we’re even

Eleven of the twelve poems in this second volume on love are from 2018, while ‘what could we be‘ was originally penned in 2002 and rewritten in ’19 & ’21. Three poems are in Hindustani (with Devnagri script) and the rest in English.

The poems reflect upon the forms of love: as longing, as desire and as presence. They deliberate on the thrill of myriad infatuations, the anxiety of abandonment, the disappointment against the expectations, the regret from the inability to love and the fear of fulfillment.

In these verses there are attempts at measuring the distance between passion & compassion, the balance between torts & retorts, the amplification of one’s lack of faith in the self as the inability to trust others and the gap between loving in real & the fantasy of love.

abandoned

you left as though fleeing fire
leaving me hurt & confused
as though telling me again
I’d let your faith down
for the first time you said it
tears had choked your anger

you left as if a punishment
for yourself more than me
for loving & wanting me
without knowing how to
but your silence bellows
or so I’d like to believe

22.12.18

what could we be

overwhelmingly beautiful and wild
brilliance and tenderness unreconciled
deepest of desires you personify
far deeper than what meets the eye
not in dreams nor on a pedestal
touching the soul yet untouchable

to share is to violate
in stories lies violence
that’s how we live and grow
by dying more than once
we shall be part of one another
not in person but in silence
unborn, undying, untimed, unplaceable
memory is vulnerable resilience

whether it’s love
or finding music for one’s song
the journey is excruciatingly joyful
eventfully painful and long
but we must walk the distance
all alone or with another
gathering our fragments together
discovering ourselves and the other

2002, 04.01.19 & 01.06.21

all about presence

I really have loved many
but haven’t yet found any
that would not possess me

being aching n weary
eyes shut tight or teary
we wouldn’t see clearly

we knew we were stealing
the joy was worth concealing
it helped us in our healing

there was but one relief
that deeply touched my grief
but alas it was too brief

if you ask me what’s the essence
I see it in moments of grave silence
all’s been about complete presence

18.07.18, 31.05.21

वफ़ा

जो मुझे भूलने की ठान रखी है
वो ये तो बतादें कि यादें कहाँ रखी हैं

नजाइज़ बेरुख़ी से अब हताश हूँ
गर बतादें मुझे तो ख़ुद को तलाश लूं

के ख़्वाहिशों उम्मीदों का रस उभरने लगा है
सीने में जो कुआँ सा था अब भरने लगा है

गर न बताना हो तो अब हमेशा चुप रहो
या मेरी आँहों में पिघल सब कुछ कहो

जो छाई है मायूस खिज़ा क़ू-ब-क़ू
करलो मुलाक़ाते-इलाज कुछ गुफ़्तगू

19.02.18

meet you

either the distant gaze of my fantasy

or the extreme close up of mundane chores

it seems unbearable to meet you in-between

in the reality of your fertile shores

21.03.18