شجر SHAJAR

۔ ۔ ۔ اور دیکھتے دیکھتے

سارے پتے جھڑ گئے ۔ ۔ 

لوگ بہار کا سبزہ پلاتے رہے

لیکن

شجر اندر سے

کھوکھلا ہو چلا تھا ۔ ۔ ۔

دھوپ کی آندھی

ہوا کے پرتو تک ہے کہانی ساری 

. . .Aur dekhte dekhte

Saare patte jadd gaye . . .

Log bahaar ka sabza pilate rahe

Lekin

Shajr andr se

Khokhla ho chala tha . . .

Dhoop ki aandhi

Hawa ke partav tak hai kahani saari 

GRIEF

Every grieving vessel

weighs another down

sailing negligently

in the same water.

Grief descends like braille

upon the sightful earth,

it waves like neon moon

over a blind stream.

THAT TATTERDEMALION POEM

Her hands on the coffee table

dovetailing . . .

Some dead bulbs

emitting darkness . . .

a dysfunctional water motor . . .

a teeming aesthetic heart!

Three prowling poems,

two pending office files,

a hide and seek

within the crumbling deadline

of a syllabus unfinished,

of an article unwritten;

Five short stories

attending my daily lectures,

sometimes bunking days altogether,

sometimes bickering -

Character X of Story 1 vs Character X of Story 2.

The perplexing fiction of my life

where

the metaphor should

uphold the luminosity

of the low-end bulbs

without burning her Monalisa hands,

while the poem ignites the motor

with a subtle 'metaphysical manoeuvre'.

JAMES WEBB IMAGES

Someone says,

". . . one giant leap for mankind"

and comes back hoisting

one country's flag,

His country's flag.

Terraforming space with our stupidity.

Now that

the vastness of the universe

is pixilated infront of us,

no wonder

someone makes it territorial

just for the next elections.

I hope, someday,

a telescope rich enough

captures the guffaw

of all the universes

laughing over our mediocrity.

WRONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP

We're the travellers of hurt

Each in one's own zone.

She resides in the zone of pain

I, in indeterminacy.

If anyhow messages happen,

it travels over light years

or may encounter a black hole

of indifference, of ennui.

We inhabit the same planet though,

pacing up and down

in our own territories,

travelling over the deserts of time;

hoping to find each other around,

thinking, the relations,

like the Earth, go round.

Maybe, we're both trudging

in opposite directions -

and the world does go round

but with an infinite radius.

SILSILA سلسلہ

Ye jo ladki mujhe mili hai

Zindagi Kay kai qbristano se ho kar

Meri taraf lauti hai

Ye jo ladki mujhe mili hai

Ek sadi se

Rishton ki turbat par isne

Aawazon ke chabuk tode hain

Apni awaaz ki bazgasht ke siwa

Iska kuch haasil nahi 

Ye jo ladki mujhe mili hai

Baat baat pe kehti hai

"Aap meri baat samjh rahe ho"

"Samjh aayi aapko meri baat"

Meri pur-hayat, pur-hairat khamoshi dekh kar

Use lgata hai

Mai bhi ek mazaar hoon

Jiske samne

samjh ki pukaar lazmi hai

Ye ladki jo mujhe mili hai

Ise abhi tak mai nahi mila

سلسلہ

یہ جو لڑکی مجھے ملی ہے

زندگی کے کئی قبرستانوں سے ہو کر

میری طرف لوٹی ہے

یہ جو لڑکی مجھے ملی ہے

ایک صدی سے

رشتوں کی تُربت پر اس نے

آوازوں کے چابک توڑے ہیں

اپنی آواز کی بازگشت کے سوا

اسکا کچھ حاصل نہیں

یہ جو لڑکی مجھے ملی ہے

بات بات پے کہتی ہے '

"آپ میری بات سمجھ رہے ہو"

"سمجھ آئی آپکو میری بات"

میری پُر حیات ' پُر حیرت خاموشی دیکھ کر

اسے لگتا ہے

میں بھی ایک مزار ہوں

جسکے سامنے

سمجھ کی پُکار لازمی ہے

یہ لڑکی جو مجھے ملی ہے

اِسے ابھی تک میں نہیں ملا 

QUANDARY

Like a thunderbolt

While waiting for the rain,

if you happen to meet

the long lost beloved -

someday, somewhere, suddenly -

asks the poet,

what do you say?

You definitely do not ask

about the hollowness of your soul,

the letching, the cravings of the mind

or the sudden collapses of the heart -

the answers to which she is the Question!

You can definitely - joke

about her newly found passion

for leather pants

or remind her

about the kinkiest coloured bra

that you two imagined together

and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

You can only laugh.

Laugh over the mundane,

banal, vapid details,

to avoid the star-crossing - 

deferring the apocalypse.

LANDSCAPES

("If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes." Agnès Varda)

LOVER

Upon a plateau of thorns

warbling naked

gazing at the starlit flood,

wherever one is missing

makes it out in his blood

HEARTBROKEN

A wasteyard

arrayed with garbage,

looking upward to heaven,

refusing to burn

amidst the hazy smoke -

an impasto painting.

There is no incinerator for this terrain

burning like a furnace

KASHMIRI

A quagmire of history

where a fecal child

carrying an empty flagpole

floats everywhere,

Nowhere,

while a feeder 

shoved down the throat

dumps waste 

MNEMONIC (Three Photographs of You)

Photo 1

One hand to the weeping eye,

(like a poet to the paper),

one gazing the frame.

This is your childhood photo,

the first you shared with me.

You gaze into the camera

like those horror movie protagonists

ready to avenge the murders,

with all the whispering cousins

filling the background.

Photo 2

The one with your Professor.

This is from your University days.

You are wearing the red of the revolution

and the white of the shroud,

(You will say Peace),

squeezing Michael Robartes and the Dancer

between your fingers.

Did the Professor discuss

Ireland and Kashmir,

Yeats and Gonne

You and me too?

Photo 3

You are wearing

that rare smile,

an Aran jumper,

a nude lip gloss.

This is the last photograph,

the one among many

Obituaries,

Martyrs and Missing persons

in a daily Kashmiri newspaper.

It is only 

when looked closely

into the pixlated space,

that one recognises,

the Gaze, the Irishness

the Death, the Revolution.

EVALUATION

"He could not loose Sophie",

"Their was India and Pakistan",

"Dairy of a Madman" -

Students keep on confusing

one with the other

as Lover and Beloved

in a spiritual ascent.

The confusion is annoying,

I am still hopeful though -

As long as they do not confuse

Good with Evil.

It's only by learning the difference

they will know,

how similar they are

and what lies beyond.

Home is a Daily Repair

A pipe leaking - 

There's always a leaking pipe,

some electric fault,

a fluctuation,

the window in the room

that needs attention,

something.

If nothing,

the commode needs flushing

or the apocalyptic dust

through a wormhole in space

has settled all over,

always something -

Home is a daily repair -

of emotions, relations,

of mundane routines.