Shadow Line
I often bend down to collect a few footprints,
in the shapelessness of darkness, I see a shadow,
I pluck one to meet myself in a new time,
It is a process I do not want to forget anymore.
At the end of my journey, I always search for
wobbly hands. My mother. The fingers stand like
soft white candles. Each togetherness
calms heart and fills the smell of absence.
She dips her nib in blue ink, catches my whispers,
the glass, the unseen faces, the ancient night
chisel the forgotten alphabets and syllables,
the prayers unheard, gods never arrive at my doorstep.
I have to go Someday
It’s summer again, the sun is cruel and brutal,
blackens my face, damages my skin,
sparing me the Viking funeral, just for now,
I go to the café and spill my morning tea on my trouser.
while the sun is pouring through
the trellis of the corner-side window.
I am thinking, I have to go someday. I have to go.
I want summer to go and autumn to come
to sway the narrative either way,
I want fall color on my palms, on my shoulder,
I want more and more, and more of it.
But there are moments, walking in the late afternoon sun
I catch a glimpse of my shadow aging with me,
Is it a bit leaner than me or slightly taller?
how old is my shadow? where is the wrinkle?
I still see the ducks swimming in the lake water,
I love the cool breeze, sinking my feet on the
wet clay and mud of the shoreline.
Why the birds are flying so high on the sky?
And the yellow Gulmohor flowers shines
everyday in the triangular park.
Who has planted this tree?
I take a deep breath and kiss the glass bottle
of the road side stall,
a longing for the big strokes that overlooks the small details
Dustbins are overflowing on the sidewalk, smells
are not good for our health.
I remember of a short man
who spreads bleaching powder on the dirty drains.
While hurrying past a studio, I see the black and white
photos of young man and woman. this is it.
They are smiling.
Whom so ever I meet or not meet, a text,
a wallpaper, a screenshot,
next, next, next,
I want all. I want all.
I am thinking. I have to go someday. I have to go.
Poetry
The daylight is winding down,
and I walk on, over the shoulder of the spring,
carrying the chain of my breaths,
down across the narrow road.
I look at the stars, tiny, miniscule, twinkling,
like pincushion holding all of them,
the light blues of their eyes are at the centre.
Poetry will come in silence and claim you now,
A few sentences, a few verses of something
bitter, the alphabet of misery, I test it live.
I know you are now emptiness; you are air.
my hands are on your invisible shoulder,
All is visible and all intangible,
This is what poetry is like.
