jaate bhi saali dekar NaMo ka suit gayi
Kya bataon kab mujhse kavita chhoot gayi.

The Rain Song

I was asked to write a nature-themed short poem for a 12 year old's poetry recital at school. Here it is:

So there is this thing,
This thing I want to do
Splash on a puddle
Drink a raindrop or two

Feel the damp earth beneath my feet
See the umbrellas on the street
The rains are here again
The rains are here again
Oh I just love it in the rain!

So there is this thing,
This thing I want to hear
Raindrops on a tin roof
Stopping on the window near

The smell of damp earth under my feet
Rainbow umbrellas on the street
The rains are here again
The rains are here again
Oh I just love it in the rain!

Joyful showers shared with friends
Hot cups of cocoa with my family
The rains are good to me
The rains are good to me.

Nirbhaya Ke Dukh Mein

Kabhi aapne socha hai
ki swarglok ki apsaraon ka kya
aaj vahi haal hai jo Hindustan ki naariyon ka  ka hai?

Kya un apsaraon ko bhi devgun unhi nazaron se dekhte hain
jin nazaron ka saamna local train mein safar kar rahi
mahilaon ko karna padhta  hai?

Ise kaliyug ka naam deke
itni aasani se na taaliye, Shrimaan.
Ye shoshan to Manu ke kaal se chala aa raha hai.

Kabhi mandir mein jaake dekhiye,
vahaan aapko insaan hi milenge.
Devtaon ne toh kabse vahaan aana
band kar diya hai

Brothels

These lanes, these marts of rich delights,
Precious lives, undone, defiled;
Where are the defenders of virtuous pride?
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

These sinuous streets, these doors ajar,
The clinking coins, the moving masks,
Deals of honour, hagglings fast,
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

These dimly-lighted, stinking streets,
These yellowing buds, crushed and ceased,
These hollow charms, for sale and lease;
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

The jingling trinkets at casement bright,
Tambourines a-throb 'mid gasping life;
Cheerless rooms with cough alive;
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

Boisterous laughs on public paths,
Crowds at windows, thick and fast,
Vulgar words, obscene remarks;
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

The betel spittal, the floral wreaths,
Audacious looks and filthy speech,
Flaccid figures, looks diseased;
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

Lecherous eyes in beauty's quest,
Extended hands chasing breasts,
Springing feet on stairs pressed;
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

This is the haven of young and old.
Aging sires and youngsters bold,
Wife, mother and sister — she plays a triple role.
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

Help, O Help, this daughter of Eve!
Radha's child, Yashoda's breed;
The prophet's race, Zuleikha's seed;
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

Call, O call the leaders wise
Let them see these streets, these sights,
Where are the champs of eastern pride?
Where are they who praise, the pious eastern ways?

Sahir Ludhianvi

हल्ला हुआ है जी हल्ला हुआ है – Iqbal Abhimanyu

कहीं किसी रानी के
कहीं किसी पोते को
बेटा हुआ है,
बेटा हुआ है जी बेटा हुआ है,
सोने की चम्मच
फैशनेबल पालकी
फोटोजेनिक चेहरा
लेटा हुआ है
लेटा हुआ है जी लेटा हुआ है
खबर है खबर है
जबर है जबर है
पेपर में टीवी में
हल्ला हुआ है
हल्ला हुआ है जी हल्ला हुआ है
वो हमारा बाप है
पर हैं सुर्खाब के
गुलामों के खून से
सींचा घर आँगन है
जहां कदम रख दे
बिछने लगें सब
सैकड़ों सालों से
यही तो आलम है
अपने शहजादे
कीचड में लोटे
सर्दी में ठिठुरें
किस्मत के खोटे
ढाबों पे बर्तन वो मांजें
फटे चीथड़ों में वो साजे
घर में बाप से मार खाए
स्कूल में मास्टर न आए
वो सिग्नल पे अड़ के खड़े हैं
स्टेशन पे नंगे फिरे हैं
कचरा बीनते चल रहे हैं
खबर है खबर है
जबर है जबर है
जहर खा के बच्चे मरे हैं
सियासत के कच्चे मरे हैं
कुपोषण से बच्चे मरे हैं
बाढ़ों में बच्चे बहे हैं
न खबर है न हल्ला है
कि जो मरा नहीं
वो बच्चा
कब तक जिएगा
कहाँ जियेगा, कैसे जियेगा
कब तक मरेगा, कहाँ मरेगा
कैसे मरेगा
कि उसके लिए शाही बैंड बजेगा या नहीं
कि ब्रिटिश तख़्त के उत्तराधिकार में उसका कौन सा नंबर होगा
पर हाँ,
वो खुशकिस्मत होगा
मरकर भी जो
छप सकेगा
और
साम्राज्य कायम रहेगा
राजकुमार छपते रहेंगे
गुमनाम बच्चे मरते रहेंगे
आखिर सुर्ख़ियों के लिए
राजा का पैदा होना
और गुलामों का झुंडों में
सनसनीखेज तरीके से मरना
ज़रूरी है
(By- Iqbal Abhimanyu)

Sleep

That sinking feeling
As I see you in white
Holding his hand
With love in your eyes
Now, truly, everything is lost.

How did we get here?
Universes separating us
I just want to hold you and sleep.
Go back to a time before time.
Oh, Granter of wishes
Grant this wish of mine
I just want to hold you and sleep.
Sleep, sleep the demons away.

A thousand poems, a purple keychain
I clutch them to my chest
I weep, weep for innocence lost
How do I get over this?
How do I grieve this loss?

A million knives cut through me
Blades sharpened on hearts of stone
They slice through flesh, cut through bone
Wine, the color of blood,
Bursts through my veins and splatters

The world is ending, religion is theft
The fish are dead, there's no ice left
They cannot save it, they are lying
Let's forget what's already dying
I just want to hold you and sleep.

And never wake up, I don't want to live
There is nothing left for me to give
I just want to hide, be warm and cosy
Life is too hard, and people too nosy
I just want to hold you and sleep.

The last gasp of a love dying
Taking so much with it
Leaving so little behind
I let you go. Be happy, my True
I shall pretend I'm happy for you
I just want to hold you and sleep.

My Angel

When I was down in every way
You saved me a little everyday.
The answer to all my prayers
My little Angel you were there.

The good times are great
The bad ones not that bad
My Angel when you are here

Even when you annoy the hell out of me
I love you
At that very moment, I'm getting annoyed
And loving you to pieces
Because my Angel you are here.
Stressing and loving me
My Angel you are here.

You have redeemed this world for me
Just when I had given up on it
I have forgiven its cruelties and little disappointments
Life is worth living again
My little Angel now that you are here

I'm writing you this disjointed poem
To show you I do care
That you are here
My little Angel you are here.

Us

How are you, my love?
My first, my only
Are you happy, my True?
I've been so lost, so lonely

But once a year you are mine, in a dream
When I can taste the winter-cream
On my lips, as if it was yesterday
Let me pour my heart out today...

Your big brown eyes,
I remember them so
The warmth in your embrace,
A promise to never let go.

Why to I do this every year?
Write you a poem and shed a tear
For the memory of us
When 'Us' ceased to be so long ago

That age of innocence and wonder
When we were young and the world, younger
I have to hold on to it, come what may
So I write you a poem every year in May.

How much longer can I carry this on?
My stubborn heart knows only one song
The song of 'Us' and our togetherness
Of perfect love and dreams of foreveness.

This stubborn, childish heart of mine
Does not know of surrender to time
Ah, time! Look how it passes
In rusty clocks and broken hourglasses

I am a different 'Me'
And your 'You' must be
Quite different too.

Did you find love or do you still
Look for the one who will
Sweep you off your feet
And give you kisses sweet?

I wish I could hold you,
Be there for you
Look in your beautiful eyes
And see that love again
A return to innocence

There is so much I have to say
But you are so far away
And it has been so, so long
People have come and people have gone

But you somehow remained.
Like a little warmth retained
From the dying embers of my life's spring
To give me hope in this world so cold
So unforgiving, so bitter, so old.
No telling what the future might bring

So this time of year I think of you
Those blossoming days, those 'tickets for two'.
Though grow up we must
I can wistfully dream
Of the old you and me
And a whole new 'Us'.

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by me
is only your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky
of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope
or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder
that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)

-- e e cummings

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                             --Elizabeth Bishop

Note Autobiographical

Kashmir was damp
With the damp of dreams
Autumn's funeral
With a coffin of leaves
I asked Grandma,
"Is God a Muslim?"

No one taught me the Koran
My father mouthed Freud and Marx
Something about recognizing necessity
Mother had long since discarded the veil

Grandma read me the tale of Job
"The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away

Then God came:
A poor eyesight, a silver beard,
Ninety years old
My Grandfather

I worshiped him
Proud and gentle
But he crumpled
Like a maple leaf

Dust unto dust is his will.

Then our servant lost his shoes at the mosque
I had nothing left to ask.



My voice cracked on Ghalib
As dreams of God crumbled for me

Our servant, his shoes stolen at the mosque,
Turned deaf to the muezzin's call

The calligraphed dome gave way to the sky
Autumn caved into me with its script of flames
And ignited my dry garbage of God

I varnished my face with the sun,
My tongue forgot the texture of prayer.

--Agha Shahid Ali

Your Caring Beloved

A gift of a diamond and your burnt heart’s wound has arrived

Congratulations, Asad! your caring beloved has arrived

jirdhat tohfih, almas armughan, dagh-e-jiggar hadiyah

mub arkabad Asad, ghmamkahr-e jan-e dardmand aya

~Original in Persian by Ghalib

The news came today my lover by night might come.

I lay my head on the road by which he would come.

The desert gazelles were holding their heads in their hands,

Hoping he would hunt the day he comes.

The pull of my love will not keep him still.

If to my funeral he couldn't make it, to my grave he'd surely come.

My soul has now come to my lips, come so that I may live

After I die, what purpose if you come?

Khabaram raseed imshab ki nigaar khuahi aamad;

Sar-e man fidaa-e raah-e ki sawaar khuahi aamad.

Ham-e aahwan-e sehra sar-e khud nihada bar kaf;

Ba-umeed aanki rozi bashikaar khuahi aamad.

Kashishi ki ishq daarad naguzaradat badinsaa;

Ba-janazah gar nayai ba-mazaar khuahi aamad.

Balabam raseed jaanam fabiya ki zindah maanam;

Pas azan ki man na-maanam bacha kar khuahi aaamad.

~Original in Persian by Amir Khusrau

For Sneh

You left me walking in the rain,
Cold and alone, and the pain
Was like me
A bit unsure of itself..

What happened, how?
Who knows, who cares
Its so cold, I'm so wet
This blood on my fingers
It won't go away

Things left unsaid
Echo about this abyss
Left in your wake
This trail of crimson
These tatters I rake

To the heavens have you gone
From where you had arrived?
To nurse my ailing heart
Such lies I contrive
But still it weeps

I cry all bunched up
Like you were when inside me
Tears fall till I fall asleep
And forget, then I smile

I had dreamed of you
Long before you had come
To live within me
As I dream you now
The last remains
Of a tainted love

I watch you
Lying next to me
Crying
Eating
Sleeping
Smiling
Laughing
Walking
Running...away
And you disappear

I'm awake, and it starts all over again.

Truth bent but not broken,

More dangerous than the lie not spoken -Rohan Sarode

Merry Christmas, Love

Since I am totally broke, my girl asked me to write her a poem as a Christmas gift. This is what I came up with. I'm not used to writing on request and my style usually involves a lot of tributes(read copyright infringement). Inspiration is hard to come by these days but Rabbi Shergill came to my rescue. He is like the Bruce Springsteen of India, and I am like the Quentin Tarantino of Poetry :)


Had I come some other time,
Would we have still met the same way?

Had I been a better thief,
Would the moon have been so full?

Had I known how to lie,
Would the veil have still remained?

O Veiled One.

Who knows? Not me
A different time, a different sea

Would it have been harder? Easier?

Was there a better cure?
We could never be sure

Your touch was warm.

You had built such a high wall
I laid a siege all through the fall

Could I have been more persistent? Or less?

I scrambled up and met my demise
By coarse, yellow hair and sea-green eyes

You had coarse hair.

As you lie beside me now
with your yellow hair on my brow

Splitting the sun. Light? Or Shade?

I close my eyes and try to breathe
For soon it will be time to leave

And I am glad.

I'm glad that this happened
The way it happened
Because it happened

You are in my arms today
And I wouldn't have it any other way.

This coarse hair. This warm touch. I'm glad.

Ode To Salt

Ode To Salt

This salt
in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes
when I heard
the voice of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste infinitude.

- Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

All Time Favourite Sonnet

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

The Reason pt. 2

"dig deep" as they would say
examine the flow of emotions

how did you get here?
we need proper investigations

so i become Sherlock,
pipe and hat and coat, all preparations

elementary, my dear Watson!
i say to my pen, after many negotiations

the pen being the only surgeon
to operate on my lunacy.