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

Request

My Love,

"Would you be my summer

This winter?"

Historic Defeat

History scares me

To eat apple from your hand

It sways me

Not to trust you at all

It warns me

“World is a dangerous place

If she is with you”

It almost convinces me

“Love is a fool’s paradise

And that freedom is what you lose

With her at the center of your life”

But then

Moments of failing pass

You call out my name

Like doves breaking from their cages

And finding their truthful sky

History loses its evil game

At the pity of being one big fat lie 

My Love Has No Tongue

Don’t ask me to explain in words

I love you beyond language

Love is a craft

That comes naturally

Reflexively

Before language corrupts

Our tongues

Our minds

Eventually our hearts too

If love is the sky

Language is a wing-clipped bird

If love is God

Language is darkness that hides truth

My love has no tongue

No language to bear in mind

Don’t ask me to explain in words 

Dissolving Disagreements

My beloved and I

Have many disagreements…

We always disagree at the timing of the kiss

The exact measure of touch

Or the right amount of words spoken

We disagree on perfect romantic space

She believe it’s in my arms

I believe it’s in hers

We never agree on the exact position of stars

She points to the sky

I to her eyes

But when our lips meet

Beyond the chains of time

When we draw tight circles

Around each other

When she is looking to stars

And I watch her eyes

All our disagreements disappear

Somewhere

Into the nothingness of lovers’ oblivion

Eid al-Adha – The Feast of Sacrifice

If love is not what kills you

Nothing that kills is worthwhile 

Transcendence

You remember

The last of the first moments we met

We exchanged something intense…

I vaporized in my thoughts

You melted in your body

Something intense was happening elsewhere too…

A Lesson from a Cobbler Boy

Rivers flow

In all directions

Without prior measurements

Of uneven distances they reach

Knowledge flows too

I drank from a river once

Flowing from the mouth of a cobbler boy

“Saheb!

I’ll make you shoe shine

So good

You’ll see your face in it.”

Since then

I see my face in my shoes

Even when I am not wearing one

New Age of Love

I have grown prematurely old in your love

I have lived too many lives in your longing

You have aided

Far too long

The hand of fate

Against me

Today

I’m here to claim

What truly belongs to me

The cold abandoned space in your heart

Is better

Much better

Than this jubilant world

Drunk on its fatal ignorance

Arrogant with its false pride

I claim the coldness of your heart

Return me my fair youth

Once again

Find me a new age to love you

Find me a new century of longing

Timeless Autumn Talks

Time is of essence

Only

When two people

Are

Together

Timelessly

The green leaves of our talks

Have all turned pale

Autumn is at our footsteps

You may come

To respect this change

Sharing a hot chai

Over endless talks

With me

But promise

This time

You’ll stay with me

Timelessly 

To My Aphrodite

I can’t see

Anything

Beyond your lips

There is no world

Nothing

Beyond your words