समुन्दर

लहरों की आड़ में, 
मोड़नी के पुकार की,
डोर खिंच कर ले जा रही है मुझे
तेरे पास

क्या इसीलिए लोग चले आतें हैं यहां?

ज़िद है या ख्वाहिश 
पता नहीं लेकिन
मेरे वापस आने की मांग
मत ठुकराना

तेरे प्यार में डूबना है |
मरना है मुझे
तेरे पास |

खैर जलने दो!

जलती मशाल और तलवार

लाएं हैं हम

खिड़की से उतर कर आओ तो सही

जलाएं हैं पहले

जलाएंगे फिर से

जलाने की जश्न में लेकर जायेंगे तुम्हे.

ज़िन्दगी के पेहलियों से

आज़ाद होने की सुनवाई दी है किसीने

युक्ति मिल गयी है इसीलिए

उद्भ्रांतों के मेले में

अंधों की जीत मनाने 

जलने दो

इस जिस्म की बाजार में

आबरुओं का शनाक्त करने

जिस्मों का कब्र ज़रूरी है

उनके ढेर बनने दो

काफिरों की मैदान में

और एक काफिर आया है

विश्वास का रंग ओढ़े

खोकले शौर्य को ललकारने

कम्बख्त सच के 

बेहलाये-झुठलाए हाथों में

आज भी ज़िन्दगी जल रही है

और थोड़ा किरच ही तो डाला है

उसमें हर्ज ही क्या है?

खैर जलने दो!

Letting you go

I’m letting you go as each day is passing by,

Adding lines of complacence, giving me strength

To feel the pangs of letting go without giving it away.

With what pain have I woven a dream 

Of thousand moments to last me a while

I carry with me each twitch of your eyes, 

I will save each wrinkle on your lips. 

A thousand memories to last a lifetime

A million erasers at work - without you

So I’m letting go, till I’m gone, till I am none

But a light to the next life...

When I will wait again, to see you at a better time

To catch a glimpse of my breath that I lent 

Unbeknownst of my sins, unperturbed of my crime

I will let you in.
©

तुम  मुझसे  कह  सको 

और  में  तुम्बे  सुन  सकू 

ये  ज़रूरत  तो  नहीं. 

रास्तें  अलग  हैं  लेकिन 

ख्वाब  भी  अलग  हो   

ये  ज़रूरत  तो  नहीं.

परेशां हु  में  

नादाँ तन्हाई  को  कैसे  दफनाओ 

तुम्हारी  परछाई  को  छूकर  

तुम्हें  भी  आग़ाज़  मिल  जाये 

ये  ज़रूरत  तो  नहीं. 
©

Let The River Flow

Scrawny river flows when its ebb falls into the sunlight

But sunlight comes from the drought-ridden raisin-dry sun

That is old and ancient; that has lived its life,

Not knowing that lives dried up when the sky turned white

On that fateful day, when the galactic dust spewn from the

Rib of the universe, while the cosmos prayed and pined.

It pined and rebelled when the sun failed to balance

When the stars failed to leap to its rescue

As the clawy arms of the blackness scratched its nails

On the walls of dust built of the colossal colloidal cosmos

Scrawny river when will you flow into the eternal crevasse

Of the deeper gorges, of the cracked surface of sensibile plane

That just wants to lay and play, sway to your ebb and flow,

Pave the careful path of passion and expression

Inaccessible to the death - ridden harbours of callous ignorance

Inadvertent in its pauses, incoherent are its pain and losses

Just wants to flow with the loud lovely massive waves

Of the cosmos, that still can follow the sun any day

And fall with the river to turn around a dying day?

Chahat

चाहत का इज़हार,
मुश्किल लगता है मुझे हमेशा 

इसीलिए मेरे  इज़हारों  के कतार में 
चाहत गुम जाती है

महफ़िल सज जाती है इज़हारे-नुमाइश की,
लेकिन अरसे बीत जातें है
दिल की बात आँखों तक नहीं उतरती.

कैद रह जाती है तो सिर्फ
कुछ दर्द और कुछ एहसास...

क्योंकि इज़हारे चाहतों को ढूंढ नहीं पाती
इसीलिए चाहत बरक़रार रहती है. 

©

Aaj phir tum yaad aaye

आज फिर तुम याद आये... बारिश में बंधी ख्वाहिश धूल चुकी है अभी काफिरों की जंगल में मुहब्बत के पीर ढूंढ लाने की फरमाइश पूरी नहीं होगी कभी. आत्माओं का मिलान, कशिश भरी बातों की गुज़ारिश से सिमट गयी है साँसें चल रही है क्योंकि तुम्हे खुश देखने की ख्वाहिश कभी डूबेगी नहीं.

©

Jhaank kar dekho zara

Jhaank kar dekho zara

Koi aa raha hai kya?

Barish hai barson ke baad ki

Baras rahi hai, taras rahi hai...

Meri jhoonki hui nazron ko

Padhne ki khwahish jo rakhte hai

Un nazron se nazrein milna mushkil hai

Par jab hazaron bundon ki awaz

Jhapent-ti hui aati hai

Garajti hai haasiyon ke aad mein

Unko tab na pukaar paane ka dard

Tut padti hai...

Barson ki pyaas yaad dilati hai

Jab meri saanson ki awaz suniayi nahi deti

Tab har ek saans ke sannaaton mein

Tum sun sakte ho…

Mein baras nahi sakti tumhaare liye

Yeh yaad karati hai.

Seeking Answer to Madness

I have seen a bit of me in you I have fought myself with you Seen the grass grow from green to blue Skies turning from blue to red I have hit the road when  The asphalt was still wet I have quietened down my murmur To keep your lips from burning red I have thrown the rain drops away When my hand was not yet full I have kept their wetness with me still So our hands could stick from falling When the walls are being painted black With shadows of covers, clothes and cosmopolitanism I have kept the black beads of the pearl to Still catch some of the lightness of the rainbow Why is it so hard then to build a house For two dark souls and with a thatched roof? Why is it so hard to just let the sunlight Catch a tiny glimpse of the raindrops? In my hand, just once? Just once? So we can sleep on a quiet hay of Rainbow and murmurs? Just a tiny bit? You must be wondering… What the hell am I talking about! And I wonder… just wonder How long are we going to wonder… Am I too bold? Am I too right? Am I too sharp to see through That these lines are not ready for this world? Am I too hard to get through? Or am I just plain intelligent enough to See that two extraordinaries are caught In one ordinary world trying to find A flick of rope with a label that will say... We are not Mad!

Soldier Seeking

Wall consuming brick and mortar 

Cementing in the last ounce left in you

Files and dot coms,

Myriad numbers to fall in line

Taking the cudgels of the cause

To feed the money grinding machine…

And let the deserted field see one more season

Of the grazing ground, fast fading into 

Cracked wrinkles of the desolate earth.

Gather around, fall in line!

Don't look down, don't look up

March to the Temple where the

War for redemption will swell up

Hut! Say Hut! Take that crutch and take it to the Temple

Where you will redeem your Medal!

Grovel in mud - Attaboy! Grovel harder!

Beg-steal-borrow. But don't let that crutch go!

You're a soldier with no redemption

Nein sorrow, nein pain - nein Fear.

You're going to be brave 

Pushed into the alter of martyrdom.

No pyre, no statues, no rewards waiting

Only an unending war of the worlds

Till you seek for redemption

Outside the Temple, 

Into the grazing wild.

Don't know what to name it. So I name it 'Dilemma'

I'm ready to breathe out in the open

But stifling me inside the air goes out

Taking my fear, my sorrow, my trouble,

While i'm sitting here by the edge of the world.

I'm aware of the space outside -

But know how short lived it is;

Tearing through my veins is the burst of breath

Of a galactic murmur that's unheard, that's dormant…

What is more painful than the sound of heaving leaves

And panting breeze outside your portico;

Your portico of gasps and gashes,

For this is where you started to breathe when you were born

And this is where you will be - when you're gone

©

Today

Today the sky broke

The lightning struck 

The thunder faded and yet

The stench of heat remained.

Words pelted and thoughts groaned

Eyes shuttered, lips smacked...

But the sky remained pitch black 

Croaking under the blackness

Of the shrouded cove

Tries and trials clashed 

In their eternal marriage of

A vagabond life;

Where no peace, no hope, no light

Can enter the orifices of pale words...

Today the world spoke,

The earth shook, spat and curdled

And anti-death woke into anti-life

As night slithered into day.

Monologue of Dominance: To A Woman

Lady, you're in my parlor now -
Come ye most precious and fair!
Let me put some pins in your hair,
Bead them up and shine them bright
And tie them up to the dark night


O come hither my darling, to me,
My arms of dazzling delights,
Come here and you shall find
Fair weather blossom kissing them
To woo the gentlemen and the knights


Come my lady, let me lay a hand on you -
Let me, O let me add a blush for you;
A blush made of fire and blood,
O let me pour them on those bossom
of heaving souls, young and old


Hark ye the slander, the soulless
Voice of defender, blindfold thy
Heart to hide the secrets meandered
For I've got the scarf of disguise
To wrap your Lady Consience to demise!


No my lady! Don't be so startled
Question your inner quiverings
And you will find, the ageless
Cravings of sqeezing spasms
That runs this world asunder


Kind, O how kind my lady's eyes are,
What a blasphemy in the scene 
Of this hour. I'll put my potion
boiling at once! And begone those
Seeds of dunce. 


And here we are, my sisters at aid -
Shame, Lust, Sex and Power: My slaves.
We stain the warps of Time and Minds
And feed the reaps to the foetus of
my Goddess... for she's wilfully blind


Blind and Beautiful! Hail the deity
Of the infinite divine,
The eternal bind of Mankind!
Builder and sustainer of 
Hearths and sanity


I toil for Her Godliness
To reap and feed her seed
Blood and fire, brothed out
Of the constant myre of greed
Born of the stain of Time


O how sweet is the taste my dear,
Of thy pure femininity! When I
extract you at Her pyre,
To help the earthlings go
About their frivolity -


Now, now, my lady do not fear,
I'm Greatness incarnate, not a liar!
I toil to be the reason of all reasons
Procurer of the Need and Treason,
My son is Survival


I am God to the Creator, 
Harbinger of elusive Hope,
I keep the illusion of the
Fabric you earthlings cling to
Where you hide and grope


My meddlings keep them busy
And my precious deity
Thrives on the fumes
And fears of the low-lives
That keeps this world spinning


To this you shall aid me woman
For time eternal and serve
To my behest; lend me your strings
To keep men falling, falling to
Grovel and become Orcs 


Orcs of Society - who worship me,
With enslaved sense; lay prostrate,
Before me, my ever consuming holiness,
For I am the Rule by which they survive -
I am Dominance.
©

Waiting the Call

There's a path of stones
Strewn with flowers for you
To be tread when you hear the calling

When you hear them spring up,
Call for the living,
Breathing with their bones,

Tell them I'm here...
Here for the hearing, and
I wait with the vessel bearing
The wind of soul

And here I sit to spin the beads
Of toil and fear with the wind
To steer it adieu..

Adieu with the light of your eyes
and begone the gust of your breath
To give my vessel the god-speedness

And I await, my tongue tolling the bells,
With the bait of hope and haste,
Counting the time on the clock of
Future, starting with foreverness
©

Procrastination

A wasted morning
A concrete street
You and me sitting here
By the roadside - we're hungry and they're rich


No no no, not homeless...
But a brick and mortar roof we have
That trickles of black sin every night
When we sleep and dream


Of wasted lives, of wasted wars and wasted spirits,
The blackened-sooted-embroidered curtains of our
Painted walls flutter and close in


Do we hear them? Do we hear the the whisper of the
Yonder trees cackling out with the age old shriek -
The call for help that spills over with their dried
Leaves and gets crushed on the concrete


Skylines of the city? Can we feel the stench of the
Their blood that was spilled last night? Can you?
Ah but this is a guarded secret that lay outside and
Not inside these four walls! The guarded secrets!


So well guarded and protected away never ever to
Let penetrate our perfect worlds of wonderings -
'Havings' 'let's haves' 'why nots' - fucking social gatherings!


But why does that stench get to me only?


That ah that I must be insane! These are only bearable to barbarians
Such as me who sometimes lets temptation close in to take a peek into
That neverland of world without walls and punctuations!


A stench is a stench - a disgrace of nature! Shoo them away with a
Man made fragrance! There! Sweep those leaves away and close the
Curtains. That's better now...


Calm... peace... silence... no unfamiliar hauntings of the green-blue nature;
No cries of penance for the spirits who're trapped within


Let's Party, Let's Dance! - I can hear my friends calling: 'Got errands to run tomorrow,'
'Have to shoot somebody tonight,' 'Need to rape my conscience - I'm busy,'
'Get me a drink for god's sake!'


You and me gather ourselves, we walk into the halls to greet the floor,
The wasted people, the wasted crowd, come ye hither to make us proud,
The stench goes away, the leaves swept off -
The only place for salvation is
No place at all.
©

Writing my Wishlist

A crumble of bread

Crunching down our throat

With milk to swallow it down

And trickles the sweat of time

With patience to swallow it all.

The morning drum starts and so

Does the grind of clinching fists

With tapping keys and glassed eyes

I look for bread butter in the inanimate screen

And you look for salvation

For the unboxed mind

Where you are the orator of the stage

You seek the Godot and the Phantom

And grip on the fine thread from a

Street play given to us on lease

To weave the dreams of us in a

World made of voodoo puppets

Eating of processed pamphlets

Of flahslights and elite pens

Take a peak on the racing time

Out of the iron fence

And I see our tapping feet and soaring voice

Breaking the what-should-bes and dimes

Dreams we've seen together and the

Items we've listed down...

Crawl back to us like doting toys

As we run unbound

The crumbled bread soothed with milk

Will win the test of time

And break into the light of the

Wind of change to phase the winter mist

Putting each dime into dime

Turn it into bread n' wine

See you scissor the ribbon of your dreams

That's my Wishlist... and here it begins.
©

Dragonfly

Sitting by the window

Against the twilight,

The last shimmer of the rainbow

Fades into the night -

Out in the garden

Flowers of the last season,

I look at them

I’m looking for a reason;

And then I see it, as it flies past me

The dragonfly riding the wind from the sea.

A season that was past

Where the blue-bells hung

The primrose shoots of love had sprung

The Wind then had prayed the Spring to last

For the tender shoots tied to the mast

But too barren was the soil to hold the mast of yearn

And the Ashes of the dragonfly buried the Earth to burn

This evening, the fluttering wings I can hear again

Like the voice of an ancient miner calling my name

Deep down from the valleys of a heart born and bound

Ever locked away from the world where light was found

I’ll weed the wilted flowers -

The rendition of my toil,

Sow new seeds in the seasoned soil

The Spring can’t last

But new seasons will come

That’ll nourish the flowers

For the Dragonfly to return

Through the dimming twilight

I see a silver line,

Wings rubbing the wind – a familiar sign

Relinquished the knot and ruined is the mast,

Shackles of a season that was past

As the dragonfly buzzes on with guilty delight

I want to cry,

I want to pluck the wilted flowers goodbye…

Not a fenced garden

Walk a road untrodden,

I want to sprinkle new seeds on a path saffron-brazen

To cherish what will remain,

I’ve to be born again;

I’ll scream, I’ll climb to find the me in me

And then I’ll know what’s it’s like to be free

Will you come then to carry the wind to the sea?

I’ll wait to paint my Kingdom of Oz on the canvas of the sky –

I’ll live, I’ll die, I’ll pray to ride on the Wings of the Dragonfly

©

Entry from my Diary: November 13, 2008

This is a strange night. I can see the lights outside but there are none within. And Life just flashes past me with flickers of memories leaving faded sparks of futuristic blackouts – just like this candle.

My sleepless drowsy eyes look on and the candle burns, is burning, and the wax is reaching its end while the wick of it keeps elongating every moment, bit by bit, slowly, trying hard to make the flicker of the fire longer - the tip of the fire inadvertently as if trying to reach somewhere, a hopefully hopeless height…

Lit in the dimmed light of the candle are pictures around me clinging on to the walls; the pictures too get dimmer and dimmer as the wax melts and melts away slowly – a set of pictures that can define your life. Though the room will be dark in another few minutes, they’ll remain illuminated in me – and I can again see them at morning against the sunshine.

Books, clothes, pictures, few official papers… all strewn around, flickering in the flame of the candle will vanish in another few minutes – all that tell who I am. But they’ll come back again with the sun trickling down from my window pane in a couple of hours and the candle makes me wander on…

A momentary glimpse of peaceful sense of loss – that I get everyday when with beckoning sleep; peaceful sleep; balmful sleep; is snatched away today. Tonight, the burning elongated wick has prolonged the night a little longer, prolonging the comfortable chaos that I live in, that I have cherished so long, slogged for so long, craved for so long, breathed into so long. Tonight I know that every night when I sleep, I think everything will be forgotten and at morning I’ll find a new start, a new morning, a new me, a new hope that the chaos will find me joy someday.

But Sleep is just like a wearing candle, whose elongated last flickers just is so much good as giving a momentary sense of illusion that there is light. The comfortable chaos that had defined my life till now, is just like the pictures that remain on the walls no matter how long I shut my eyes, or how long darkness pervades. Take them out, and still they’ll exist in some part of my room, my existence, my blood, in the same way, just as they were – and they’ll never change. They’re a part of me now and they’ll never let go of me. It’s just like the fire and the candle. They exhaust each other, there is death in their co-existence; but they’ve no identity without each other too. Separate them, and they exist as individuals – whole and happy – but there’s no light unless they burn each other – light is from their dying together.

Such fake is the light and yet we need it to clear our vision; such momentary pretence of peace is sleep and it’s a sustenant; pictures… can be thrown away; and yet mind clings to them – they define all that one has given and craved for – all that the thirst of life is for – love is for…

I give these pictures a last glance, as my candle struggles to stay alive and I wonder – these pictures will cling to the wall for their existence; their lifelessness beckons another futuristic set of them in a futuristic past; they come and go in every person’s life and they never ask – who needs the pictures? Do they need us or we need them? Why the initiation of light has always been a resultant of the exhaustion of something? Why do we need light at all when universe itself is dark? Why can’t we see the real without the fake illumination of light? Why do we want to forget over sleep when nothing changes? Why do we need sleep at all for our survival when it means nothing at all?

Why the hell do we live a life that’s so damn fake?
©

© Dreamt of Rain on a Rainless Night

Raining…
Can’t see a thing
People running for cover
Narrow view from the terrace
The weatherman doesn’t know when the rain will stop
And none knows what the sky looks like beyond the clouds

One umbrella…
Printed with the colors of Spring
That came and passed too soon
One drenched body standing tall under it
Measuring the rain with a coffee-spoon
For the weatherman cannot be found
And none knows what the sky looks like beyond the clouds

Broken bridge…
Across the bend of the road
Eyes restless everywhere to reach a safe ground
Black coats and black boots run in order
To cross over the heaving river not knowing
What the sky looks like beyond the clouds

A broken roof…
Above a broken house
Pair of eyes look through a broken pane
Twitching the ring around her finger she
Had wished to stay in… waiting…
The weatherman had said he would return
To take her to the world beyond the clouds

The play has ended and the actors have gone,
The black boots with people in them stay on
The broken bridge is mended, the rain has ended
The stage is forlorn, and far beyond stands
The tall body with eyes looking beyond
Holding her lifeless in his arms and her ring on his finger,
Screams out lifting her up to the sky
As the black booted people close in to swallow her up
The weatherman stands paralyzed with the sky in his hands
The harbinger of Sun and Spring
And screams out with death in his voice
“None could see that the sky came down beyond the clouds.”

© That's Me

I should’ve been raved apart, I should’ve been screaming out,
Why did I tell you that the stream flows there along?
Beat me you would have, teared me you would have, apart and wide,
That would have been better than revealing that the stream flows along.
Now that I told you, I revealed the nooks and crannies of the valley,
You know that you’ve conquered the Neverland, though the stream doesn’t flow to thee.

The water now splatters on my hand and the stain of blood remains,
Will I ever be able to wash this blood away and numb my pain?
For I drank the blood of the unicorn where the hopes of both keeps throbbing – for I’m a selfish quencher of thirst who moves along robbing… There you know me now:

I’m a murderer of Hope.

I walk with the wound on my hand,
Aching in pain as the wind blows past it. I don’t balm my wound: I keep it covered, block it from the wind, the wind of balmful silence – It’s my job:
I’m a murderer of Silence

Cackling out loud, the thunder comes, and time strikes a standstill;
The moment of lull, or so did one think – where Time will wait for me to come back,
But I walk out, lashing time out with the cackle of my silence; I have to, for
I’m the murderer of Future.

I know what I’m doing, I know I’m right; I don’t know what I’m doing, I know I’m wrong –
I never gave, I responded; I never promised, I only nodded; I never made, I only destroyed;
I walked into the valley of Life to wilt out hope; I was born make every affirmation bow down and grope;
I’m the shadow in every source of light; I’m the boulder in every path; I’m the oasis that only deludes;
Falsity in every truth; Death I am in every rebirth – I’m the bad in every good,
I’m the present that can only be a desire or an unforgettable past that’s not worth a memory.
I’m the all pervasive wrong that all must hate – coax descent in every ascent and every assertion I negate;

Yes, that's me - one of those ordinary cowardly modern beings
'Human' I dare say - the core of neverness of all Neverland dreams...

It's with My freewill that nullifies the Providence above -

I’m the one who cried when I murdered you, My Love.