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Showing posts from March, 2010

Escape

A gunshot in the temple, tempered by cocaine; Barbiturates, so honeyed dreams shall never fade; Or seppuku and its seizing, searing pain As tenderly nurtured flesh meets the whetted blade; Plunge a dagger into one's own neck, and wailing Screeching, screaming qualis artifex pereo; Or must it be by self-immolation, flailing, Buckling, gyrating in an obscene rodeo; Fall upon one's sword, or trust one's loyal maiden To smuggle in an asp and to it surrender; Perhaps a ripened apple, cyanide-laden To exit without pain, and go out in splendour; Which is it truly, the most beautiful way To pass into freedom, and escape from today? Published in Lakdi Ka Pul - II The Poetry Bridge 2017 — an international anthology by Twin City Poetry Club

Ode to a Trolley Dolly

By all means you should be pushing a trolley Twenty-one thousand feet in the air, your face Plastered with creams of all kinds - Chinese holly, Acai berry, ginseng - ground into pomace, That overlaid with rouge and baby powder Till your beauty cannot scream any louder And yet gilded with lipstick and mascara, Guaranteed to make you look an apsara. But you choose to inflict that upon mortals In some attempt to inveigle them into Parting with money; while you thought it was true That your MBA learning opened portals. And we children of a lesser god look on The principles that the Higher Gods work on.

Of course I read your poems

Of course I read your poems. When I'm not reading a brief to create an advertising campaign that will cause a stampede outside the branches of a bank offering 6.75% interest on fixed deposits. Of course I read your poems. When I'm not standing on one leg on the bus back home and peering over the shoulders of a guy watching Tom Cruise biff up the baddy on his iPhone and thinking that Rajnikanth would have done it better. Of course I read your poems. When I am not with my monomaniacal boss seated on his hobby horse expounding his favourite theories on how the whole world but him is wrong and wondering whether to cut up his tie or strangulate him with it. Of course I read your poems. When I'm in the mood to know how your umpteenth boyfriend exudes magic from his sebaceous glands (and not sweat like us mortals) and taught you the meaning of love in love-making and how that same umpteenth now ex-boyfriend was only using your heart to mop the floor with just like all men did befo

तमाशा

क्या उस फ़क़ीर से हसद रखूँ, जो बिन भुगतान दुनिया का तमाशा देख रहा है या फिर ख़ुद पर मुस्कुराऊँ, जो बिन रोज़ी तमाशेबाज़ बन बैठा है (मुश्ताक़ के मदद से)

विरासत

दस्तक मैंने बहुत दिये, दर कभी खुला नहीं; पौधे को रोज़ाना सींचा, गुल कभी खिले नहीं; कमनसीबी लिपटी रही, ख़ाना बदोश जो ठहरा; धूप को मैं विरासत समझूँ, साया कभी मिला नहीं

ख़ामोशी / خاموشی

अपने अल्फ़ाज़ के चमन को कभी सूना न होने दीजियेगा, आपकी पल भर की ख़ामोशी भी मेरी रूह को तड़पा जाएगी اپنے الفاز کے چمن کو کبھی سونا نا ہونے دیجئیگا آپکی پل بھرر کی خاموشی بھی میری روہ کو تڑپا جائگی

अश्क़

क़त्रे क़त्रे को रेशम में क़ैद कर रखा है मैंने, तेरा मुस्कुराना सारे जहाँ पर मुबारक है, पर तेरे चश्म से निकले हर अश्क़ पर सिर्फ़ मेरा हक़ है

Two Hundred

Well, it's not a 200 scored by Maoists or Jehadis. That would have just given us an east target for anger and a temporary thirst for blood before we realise painfully that dinner is yet to be earned. It could be a Shahrukh 200 - 200 metrosexual minutes of ghee-shakkar and glycerine which we buy to escape into that world of love and niceness and gemutlichkeit which is so not ours. It could be a politician's 200 as he assembles a majority to grab the CM's chair. Chi-chi we say in disgust at all that corruption & horsetrading even as we plot to rig the housing-society elections. Papi pet ka sawal, after all. It's so much more better that it was Sachin's 200. Scored ball by ball in front of our own eyes and then humbly acknowledged. 200 runs of honest industry to line our stomachs with. We're truly happy that Sachin scored 200 runs in a match.

A Flower Fallen

I watch a flower fall from its bough buoyed softly by the breeze before it lands in the grey, soulless dust; And with no leaves to shade it I watch it wilt into paleness under the sun's bleaching malevolence; I watch a wee puppy toss it in play, then tire and seek newer diversions; I watch a young girl walking by contemplate it, but it's too pale, too shrivelled to add to her pretty merriness; A botanist comes by seeking specimens, but this one is torn and damaged - I watch him toss it aside and look to the tree above with its fresh blooms - more perfect in form; I watch at last a lover pick it and tear it apart petal by petal - she loves me, she loves me not -; at last, I trample its remains into the earth - let it dissolve into elements to emerge newborn, when I come by as it blossoms again next spring.