Living Is The Only Philosophy Of Time

The night has thousand faces

And I know

I am none of them tonight

I am stranger to millions of stars

The day has thousand hands

It tries to find me

With a dagger on its shoulder

Exhumes me

From my sleep-tomb

I speak like a half requited ghost

I haunt the night

To find the exact constellation of love

I mourn the day

Like the dying of a beloved friend

I write hope

On the back of my palms

To remind me of birds

Free to fly

Finally

Day and night rest

Together

Like twin babies inside my head

What a strange invisible mother

Time is to us all!

What Do I Do In Love?

I sculpt your face on every mirror of my house

With the sharpness of my eyelashes

I etch your face on the back of my eyeballs

And see you every time I close my eyes

I sail towards your lovely mouth

Like an obsessed sailor

Shipwrecked

But without losing the knots of hope

I swallow the circle of your moon

Only to find oceans spying on me

With high tidal waves of your hairs

I use your name as a verb in my poems

To hide it from every desperate noun

Stalking you forever

I rest my faith every night in your arms

Finding God is otherwise delusional

Without praying all night

Every night!

Midnight Call

Long back

She left

The healing hand of time

Painted my broken heart

Twice, since

I was learning to sleep

Again

Then

One midnight

She called me

Initial hellos couldn't stop silence

To hang in the wires

 For few moments

Like an old pendulum clock

About to strike the hour

She broke the pause

And said,

“I don’t like the idea…”

Her voice almost choking

“What idea?”

I replied irritatingly

“I don’t like the idea

Of you sleeping near that doll

Besides your bed.”

SILENCE.

“Go back to sleep

Or I’ll replace the doll with someone real.”

“No you won’t…”

“Good night…”

SILENCE.

The pain in her voice

Echoed long into the night

I drifted off to sleep

With difficulty

Next morning

When I woke up

Struggling to squeeze

My last dream

Out of my eyes

The doll besides my bed

Was gone

SILENCE.

Metallurgy of Love

Your lead memories are growing heavier in my head

The iron of your love is rusting in my veins

Your absence has forged into a sword

Inside me

It cuts through my soul

Every night

I’m the last blacksmith of love

Every day

I cast your passions into a silver kiss

I galvanize your golden skin with my rare lips

The alloy of your hugs gives me steel courage

And at the end of each tiring laborious day

I melt into your arms

Like an undiscovered love-metal 

Swallow This Poem Fast!

This poem is not meant to be read

but swallowed

Like a bitter medicine

For an undiagnosed incurable illness

My love,

My verses have no power of memory

No muscle to fight demons of oblivion

So swallow it fast

Before it’s eaten away

By hungry strangers on the street

Time Jump

I wish time jumps

From

9.00 pm to 6.00 am

Every evening

And I could safely save

All my nights in some time bank

To be used later

For us to be together.

Therapy Room

Surrounded

By four ear-like walls

I sit in my chair

At my clinic

Like an old phonograph

Recording grief in each session

Tuning them all into songs

In my head

−      Sometimes sad

−      Sometimes hopeful

At the end of every week

I collect enough songs

To play an orchestra

Or compose symphonies

Ah!

But then

There are songs

That come from you

And I can’t help but play them

Over and over again

At the end of every songful day.

Non-Autobiographical Truth

Even after losing you

I still live.

In Conversation with my Muse

Me:

The fire of the past is over

Smoke is still warm

I find our past rising up to the sky

Like a half dead snake

Her:

The fire still burns

Incinerating

Windows of the past

Smoke encircles the ashes of their demise

The half dead snake has fallen down

Its remnants seeping into the ground

In the intervals of flood and rain

Me:

I mourn my past like an abandoned cat

I carry a dead child inside me 

(written with MD)

Ontology of Love

Don’t you see, my love?

The signs are all over your face

I measure my love by the length of your smile

Side to side!

Corner to corner!

I memorize the calculus of your routine

And find the differentials of your dreams

But it’s hard to integrate

The complex geometry of your whims

The grammar of your eyes is convoluted

I collect your tears like a rare specimen

Test them

For all the signs of sadness

And their intricate unshared causes

I put them to litmus test

And preserve the results like an unfinished formula

I work all day and night

Studying the mysterious equations of your moods

The theorems of your kindness are getting tough

I preserve the fossils of our kisses

Like the missing link between civilizations

And your letters like rare historical manuscripts

I dance for you like light waves

And fall tired on your feet like disintegrated atoms

I pass jolts of electricity

Through the dead flesh of our past

And awaken it back to life

Sadly, not for long!

I travel time in the circle of your arms

Universe transforms into one big string

Oscillating from your heart to mine

And mine to yours

The magnetism of your touch is dangerously strong

It changed the compass of my destiny

All the maps

All the directions

All my navigating wisdom

Lead me only to your undiscovered land

Being a learned man now

And having amassed considerable knowledge

I spend my remaining days

Looking at each moment

I have had with you closely

And must I say

My love

Nomenclatural design of our life is unique

The timeless guide to all the lovers in time!

I Loved You In Too Many Ways!

I loved you in too many ways

The ravenous roots of your love grew deeper

Maddening me gently

At the end of every nerve in my body

I opened up to you in too many ways

Unwrapping like a half packed gift

You touched every secret vein in my soul

Every weak spot of my being

You live within me now

Like a sacred dead language of the past

Still colonizing my memories

With your mysteriously bewitching tongue

You shattered me in every possible way

My love,

I should have loved you in fewer ways!

I should have loved you in fewer ways!

Dangerous Freedom

Freedom is hard earned bread

It can’t be had

Without suffering and pain

For a free man

Pain is the gentleman’s hat

And the beautiful earrings

For a free woman

Freedom is the way of life

But very unusual one

So why would they like it!

They made the walls thicker on me

They shrank my prison cell

They cut my infrequent meals

They threaten me with torture

They clipped my nails out of my fingers

They force sleepless nights on me

But all this could only make me stronger

Because harder they try

Harder I felt

How dangerously free I’m

For all of them!

Playing Love

If love is the only game we can play

My love,

Let’s never grow up!

Let’s never stop playing!

Eid Mubarak

Tonight,

Every window opens

To the postbox of the night

Moon rides like a postman

Delivering letters of happiness

To everyone

Mine reads just your name

With stardust on its edges

From your eyes.

Coffeed Nights

You wanted raindrops in your coffee

I prayed

To be rain

Every morning!

Every evening!

And every hour of your coffeed nights!

Laylat al-Qadr: The Night Of Destiny

Dear God,

I know

Tonight

I’ll say once

And you’ll hear it thousand times more

So here I am

All helpless!

All shamefaced!

All abandoned!

Before You

Praying with every bit of soul left in me

“Deliver me right, tonight!”

“Deliver me right, tonight!”

“Deliver me right, tonight!”

Evolution of Love

Homo habilis

I love you

Homo erectus

Love you

Homo neanderthalensis 

You

Homo sapiens

Youniverse

Madman's Cry

Night dissects daylight

Into innumerable pieces of stars

Walking aimlessly all night

I search peace in dark times

Counting footsteps

From one streetlamp to another

From one star to another

Last night,

When I almost lost my foot count

I found a madman

At the end of one deserted street

Shouting,

“If you can’t find freedom,

find your soul.”