New Year Is Upon Us!

New Year is upon us

I pray

Every lost bird will find its nest!

Every unsheathed sword will find it scabbard!

Every pining heart will find its lover!

Every desiring woman will find its respect!

Every unwritten poem will find its well deserving poet!

Amen!

Fictional Truth

Tell me the truth!

Muzammil!

She shouted

Tell me the truth!

I held her warm lovely hands

Looked at her wide wet eyes

And whispered

I am

The only fiction

Of your reality

She looked at me for long

Dropped a tear

On the ground 

We were standing together

And left…

Fossil Memories

My memories are not immortal

Like the fossils of prehistoric ages

Vouched

Guarded

Protected

By obsessive historians

And neurotic archaeologists

Time licks on my memories

Like flies feeding on dead meat

My memories are mortal

Like a child

Who at the time of birth

Dies

As if it never existed

Even within the womb

And leaves me

Mourning

Like a decapitated mother

Such long years

Of indifference

Have my memories rotten

I reek

From the pigeonholes of time

I called you last night

To breathe freshness

Into the ruins of my rotten past

Your spear tongue killed me again

After

Nothing within me

I preserved for years

Like obsessive scavenger

And neurotic lover

Could be vouched

Guarded

Protected

From the rottenness

You enforced upon me

Suicide Note

I couldn’t free myself

From my own prison

She

She whispers my name

Like a rumour

To her mirror

And expects me

Waiting for her

At every corner of the alleys

She walks by

She hides my name

In the pages of her diary

Forgets

Where she kept it

And worries all day long

Till she find it under her pillow

She wipes all the private smiles

Off her tender face

Fast

At the instance of my thought

In front of her friends

She pretends to be reading

Or nervously trying to find books

While stealing surreptitious looks

From behind the books

Or from over the shelves  

To the corner of the library

Where I usually sit

Even my empty chair

Is the sight of adoration for her

She nervously bites her lips

Eats her nails

Drops her books

And spills her coffee

Blushingly in canteen

At the sudden sight of me

She loves me

I know she loves me dearly

But she loves me in silence

We both exist in silence

For each other

Forbidden Milestones

It’s not that this road was meant to be walked

But you held my hand

And insisted on walking together

In your eyes I traced the milestones of our journey

I held onto your sense of accurate directions

You navigated me beyond my limits

You travelled with me

To the end of last land

vis-à-vis

Candles don’t burn forever

Neither does Sun define its fate

The burning of a tree

Is not the death of the whole forest

The mourning of relationship is past

I bury myself alive

To find my own roots

I am not the victim of seasons

The freshness of the spring

Is neither your craft

Nor mine

The pages of my memory

Burn

Every night

To keep my winters warm

Let’s sit and talk

One to one

When this madness ends

Love Is Blood Flowing

Love is blood flowing

Out of a sound body

Gradually

Drop after drop

Blood flows out

You feel weak

Blood flows out

You feel dizzy

Blood flows out

You feel cold

Blood keeps flowing out

Everything blurs

Nothing remain significant

The whole life is reduced

To the fragments

Of the last image in your eyes

And finally

You see the tunnel

With a faint light of hope

At the end of it

Certainly

Love is blood flowing

Out of an otherwise sound body

Bonfire of Desires

The sparks of your tongue

Burn my bones

Like the bonfire of desires

I create an illusion of brightness

Around the edges of your smooth face

The fire draws an invisible circle

Of heat…

Of light…

Around you

Marking my territory

Of longing…

Of love…

By the dawn

When dreams disappear

With melting darkness

I quietly turn into ashes

Dissolving myself

Into the air you breathe

Impossible Worlds

Love splits me too deep

Like a cold-hearted executioner

It tears me apart

But keeps me alive

Imprisoned

Feeds me daily

With uncanny news

Of your day to day routine

I keep myself well fed

But the cracks within

Are showing up now

I am falling apart

Into two impossible worlds

One doesn’t let me die

Other kills me every moment

Last Month of Longing

The frost-hand of December

Twinges my deserted heart

The last month of longing

Is never-ending

What if December dies without you?

The Last Warrior

My dead body rots

In the cold room of your thoughts

You killed me in your mind

And glorified me like a martyr

Of the war

I never fought

Wearing the armor of nostalgia

I was the last warrior of your past

Cartesian Inquiry

She said

Life is a stolen key

I replied

Living is a locked room

She said

Love is a failed suicide

I replied

Smile is a death sentence

She said

Longing is a perpetual dream

I replied

Dreaming is a lover’s debt

She said

Why don’t you die?

I replied

Death is a fool’s trick

She said

How much do you love me?

I replied

You played your last trick

Timeless Painter

Time is a timeless painter

It paints everything

At every moment

All histories are histories of color

Color is the blood of time

Running through the veins of space

Your absence has painted me old

I age faster in your absence

I grow younger when you’re near me

My love,

You are the time I live in!

You are the age I age in!

Unwritten Poems

She asked,

“Why did you cry last night?”

I replied,

“Tears are unwritten poems

Rhyming in my each eye…

Did you read any poem last night?”

Love Is A Circular River

The bitterness of forgetting

Spoils the fiber of my soul

Your memories grow back

Like a malignant tumor inside me

I smile at your words

And take comfort in our past

But time poisons my blood

Like a delirious man

I speak about you

Sometimes in past tense…

Sometimes in present…

Sometimes in future…

But in the moments of clarity

I know

Love cannot be spoken in any tense

It’s timeless like the idea of time

The phantoms of past, present and future

Cannot haunt lovers

Love is a circular river

Flowing from heart

Back to the heart itself

The journey in between

Gathers all the sediments and grains

Of experience and wisdom

Memories are now islands

Indifferent to each other

But they all play the same politics

Over and over again

Of forgetting and remembering you…

The Impossible Question

What do you want me to do

On this grievous crossroad?

The union of souls

Is unlike union of minds

I want to burst inside you

Like a cancerous growth

Passing through every vein

Teasing every nerve ending

Making it impossible for you

To neglect me

I want to be the sole reason

For your madness

Your nocturnal paranoia

Of habitual sleeplessness

The promise of union is fulfilled

Only

At the edge of total indifference

To every gesture of death.

"Are You Fine?"

She answered

My endless pangs of longing

My ceaseless craving for love

My impatient care for her

My restless loneliness in her absence

With one unpunctuated sentence

Are you fine

Inaugration

With her scissor lips

She inaugurated endless crises

Within me

Coup d'état

As soon as

She armed herself

With a kiss

I was totally defenseless

Against her

Argument

If only

You could speak

To my pillow

You’ll lose

All arguments with me

Lost and Found

I wish I could find you

Like the lost object!

Like your unwrapped gift under my bed

Like your long stubborn black hairs

On my unslept pillow

Drawing uncanny images

Of last night’s fervors

Like your old worn-out notebook

With my name scribbled on its every page

Like your innumerable incensed unsent letters

Only addressed to me

I wish I could find you

Like the lost object!

Hide n Seek

You say

I hide

Behind poems

The truth

My love is

They hide

Inside me

Who else could

 Make love to them

The way I do!

Crime of Passion

Every kiss is a revolt

Every act in love

A crime of passion

Every lover

A dangerous criminal

To this world

Diwali - The Festival of Lights

If the candles inside are not lit first

No amount of light matters outside

There is no light outside

No festival out there

It’s all inside

In here!

Ana!

Her pride was so huge

She took Sun for a glittering gold coin

And burned her fingers

Capital Punishment

Even if you confess

Of all the crimes

You have done against me

The greatest crime

Of all those crimes

Is an unanswered kiss

You should be sentenced

To kiss me till death

Surfacing

She drowns me in her coffee

Like the last sugar cube

Stirring hard

She stares at the circling surface

As if my face will suddenly surface

Like I always surface

In her circling mind

Clinical Practice

There is only one patient I see

But of course

With different names and faces…

Distance

Metaphor is the distance

Between you and me

Language is the only secret road

Dreams are the hidden milestones

Poems are the only decipherable map

Ah! But the distance!

The distance

Between you and me

Is huge

Too huge

Sweet, Sweeter, Sweetest

Like the crumbs of cake are sweeter

Than the cake itself

The crumbs of your memories

Are sweetest of all

They don’t leave me

Even after you are gone

Democracy, Madness and Truth

“What makes you disbelieve me?

Why can’t you believe in my truth, doctor?

Why can’t you believe me?

My madness liberates me

I’m telling you

I believe in truth because I see it

Not because I believe in it

Without seeing it”

My dear

I know what you see is true

But it’s dangerous

The world I live in

Doesn’t seek individual truth

We stick to the collective

Even if that is not true

Even if what we believe in is untrue