cough cough....

Every so often, when melancholy lifts its face and turns away,

i come back to consciousness, to see what is around me 

this time, when it left, i am back in NID

amongst some of the people who have seen me, in my best and worst,

in a place that inspite of being around people, you are still alone.

only this time this loneliness is not biting.

I sit at the chai gate, and look at all the unknown faces, 

and somehow they don't seem so unknown anymore.

All in this place go through such rapid growing up,

from being pampered, just out of school, to being stubborn opinionated

and getting used to taking all your own decisions,

all of us have gone through almost the same things.

It isn't much of a surprise then, that all of them look alike to me,

and them includes me.

and i cant help feeling, that this one life that i have been blessed with,

this place that i call my own, 

these people that i know i can die for...

are they anything but miracles of my puny existence.

Sometimes i feel,

i am a really really old woman,

in a 21 yr old body.... 

" I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the world we see."

Peggy Noonan

as much as words heal,

it is yet incomparable 

to the amount words pinch.

faith less

i live with faith,

i stuff food in its mouth, give it water,

bathe it every morning and put fresh clothes on it.

Every night before we go to sleep,

we talk to each other about our day,

we undress, we kiss, and we sleep.

i live with faith,

it died long ago.

"Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to,

while all the time we long to move the stars to pity."

Gustave Flaubert

Before Sunrise

Daydream delusion, limousine eyelash 

Oh baby with your pretty face 

Drop a tear in my wineglass 

Look at those big eyes 

See what you mean to me 

Sweet-cakes and milkshakes 

I'm a delusion angel 

I'm a fantasy parade 

I want you to know what I think 

Don't want you to guess anymore 

You have no idea where I came from 

We have no idea where we're going 

Lodged in life 

Like branches in a river

Flowing downstream 

Caught in the current 

I carry you 

You'll carry me 

That's how it could be 

Don't you know me? Don't you know me by now? 

A street poet in Before Sunrise

water seepage

Words like dandelions, drift away, bit by bit,

Time flutters by, unannounced, without ceremony.

moments that reside, melt away, drip by drip,

and what is left, trickles down the drainage.

spots on dots

Pointlessness needs no alignment,

it leaves you hanging,

spaced out.

Distance needs no quotes to glorify it,

it leaves you diffident,

indifferent, indoubt.

Leave the sunshine out, and shut the door

The dew drops that dance,

on blades of grass

The grass that waltzes 

in the wind,

The wind that blows

inspite of the sun,

The bright day that i don't need.

Mrs Mr Miss

Only when you pass by, and turn away, unbuckle from deceptive memories and learn to walk afresh, without me by your side;

Only then will you be missed...

Instead, you walk with me

How then will you be missed?

Carved In Stone

I shall not be inconsolable. There will be other rooms, other faces, open spaces, long stretches of time when I shall not even be conscious that you are not there.

I count the cost in concrete terms. You will not know my children’s names, nor I yours. That I may look at a photograph and remember my eyes looking at you looking at me. That some green girl in love with herself will hold your life in her hands.

I shall not say your name again, not even by chance.

One day, perhaps, love may die of disuse, left to rust in wind and weather.

- Revathy Gopal

Revathy was an Indian poet who died of cancer recently, 

her writing has a certain solid experiential quality that will never be forgotten.

sheetleaf and rosepetals

Even when im sifting,

through old tattered journals,

and i come across this name, 

the meaning of which i have never known

scrawled neatly in cursive,

and find what it was,

that had captivated my interest,

will i even then,

feel that this name,

which i remember in the clothes i wear,

the perfume i use, that little doodle i draw,

and the diamond on my nose,

will i even then feel 

that it is infact mine?

I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above

And heavens reject not,-

The desire  of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion of something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?

Percy Bysshe Shelly

Sonnet

When i have fears that i may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners, the full ripen'd grain;

When i behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when i feel, fair creature of an hour,

That i shall never look upon thee more.

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;-then on the shore

Of the wide world i stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do stink.

John Keats

कहूं किस्से मैं की क्या है शब्-ए-ग़म बुरी बाला है,
मुझे क्या बुरा था मरना अगर एक बार होता

ग़ालिब

I found a torn bit of paper,
that says my name,
and the last time slot allotted to it
in the book
that you left with me.