inverted clocks

I sleep, to hear you wake up,

and you only go to bed, when my mouth

quivers to burst into a conversation

or even only a greeting.

If only either of us wasn't intransigent

or if we weren't days apart

conversations would not be 

stopped mid sentence

whispers would be heard

and i would have learnt 

to wake up

bloody early.

giggle,

The sun in my window, 

overcast a second ago

bright two seconds ago

bringing in with whispers

warmish breeze,

that feels like 

a kiss on my

suntanned skin...

I see her, sleeping in her bed,

she looks exactly like me,

except that her eyebrows dont meet in the centre,

like mine do.

Anyone could have mistaken us for each other.

I remember the love that is inside me for this person,

and how, i had someone now, who i wished to be with, more than her.

I remember those innocent times,

when it used to be just the two of us,

joined at waist.

She now sleeps in a different bed, 

across the room,

how our beds have magically become single mattressed diwaans, i cannot recollect.

She is fast asleep,

i know she is only pretending.

with helplessness i realize how much she has missed me,

knowing that even now, id rather be with the one i love

i let the tears flow,

down the bed,

to her side of the room

.

i see her, sleeping in her bed.

and i am amazed at how, quiverless,

some people can learn to cry, so silently.

The road home

Everyday on my way back from work, i pass the army cantonment area,

and pass small lanes of houses, wondering what it would be like to live in one of them.... 

everyday i become a little girl,

who would have gone by the name of Sunaina,

who sports two pigtails, and follows kittens while they are doing just fine by themselves

and brings them home,

much to her mothers constant worry about the mental well being of her only child.

She wears skirts which her mother stitches for her,

she likes the fact that they look like potato sacks.

every night at the stroke of eight,

she rushes out, as if to attend to a routine chore,

into the soft yellow verandah light,

which is hardly visible with all the moths flying around it

she stares hard, to count the fireflies in her house compound,

but never rushes to catch them,

this house, and the trees that are as much her living room,

have taught that when it comes to nature,

everything should be left where it is.

This is her only time with herself

She has the luxury to want to be by herself,

Everyday i see her sitting in that slopey tile roofed cottage,

which looks so abandoned,

yet so endearingly homely

waving with all her life at me,

perhaps 

it is her time to count fireflies again.

Love = A half eaten salami sandwich

Still Life by A.K. Ramanujan

When she left me
after lunch,I read
for a while.
But I suddenly wanted
to look again
and I saw the half-eaten
sandwich,
bread,
lettuce and salami,
all carrying the shape
of her bite.

When reading indian poetry translated,

such crude economy of words,

and to the point pauses,

makes you wonder, if the ghost of  Mr. J. Alfred Prufrock

entered them in victorian times,

and then refused to take leave,

or that maybe translation can do horrendous things

to an otherwise impactful text.

Or Is biased readership then to blame

for the opinion, that men, more so Indian

do often write, with an economy of words,

that often reduces 

a feeling worth a month of  essay writing,

to a mere bite mark on a salami and lettuce sandwich....

Only at moments of weakness

does one realize,

that all this bullshit about independence

is only that,

and that it would be much better

to rather have the security of love

or of family around.

Than to go about proclaiming

self dependency.

The world does not stop for your pain,

that is what i call bad traffic control.

Will you pass by me, without any recollection

of what it was

to have felt so loved.

Will i ever take your name and not be filled with a thousand 

newnesses that the coming of you initiated in me.

Will i after years of dust 

be able to look at these moments with the same vividness,

where every song and every smell 

conjures an image more real than today.

Will this magic that is inside me now,

die like fireflies do after two nights of twinkling.

Will it matter if you are made of flesh and blood

or by then just a figment of my imagination and memory

Is a lifetime even enough to contain 

this eternity 

within just a breath of yours 

on my neck.

What has been

Most often, in the daily grid,

one forgets what it is that they actually love doing,

therefore, it is of utmost importance,

that your past be revisited,

your trunks be shuffled about,

and rummaged into,

just to see the perspective, of where you came from,

what you did 

and where you are going,

and if at any point in this frame you felt completely and utterly satisfied with something 

you had done,

a difficult thing to achieve,

and yet very easy to forget.

Take out our trunks in one mass thud,

shake the earth,

and take out 

our most loved artworks,

and dwell in the beauty of it, 

allow it to sink in for more than the required time,

for,

what has happened,

most often decides,

what will.

A kid just hopped by the doorway,

he and his skipping rope...

and the bright bright sun...

what can be more heartening??

Starry Starry night by Don McLean

Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land. 

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now. 

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand. 

Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now. 

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you. 

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow. 

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...

If you wish is what you get

For once, i wish that my logical mind was stronger than my nature of romanticizing.....

and that i could take a decision without bothering about others feelings more than i care about mine.

But if what you wish is what you get, then i'd rather cancel it out.

a world of phonexis

I just thought of something....

what if ..

all of us, underneath our varied and diverse exteriors,

are actually birds,

flying high, or caged inside,

a phoenix to be exact,

one that reaches its climax, and untimely demise,

at regular intervals,

burn out,

only to regain a colorful newness,

that climax is achieved with various incidents, depending on our history and experiences.

for me,

that point, is when i go back to nid,

all the rough outlines, and disillusion

sheds

to give way, to hope, and excitement, for what is to come, and what has not and will never be forgotten....

we do eventually find our ways to burn down, and start afresh, and those who dont delay

our natural life process,

and actually wither parts of them that can not regenerate even in a new birth.

therefore,

i urge,

for you to burn,

away all your doubts.

the ballet of expectations

and wait,

the music of bliss,

and unfulfilled hopes.

and the fragility of existence.