Forbidden Journey

This is the hour of reckoning

Wings are not strong

But the desire to fly is intense

The sky has no milestone

No path is marked up there

No signboard hangs from stars

It’s only hope that has more than two eyes

And more than one heart

Eyes married to heart

The hands of despair are already cut

Sadness is only a dying beggar

Darkness is an overstaying guest no more

The light of your home is my destiny

Moonlight hides the secret map

I have stared countless moons

The key is not revealed yet

The mystery of the journey is more mystical

Than the journey itself

But I have to remain focused

I can’t lose my way

The snarled roads of fate

Are often poisoned by vicious failures

I must not stop though

I’ll keep moving ahead

Till all the cracks of my skin

On my frail body

Are filled by dewdrops of hope

And forbidden wisdom

Silence

There is silence in my wardrobe

I wear it every day to work

I watch everyone

Everything

Silently

People

Roads

Traffic

Rains

And then I listen to my thoughts

There is too much noise inside

I pour few thoughts in a teacup

Sip

It’s hot or cold

Depending on the time

I take out few more cloths

From my wardrobe

To muffle the noise inside me

Wearing few more layers of silence

I rush out to the balcony in panic

The tree in front of my house

Is home to many birds

It relaxes me to know

That at least someone is home

I watch the night come over

I make a cigarette out of stars

And use moon as my ashtray

By morning it’s all ashes

My thoughts calm down

I fall asleep

On the silent pillow of the dawn

Dreaming of silence meanwhile

One day I know

Dreams come true

Silence shall take me away forever.

Seeing

It’s not what you see

It’s how you see

A guitar

A sitar

A violin

Is otherwise nothing

But a piece of polished wood

With stretched metal wires on it

A sunset is just a sunset

A rainbow is only a rainbow

But it’s not what I see in her

It’s how I see her

That changes everything

What is Literature?

It’s the distance

Between

Your lips

And

My lips

What all the literature is

Meeting of our lips

Is the end

Of all the words

Of all the literatures

In Treatment

I let myself be cured

Every day

By the faintest hope

I see in people

It’s like when I see an autumn tree

It reminds me of all the springs

That it bore

The fallen leaves of happiness

Quietly give place to new hope of life

I let myself be cured

Every day

By the strangest secrets

People confide in me

It’s like finding a map

Of an ancient treasure

Ready to be explored and found

But never to be owned

I let myself be cured

Every day

Of all that I couldn't cure myself

The truth is

I am not the one who treats

I am the one in treatment

Nature

No one knocks on open doors

Neither do they close on their own

Spiders don’t fly

Neither do sparrows spin webs

It’s in one’s nature that one does

I love you

Not for any other reason

Greatest Art

Every great artist

Is in search of greater artist

Preferably within oneself

Or in others

I am not a great artist

Neither is greatness hidden

Within me

My greatest art is your eyes

My greater search is your kiss

Redundant Offer

But what is really gone?

A leaf falling

From top of the tree

On the porous ground

Is it really gone?

I am not asking you science

I am asking you

Do you really believe it is gone?

Look into my eyes

And answer me

Is it gone?

Don’t just shake your head

Say it out loud

In proper words

Is-it-gone?

When that leaf is not gone

Stop telling me

My love is gone

Move on

Get over

Stop fooling me

End is an illusion

For weak-minded to believe

And weak-hearted to accept

Protest

If I exist

Only as a dream

To you now

Then

Your sleep

Is my only world

And your eyes

My only home

I demand my rights back!

Lost Pilgrim

She got inside me

Like a lost faith

I turned atheist

I believed in nothing

That could change me

She changed me

Like a secret lover

I read her lips

And lost all my words

I studied her eyes

And lost all my poems

She held my hand

Like a faith healer

Made me drink

The purest of her wines

She closed my eyes

As I dreamt about making love

I opened my eyes

But she was gone

I am the lost pilgrim

The only atheist

Who believes in lost faith

Taken Forever

There are many…too many

They sit beside me

Talk to me about lovely future

Walk with me

Hand in hand

Into many hypnotic sunsets

Watch with me

Ridiculously long loud movies

Laugh with me

While resting their happy heads on my shoulder

Have unplanned dinners with me

Trying everything they could

To make me feel loved

But quite often

I find myself

Trying to find you vainly

In their beaming hopeful eyes

In their uncertain nervous smiles

Their indifference doesn't hurt me

Doesn't make me miserable

Don’t make me feel vulnerable

At the end of the day

When I come back to my lonely home

I know

I come back to your memories only

I look at the mirror smilingly

Knowing

No one can have me

Like you had

Nothing takes me from you

Nothing…ever!

Let’s be friends, dear!

After ages of unkind undeserving indifference

My beloved calls for a truce

The promise

Of long lasting relationship

On the condition

“Let’s be friends, dear!”

Because losing something is less painful

Than losing everything

I agreed at once

But kept wondering in agreement

When were we not friends?

Secret Keeper

How many times I loved it!

Like I loved you

Held it in my hands

As I held you

Kissed it

Hugged it

Spent countless nights awake with it

But

As deviously secretive as you are

Your pillow is your best secret keeper

It doesn't reveal anything

Except your elusive fragrance

Making your absence

Increasingly pronounced

By its constant disappearance

Night after night…