Endgame

Look, if you head down

That path, across the hall

Five years from now

You will not find me...

And even if you do

It will not be the same I

So remember this

Remember this day

If the vicissitudes of 

Your now new life permit

Remember me, because 

I will never forget...

Visitation Hour (For Old Lovers)

A memory arose

From the dogeared pages 

Of a book 

Where you had scribbled

Your name 

In cursive hand 

With the letters running loops

Intertwined

Like your fingers used to 

With mine

There is a phone number
Scrawled under
Your name

That I know you don't answer to
Now

And that I can still recall  

With Precision 

Like the paths

I would trace on your back

While we lay on our bed

Naked 

Ruminating about Life, the Universe

And chasing starlights
That are now

Fading

Like this memory 

And I wonder
If we could ever be

Strangers

42

He wrote a poem for her
On a yellow, sepia toned page
With the quill of longing,
Dipped, in an ink-pot
Of pensive memories...

He watched her
Turn that page into
An origami boat,
As she set sail, forever, into oblivion
Leaving a trail of his words
In the water...

Oh, Beautiful Loss

So let's start with the obvious; let's start with something that is always at the back of my mind every time I think of you; let's start with something that defines the spaces between us. Let's start with words, for your silence has rendered me into a shapeless mass of muted despair...

We are approaching the moment of your departure from my life. Yes, that very moment that I once described as the reason for my reticence towards you, the reason why I had to put on a mask everyday to keep my smile in check. Oh the way you rebuked me for that! You shook me out of my delusions of self-inflicted misery and made me believe that the world is not out there to hurt me; that our words  can heal all the wounds and soothe the heart; and that there are colors beyond the blacks and the whites in which I used to paint my days. Ironic as it is, it is your silence now that makes me wonder if at all you yourself believed in what you said... 

I have spoken, in the past, so fondly of that dreamy pair of eyes that you have. When you used to look at me through them and smile at my stories, the world seemed different. There was hope, there was joy, and the blood in my veins would turn into caramel and honey; and my existence would elevate to the snow clad peaks of the Alps that I had seen and that had filled me with a satisfaction so sublime that only a Greek hero could have had on finding elysium. You defined beauty and loss; all at the same time... you were the bond that consummated the two and made me realize that two can exist in perfect symbiosis. When you looked me in the eye, you made loss beautiful for me... and now you yourself are the loss, while all beauty lies in a profligate waste...

I am not good with defining human bonds; perhaps because definitions are stringent and have borders. And if I put you, for who,  freedom stands above everything else, in a definition that would be telling you, that I don't know you at all. Yet, as you move farther away from me, I need a totem to remember you by. So I'll define what you mean to me, my dilemma notwithstanding- perhaps, you are the first thought that comes to my mind when I wake up every morning; perhaps you are the voice in the dark that comforts me; the friend in the night, who'd lend a ear, when all the world has turned its back on me. Perhaps, you are the love that I was never supposed to have; perhaps you are that chapter in the book that I'll write, that would never conclude. Perhaps, you are that poem, that I'll never conjure; the guitar that I could never learn to play... perhaps you are everything that made life bearable for a while... and then perhaps, you are nothing at all... 

A star turns into a supernova, lives change and we carry on with the burden of memories and unfinished stories... nonchalant in the bright of the day; secretly reminiscing and shedding that solitary warm tear, in the dead of the night; yearning for the day when the dark recesses of our oblivion will be lighted up once again with starlights and our paths will be laden once again with Sigur Róse...  

In between all of this, we learn to live with the silence of our words...

I can’t forgive you. Even if I could,
You wouldn’t pardon me for seeing through you.
And yet I cannot cure myself of love
For what I thought you were before I knew you. * 

-------------------------------------------------------------xx------------------------------------------------------------------

*Defining The Problem by  Wendy Cope

Funny how a song can compel one to pen down words. John Frusciante and the Chili Peppers are magical in this live performance, by the way. This one has a soul stirring guitar play, and words that can make one cry....

Fever

Eyes red, pulse slow
Teeth clenched, in readiness for the next blow.

Breath heavy, chest heaving
I stare fixedly, at the empty ceiling.

Body flaccid, thoughts skewed
Mind battles, with pledges renewed.

Mercury rises, my limbs quiver
Pills swallowed, welcome to my fever.


P.S.- This 'rhyme' was composed last year when I was suffering from severe illness. Another bout with illness and a serendipitous retrieval  of an old notepad, got it in its present form. 

Ruins

As I watch
The sun set
To mark,
The end
Of the day,
On my knees,
I bend;
Silently, I pray
For the neurons
To die and my
Memory, to decay....
But my prayer,
Instead
Lays bare,
The fragments of
What once
Was here...
Obsolete perhaps,
Redundant maybe,
Blinded still,
I stare,
At these ruins,
In the hope of
Finding my
Eloisa, Lenore, 
Fenchurch or Clementine...
I break apart and,
Wish for nothing, but
The gods to be
Kind,
And grant me my,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

Yaad

चिड़ियों की चेहचाहट से,

कुच्छ गुमनाम क़दमों की आहट से,

सूरज की उस पहली किरण से,

जब मेरी अचेतना की सुबह टकराती है,

तब 'याद' का क्या है!

बस यूं ही चली आती है....

उठता हूँ ये सोच कर,

कैसे कटेगी आज दोपहर,

दर्पण में मेरे प्रतिबिम्ब की छ्त्पताहट,

मुझे घबरा सा जाती है,

तब 'याद' का क्या है!

बस यूं ही चली आती है....

दफ़्तर में जब होता हूँ खाली,

फुर्सत के वही दो पल, और हाथ में चाय की प्याली,

देखता हूँ  जब खिड़की से बाहर, बादलों की दौड़ को,

अधरों पर मेरी, एक मायूस मुस्कराहट सी छा जाती है,

तब 'याद' का क्या है!

बस यूं ही चली आती है....

सांझ की अरुणिमा में,
जब बढ़ जाता है गाड़ियों का शोर,
बोझिल कदम मेरे, बढ़ते हैं घर की ओर,
इस भीड़ के सन्नाटे से, कुच्छ कोफ़्त सी हो जाती है,
तब 'याद' का क्या है!

बस यूं ही चली आती है....

निशा की कालिमा को, और चाँद के एकाकीपन को,

जब तारों की फ़ौज सजाती है,

तस्वीरों पर ज़मी धूल और आँखों की नमी, 

मुझे फ़िर यही समझाती हैं,

इन 'यादों' का क्या है!

ये तो यूं ही चली जाती हैं....

Separation-II: MUSE

Of the passion that we shared

When we

Last kissed;

Of the times you silently cried

And these moments,

I missed…

I live in the longing,

And regret;

Lest I forget

How it all felt…

And still,

Make acquaintance

With this

Gargantuan distance..

Yet, somehow

Console my heart,

Which plays

Its part,

In this systematic abuse,

I call LIFE

To which I put myself through;

Everyday…

And you ask me;

“Is our love so painful?"

"Is it so abstruse?”

To which I smile;

And give you

The eternal excuse,

“Love, you aren’t just my love;

You are my MUSE”.

MICRO CUTS

The breaking of neurons;
Collision of neutrons;
Produces energy
Which I use to burn
Your effigy; in my mind
As I rewind; and witness
The spatial excess; that separates us
Like the unfathomable nothingness
Of silent emptiness; as we create
Super massive blackholes; with the clash
Of our egos.
The breaking of neurons;
Collision of neutrons;
The death of a star;
And all that remains with me
Is a deep, ghastly SCAR.

THE LONELY POSITION OF NEUTRAL

I quit one of the spirits,
To cleanse the other,
The other left me saying,"why so pure; why do you bother?"
I took too many swigs of one,
To relieve the other,
The other got infuriated, " your body is my hell, you take me to slaughter".
Tempted by one,
Berated by the other;
I swung between,
Sobriety and a stupor.
I did not know where i stood;
The temple or the cellar;
I worshiped both;
My Conscience; my Lucifer.
I decided then,
To draw the line.
I have stopped thinking;
I find no refuge in the wine.

PS:- after eight years, i have created what can be called a semblance of poetry.