EDEMA

Khwaab sooj jayein tou

Aankhein phool jaati hain

Aur aansu beh bhi jaatey hain

SHAYAD

Jo rishtey toot tey hain

Who kabhi

Baney hi nahi hotey hain,

Shayad

ACROPHOBIA

Hum ishq mein
Kis bulandi pey thay

       Gir kar pata chala

“KAANP UTHTI HOON MAI YE SOCH KE TANHAI MEIN”*

A tiny imbalance
In the curve of my smile
A slight dilation
Of pupils
A face less charming
In aesthetic geometry
Everything
Tells them about you
Everything.
You are too much in me -
Like poetry inside a poet
Or poison inside a suicidal -
I am oozing of 'you'
Like milk from mother's bosom.
Please
Put a veil of
Your eyes upon me
Hide me like God
Within the world.

*Kaanp Uthti Hoon Mai Ye Soch Ke Tanhai Mein

  Mere Chehrey Pe Tera Naam Na Padh Le Koi

  Parveen Shakir

EXPATRIATE LOVER

You exiled me
From your life like
A clever politician
As if my presence
Was nothing but sin
And you cleansed it like
A pious saint
Had I grown like a painful appendix
In the holy body of love
That you removed me with
the precision of a surgeon
I don’t know when
Your poetic being
Became cathartic of me
But you should know
When you left me
With half lipped kisses
You made my body traitor
Of my souls country

GIFT

Mai jaanta hoon

Tum mujhse baat nahi kartey

Magar jaan!

Tumharey dou safeed kabootar

Mujhe hasrat se taktey hain

Bus itna keh dou

Ki unse kya kehna hai!

HIDDEN METAPHORS

They ask me
About you!
I will tell them
She embraced rain
And will cleverly hide
The metaphor with your eyes
I will tell them
The eid crescent
Resembled your smile
And hide the metaphor
Of your clipped nail
I will tell them
About you
And also hide you from them
Don’t worry jaan
I have lately become prodigious
In hiding aesthetically
The straightness of
Your sadness in me
With a curved metaphor of lips