Remembering #Othello

“For she had eyes and chose me.” 

― William Shakespeare, Othello

A man and woman in love

and the politics

the gamut of games

called matrimony

chastity and fidelity

honor and infidelity

Homes often have 

weak walls

and roofs heavy

longing is a termite 

the chewed remains

of the soul

litter the body

the unattainable

desire survives

in memories !

S - Sylvia Plath ( Inspirational Writers) #AtoZChallenge

“I write only because

There is a voice within me

That will not be still” 

― Sylvia Plath

Image Courtesy : Google Images

A mad's girl's love song

a heartbeat 

caged in The Bell Jar

finally freed

in death

and poetry.

Here is a list of all my posts for #AtoZChallenge 2017

Farewell Notes to Love

I touched love briefly

like an eclipse 

touches the moon

tides and journeys

same and yet

never the same again

you will be

a milestone

and my whole journey

home.

-------------------------------------------

the joys

can become sorrows

or lessons

or nothing

Love is a

versatile alchemist

--------------------------------------------

Longing is

not the worse

the worse

is 

hopeless longing

--------------------------------------------

sometimes healing

is impossible

or may take forever

sometimes

it just takes

a glance, a gaze.

-----------------------------------------

Farewells

are never easy

sometimes what we bid

goodbye, stays

what we carry

gets lost to life.

Love Song of a Broken Woman

Muses are not always

Greek goddesses

Stories often lack

mythical significance

The chaotic noises

in a troubled mind

And the hole in the chest

Carved where once

blood pumped feelings

Are a broken soul's tavern

Tired is the only

Universal feeling

Of making up, making out

Breaking in ,breaking out

Breakdown

Fallen in love

Icarus or Lucifer

Just a woman

In an eternal fall

Shards of careless words

Peel the remains of love

From a carcass called body

And then the master stroke

Silence - to drive the knife home

And twist it to the last.

Self-portrait

The reluctance of touching

A gossamer dream

Which could shatter

With a careless caress

Or a thoughtless word

The pain of knowing

Momentariness

Fragility and  inadequacy

Of that rainbow bubble

Called love

Edge of the sword

Waking the thin line

Between now or never

Only now,never again

Acrobatics known as heartbeats

Love is soul's

Self-portrait

Or nothing !

Massage

We are each other’s regulars

She puts on the soft instrumental as always

She knows that nerve in my shoulder

that’s always stiff

I know her frustrations through

her soft, young fingers

My mind wanders

to my unlived moments

becoming days and years

I groan, it hurts

She pauses as if she knows

no massage can mend

a heartbreak

She adjusts the pillow again

and changes the music

a song about silence

I close my eyes

to go back to my failed attempts

to erase that pesky thing

called memory

and unlearn all that comes as love

and ends as pain.

Rigor Mortis Love

Some days it’s a chipped nail

or a forgotten scar

the memory of a child I never had

the peculiar lump in the throat

that thickens with the smog

My writing is a variable matter

Semi-liquid-solid

Translucent-fragile

Its roots lie

somewhere deep inside

maybe under my lungs

from where I breathe

or in this life clock in my chest

Tic-toc, tic-toc,tic….

My heart is a kaleidoscope

It makes images

out of broken colorful memories

and then it’s a killer

Its weapon- again memories

Am I losing it?

What if I never had it?

that valued thing

called S-A-N-I-T-Y

Rigor mortis love

looking for its mortuary

Buddha and peacock feathers

and a cup of limp tea

Another day in what you call life

and I call unfinished memory.

of hearts and stones

at The Rock Garden , Chandigarh
 

broken pieces of everything
joined to make wholes
hearts and souls
disjointed
covered in mosaics

tales of misuse,abuse
a wasteland of dreams
saved from
the so called
civilised

images never lie
they said
once upon a time....
eyes that were mirrors
now stoned
still, blank, empty

stones can cast
carve or build
did they have hearts once
that bled
and shed a thousand tears
on a single sorrow

the lines on my palm
are fading fast
I hold your
heart of stone
day and night
 

pilgrimage inside

Each one waiting
someone to confirm
that they are special
the only one

at the core
each one has
laid down their arms
at the feet of
their ordinariness

on the same pilgrimage
sans religion or belief
all of us
oblivious of
our individual purpose

searching,finding
giving up
back to searching

too many drafts
on my mind
"-so you write?
what exactly do you do?"
People ask while thinking
of something else


I go back to
Eliot in a mental asylum\
Bukowski in a drunk stupor
and sit by Hemingway
watching the sea
waiting for a road trip
with Kerouac

the last image
on the mind's eye
is where the heart is.

OASIS

I scrub the lines on my forehead
on the Sufi's threshold
the lines of my palm burn
on the marble floor
destiny flows out

Rumi, Hafiz stand by
love is an inscription
embossed on a skin
by a pair of lips

like day and night
it grows, wanes,changes
never ceases
sometimes a wound
sometimes a weapon

I am weary of
this beating in the chest
Can the dead stop pretending to be alive?

you have knit all the wisdom
about women and men
about love and loss
in your words
my questions roam in your anecdotes
looking for an answer

"ISHQ" travels miles and miles
of my arteries and veins
to reach nowhere

and sometimes peeps out from
the corner of my eye
to blur my vision of the world

I am a sand dune
make,unmake
scatter, collect
I once loved an oasis.

heart of darkness

sledgehammer summer
beats down
with the droplets of sweat
down my spine
travels this moment

a Sufi melody
pours out
of a modern gadget
trance struggles to find
its way
through the modern beats

its 7.30 am
the birds chirp
the rat race
neck to neck
and some corners
of the soul
always dark
always quiet

swinging between
yes and no
questions wait
holding their breaths

TV sets, election rallies
cricket scores
complaints
suggestions

noise noise noise
and amidst the chaos
my personal
heart of darkness !




 

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

"We do not claim any space

we do not own any

the power is theirs

ours is the

decorating of the space

with care and romance"

a thousand years of

my mother's mother's obligation

has me tied

the greed for my space

buried in deep confusion

promising more each day

to everything

more than I can humanly fulfill

I weave the background

with bleeding fingers

and an injured soul

for them to run the show

and bask in the applause

Dear Virginia

you were so right

about that "room of one's own"

not the kitchen where

the memory of a burnt cake lingers

not the bedroom

where no matter how great

me would always be

a part of the huge"us"

not the living room

with the smells and echoes

of so many thoughts

This then is that room

this white space of mine

waiting for my words

the blinking cursor

beating like my

eager heart

to pour my soul out !

DECEMBER

The reluctant rain
like the jilted lover
scared of revealing
too much too soon

The furious ligtening
like an old spark
there and yet not there,
sometimes only sound
ocassionally only light

Dear December
with companions so weird
it must be a tough
to always be the last
full of closures
and pending pain

mere memories
of spring
to warm the heart !

POLTROON

He sits alone
every evening
to savor
the heady feeling
of her sitting miles away
thinking about him
her imagination
amplifying her heartbeat

In his dreams
they are the
eternal secret lovers
relishing a cryptic love

Their eyes would never
meet across
time and space
as if under a sacred oath
not to reveal

He is only scared of
his poltroon heart
implicating itself  !

battlefield

The dream and the chasing....the desire and the burning.The essence and the meaning,its a strange muddle......What can the heart deny or the soul confirm ,the insanity of a love or the desperation of hatred......the mind a volatile battlefield .