MY MOURNING SONG

Take me to the place

Where there is no wind

Take me there

Where no one speaks

Take me there

Where people are blind

Make me blind

Hold my hand and direct me

Out of the shambles of the earth

Because I cannot see my country dying

Let me kiss my Mother

Artless and benign

Let me embrace her.

Or stab me from the front

I am a warrior

Her Son

Let me not mourn for her

Because I cannot see her dying.

Take me to the land

Where there is no god

There is no god

Or show me the way

To the past forgotten

ASH LADEN FLOWER

I know you are there

I can hear
You want to talk
I will listen
It matters to me
Why you don't come out
It matters to me
Why you don't speak loud.

I can hear you
But,

I am no Satan
It is dark
And I will out here be waiting.

 I can hear you cry
This Earth is moist
This Earth is sobbing
The bird wants to fly.

 I know you are still there
Now mopping
The ash laden flower
But ash is in the air that surrounds
That flower is pure.

I am holding my hands high
Can you see me
I am white
I am
To pull you up
To pull you ever high,

 With the flower

You come out

And say.

This land is so foul to stay

Lets fly
Lets fly away.

[ Photo credits: Bilal Khan ]

IT IS STILL A MAN'S WORLD

[ Dedicated to the better half of our society.]
 
Masses of vegetables,
Bills of gas, electricity,
Early morning breakfasts and late night dinners
And there in between
Those hectic rush hours.
She is vigilant as a soldier.

She is the earth herself
Good or bad,
Hatred or love
She imbibes everything.

She carries the faith of her family with her
Secures grand confidence
The great endurance of her.
She is a woman.
The struggle is eternal
And her defense is eternal.
Intense sarcasm
Never ending repudiation
Her endless prevalence.

She is valiant.
Worthy of high stature
But always grounded by the opportunists,
No one for her redemption
But herself.

Afraid of the company of strangers
She looks for a hand to hold
But every hand is dirty
Dirty from the greed,
Dirty from the lust.
A company of villains

She screams inside
Her darkest fear is near
And then she dies.

A star is lost.
A smile is gone.
Soldier reached her martyrdom. 

And in the end
It is still a man’s world.

A TRIBUTE

[ "The Beatles" they were not just a band but they are a momentous part of my life. This is for "The Fab Four". ]

I in the sky
Out there shines
In the darkest hour the of the night
Some thing blue.
There was time
When I rhyme
Roam around
There in the city
In the search of some thing new
And
I found YOU.

AN OLD SWEATER WITH A STAIN

[ Sometimes when we look at some of our old stuff we feel a want to be there once more to see it again. It is about that feel which I felt when I was asked by my mother to clean my room. It is pretty much realistic. And for the record I don't smoke. :D ]

While cleaning my room

I checked out my cupboard 

Got some shirts

And rough pants

A leather belt,

Some torn up papers,

An undone deodorant

A nostalgic pain

Some bittersweet memories.

A napkin with an untold story

Which should not have been this way (sigh)

I went straight in to the lap of time

A book of my nursery rhymes,

A photograph so old in black and white

A poem I didn’t write,

A pack of DVDs ,

With a pile of classics

Chosen

Seen

Stored and broken,

A pair of key rings,

Africa core,

A rebel scarf

Made me think and feel sour.

Hot wheels toy car,

A half smoked cigar

Childhood to manhood

In a blink of an eye.

The broken edge of the door,

Stained handle and a bronze key hole

And again the nostalgic pain.

Somewhere beneath the pile of shrugs

I found,

An old sweater with a stain

A fair stain.

UNLIKE ALWAYS

Your absence is certain

Too much than your presence.

Sidewalks are empty.

Unlike always,

And no one sits on the

Benches in the garden.

But these sheets are filling.

I m filling them.

Marks of the soft blue chelpark ink.

Sometimes black

As the black they depict.

As the harsh they reflect .

I am not writing an astrophe

I am writing love

I am writing about the

Half travelled path

I am writing about

Some summer eves and

Some winter morns

I am writing about the hunger of being together

About the songs, about the talks.

Punctuations of my poems has changed

With more full stops

With more pain.

Your flamboyance is too much for me.

Certainty of your absence is too much for me.