DREAMS

Image : Google Images

My slow fingers

draw a thick line of kohl

in which remain 

inscribed the names of 

all my lost loves

my hands shake

my heart flutters

counting the deaths

of lovers, of loves

blood-soaked dreams

I roam the corridors 

of Macbeth's mind

Did I kill my dreams?

Did my dreams kill me?

Candy Shop

standing outside 

life's candy shop

I count my pennies

the shiny price tags

all beyond me

peace, love, success

in their shiny jars

like nasty kids

sticking out their tongues

they silently smirk and 

say L-O-S-E-R

I can't surely afford

what I want

and would never want

what my pennies can buy

so I turn around

and throw the pennies

above my head

making a wish

that some other kid

might pick them up

and have her dream

fulfilled !

Rigor Mortis Revisited

Science says
brain shall live
ten minutes
after death

before the memory center
the last one to die
flashes a slideshow
of life gone by

so lets pick the slides

• my father's snowboots
• Shimla's cedars whistling
• little fingers dipped in paint
• a dark lonely corridor
• the smell of books
• first blood in panties
• the rush of a love letter
• first dead body
• waves and sand
• scars and bruises
• cobbled streets of Brugge
• touch of a surgical blade
• a Sufi shrine
• a little Buddha
• two small feet kicking
• Ardas in a Gurdwara
• papers and destiny
• Screens and calls
• blinking cursor

the last moment of my
Rigor Mortis love

Mosul Soul

Kufic : Google Images

Long before ceasefire

from all ends

this soul

is a worn torn city

Rubble and ruins

of homes

and dreams

heartbeat is sometimes

akin to gunfight

The Mosul walls

and the Kufic love

 Tigris of time

full of  corpses

lonely burials in the snow

in Baramulla

and Kabul

choosing tombstones

by scores

once a soul

becomes its own coffin

only then

 the war is no more.

Presence/Absence

Healing and healers

dreaming and dreamers

and the in betweens

the could have beens

the never beens

the journeys

of bodies and souls

and the dreams

deep in the

Australian outback

a cave painting

or in a forsaken monastery

like a mummified monk

memories

homes, solaces

and tombs

all transitory

like a bird

on a wire

only the shaking

much after

knows its presence.

Z - Zbigniew Herbert (Inspirational Writers) #AtoZChallenge

“I could write a treatise

on the sudden transformation

of life into archaeology” 

― Zbigniew Herbert

Image Courtesy : Google Images

Wars that devour homes

and replace

 happy memories

with nightmares

also become poetry

- poems of pain.

Here is a list of all #AtoZChallenge Posts.

Living & Dead

Each person can save eight lives by organ donation

There is no count of lives we don't save

Due to lack of meaningful conversations

A neighbour mourns her dog

She had brought her up for twelve years

Ultimately life is the price we pay

For everything we fear to lose

The  collar still hangs on her gate

And the hollow in her soul

Humans- same mud

Capable of so much love

And such immense indifference

Mind is a battleground

And a graveyard

Of buried happy dreams

And meaningless mazes of consciousness

I am here and not here

I may live and yet not live another day

I may die someday and be already dead. 

THE DEATH

At the last and final audit

the accountant death

would examine 

all your stocks

memories -sweet and sour

neatly stacked away

in separate shelves

marks of indelible

people,places

and interactions

on the dusty

register of the mind

the soul soiled

by eternal desire

the body 

ashamed of not

matching its demands

Nightmares often

dressed up as dreams

and as they peel

years of their face

the end of all dreams

imminent !

DIFFICULT DELHI GOODBYES

Almost a year ago
Neatly stacked
and packed
in lifeless ugly boxes
life was moving
to another city

love , pain
anguish
lay jostling
with salt,pepper
and crockery
in lack
of suitable containers
to confine them.

memories
autographed the walls
and dreams clung like cobwebs

Delhi - a part of me stayed behind
the rest now has a new address !