MAUSAM

Jab shaakh bhi
Pattoun ko nahi rok paati
Aur Maa bhi
Bacche ko chod jati hai-
Aati hai
Har shay pe khizaan aati hai

MEMENTO MORI

She sits sad
Holding her head like a book
Her hair locks drop silently
From behind her ears
Like tears
She contemplates suicide
Philosophically
Of what Woolf, Majaz, Plath did
Whatever they did with their life.

Suicide dear
Is not a question of philosophy
It's not even a question
It is the last act of poetic will
That erases the author
Leaving just art
It's the last punctuation
That turns the blank paper of life
Into poetry

The hair locks are imprisoned
Behind the asylum of ear
Tears fall free
Page dyes

SAFE HAVEN

Our bus driver has
Two strange habits.
He listens to
My broken narratives and
He keeps -
Cigarette bits, lighters, specks,
Mirrors - all the burned
Shiny, reflective things
In a well contained
Broken oil box.

One day if

You don't find me -

In office, classrooms, hearts

Of student - all the busy,

Crowded, tender things,

You will find me

Well contained

In our drivers box

Where he keeps-

All the broken things.

VENA AMORIS

When we hugged
In the perfect circle of our arms
No one could exorcize our love

One day I wedded your lips
With a ring of my lips
One day someone enchanted you
With a diamond ring
And you disappeared like
A character from Arabian Nights

Every day now I kiss
Rings of smoke
And they keep disappearing
Just like you
But in the night
The cigarette between my fingers
Shines
Like a red ring

(Inspired by Vicente Huidobro's NIGHT)

KHAUF

Ek khauf marjane ka tha –

Humne ek doosre se kaha nahi

Hum bichad rahey hain

Aur aaj bichad kar bhi zinda hain tou

Hum phir khamosh hain –

Ab ek khauf aur hai

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