Violating a placid spirit
Memories transgress  
desecrating the sacred.

Memories are
the dark side
of a full moon.

Memories are unsatiated desires
couched on sorrow  
entangled in time
a perennial wrinkle on the soul.

Memories are trespassers
possessing neural atrium
wading saline sockets
slithering in to throbbing veins
tiptoeing to hollow spaces
burying all under their eerie weight,
Memories are an inescapable affliction.

In fragmented mindscape
Memories are violent winds
littering the past.

Lurking behind aches  
in ethereal garbs,
Memories are assassins.
Or sema
of a swirling dervish.

Hurtling within, Memories
is an avalanche
pounding the abyss
choking the void
one gasp at a time.

Memories are
nameless apparitions
fused as shadows
to the very being.

Memories are an assault
on identity and belonging.

Her tender skin sprouts
green shoots
a wreath,
at the foot of tree
she was buried.

On the trunk
her face appeared, a
morphed stump.

The bark, her coffin
split, where demons clawed.

A number, worms out
indelible scars, 452.

Frozen chambers of mortuary
await the next,
a child, a girl, a dalit, a musalman.
A cattle herder.
Or, the silent you, you and you.

You, the ashen alyssum
homing in on dark bushes
breeding maggots
feeding on flesh.  

You the fetid parasite  
carrion, the rotten stink
a toxin laced tongue
devouring pith.

You, the stench of
malignant blossoms
a venomous creeper, you
had to attract snakes.

You live among the graves
the poison pollinator,
a corpse floret
of foul odour.

You the venin
cloaked in smirk
a shrew, spiked with malice
must be crushed,
must die.

Autumn escapes
leaving a void, a disquiet
a haunting pit,
a yearning to renew aches

Winter rain -
dark aureole like raindrops 
on leaves, drooping like *******.
Mirrored in pools
trees blush.

Prostituting radiance
a shameless sun
seduces skies. Birds spurt.

On a foggy morning

Leaves swoon
as fog hugs the tree
kissing its pores
with open wet lips.

the breeze hisses
in jealousy.

the sun
looks away.

the sparrow
laments
her lost love.

Untradeable. Pain is silver,
Sterling. Serrated, dual-faced coin.
Its flip side, a mirror.

Dark designs
dancing skulls
cover her apron,
a talisman
warding evil eyes.

Queen Meek-teka-see
rules over bones, on
Day of the Dead.

During day
swallowing stars,
at night gulping
nectar of rising sun
she spews spirits
possessed by her.

Calaveras eteched
over tombstones,
frozen candle flames,
capture souls
under black moon.

The living crawl
to her altar
offering
another skull
to the dark blue apron.

If a river had ears, they would’ve heard
songs of the clouds and the rain
floating in the breeze above oceans

If a river had ears, they would bring me 
stories told by gurgling, shrinking glaciers
imploding in warming streams

If a river had ears, the waters would know
all the secrets of dolphins and mahseer
it would play the scores of a whale’s song

If a river had ears, they would be blocked
and, when the waves hit the banks, the river
losing its balance forgets the course 

If a river had ears, those would be pierced
their small holes plugged with white pearls
stolen from an oyster’s shell 

Some rivers have ears
like ones flowing through Kashmir,
with their dainty drooping lobes,
pierced by bullets. Robbed of their
red-threaded golden dejhors,
the ears echo of unheard miseries.

From the kohl filled sensuous eyes
passion, drooled over your luscious lips
exploding quivering desires.
And your tongue devoured

the nectar permeating
each pore of my body
sending ripples of primordial echo
through our entwined
pulsating fiery shells.

I keep licking my lips
rekindling your taste.
The amrut lingers.

Those two kisses sealed my life
from 'yours' to
'yours only'.

'Love is the only antidote', he said
'I am also on antibiotics', she wrote
on a paper napkin.
'I wanna kiss you love', he whispered.
Looking in his eyes, adjusting her mask 
she slid the Off shoulder, a little more.

We never walked together
or matched steps
the walkway lies, so do
the shoes
  we bought together.

The stars don’t speak to me more.

On dark nights,
their silence shrinks,
as they come near.

Black hole steal the whisper,
splintered light escapes
and blinks.

A note floats for long
awaiting the other.... and dies.

Silence spreads in ripples, and skies mourn
Stars don’t speak to me no more.

We huddle together
like memories in a womb,
to be delivered as twins.

My mother didn't birth me, she said.
'I plucked you from a tree, 
a Papaya tree',  she says.

'It rained torrents that Chait* night,
a storm raged, tearing apart 
all that came its way
our hut was blown, everything swept away
the tree shuddered, so did the fruits
I spent the night clinging to the scarred trunk
worried about our next meal, 
a wild gale, then, bent the Papaya tree 
I latched on to you while your siblings 
fell apart. Bursting seedlings over my body. 
With all my strength, I plucked you
the stem and branches bruised my hands and arms
streaks of blood trickled and covered your face
you had a tender, pale skin. 

Can you feel the scar on your forehead ? 
That's where my silver bracelet was lodged. 
You weren't ripe, not yet. 

Next morning, still trembling, I hid you 
in the warmth of the last cloth on my body, thereon
you slept in my ***** till
the first rain of Baisakh**.

Your father, she said, 
'had gone seeding the fields'.
She said, 'You are the fruit of my labour.'

The night slept alone
dreams had cloaked the day

We never walked together
Or matched steps.
The walkway lies
so do the shoes, we bought together.

In the rationed sunlight
when there is no sun inside the room
and it is vaguely dark
a figure walks away from me 
like a noiseless shadow.
It walks past the door and kneels
as if to scratch an itch. On the wall 
a shape appears, like a photo frame
in which I see the darkness 
of my dark beating heart, a scratch
running through it like an arrow.
the figure now morphs to a gecko
its shadow crawls up the wall
behind the photo frame
and nibbles at the arrow

Quietly, I walk past
- the streak of sunlight
- floating dust specks
- the noiseless shadow
and step out. 

The photo-frame follows me
with the beating heart,
the arrow, and
the nibbling gecko
still inside, now
a streak of liquid drips from it.

I wear a rain-cloak
under the charcoal gray clouds
ready to burst on me.

look at the graph, he said,
this line that makes a hill
is the echo from your heart.
who sent the first ping?
a beat, a rhythm I can't decode?
Next time, listen to your heart carefully.

Lost words find their way to the well
you can hear them
as they jump, and drown

an echo rebounds
crawling up the serrated wall
severing the union
of vowels and consonants

algae mates
dismembered hieroglyphs
an obscure syllable is born

How can one enter a story?
Like gaps in words,
emptiness between breaks.
How can one crawl out of a plot
stealing a character?

Dreams

of a colourful parakeet all to myself have come true
a nest drawn on lime wall peels
crooked lines tracing clipped feathers
A home / A cage, a sunset
rainbow dreams -- locked at two ends

The breeze steals unsung notes
off aching branches. The tree
agonizes writing scores.

You hang there, a
yellow sickle
and float white
around me.
Moon, you fog me
in winters, and
Dazzle in summer.
In between you hide....
Black

Breeze whispers despair
a tree exhaled
the leaf changed colour

Leaves swoon
as fog hugs the tree
kissing its pores
with open wet lips
the breeze hisses in jealousy
the sun
looks away,
the sparrow
laments
her lost love.

On a foggy morning.

Lovebeams of the night long gone
shedding dew-laden wings at dawn, I depart
leaving a kiss for you woven in the screen

The House is in order.
Under the dome
Green carpets
soaked in blood
echo barbaric silence.

Complicit walk hand in hand
goons are masters
governance a slave
for they rule the living and the dead.

The deity, an accomplice,
rides waves of black coats
and saffron fallen leaves.

Paradise mourns humanity,
wailing, asking...
Would they want to
upturn the corpse and
see the face of their daughter?


12 April 2018
on the abduction, **** by multiple people and ****** of an 8 year old girl inside devastahan (a temple) in Kathua, J&K

Memories are porous
like seashells with nano holes.
Peace escapes 
this permeable space,
choking it with clamor.

Future - the black hole
swallows the past sans remorse,
amnesia struggles in amniotic fluid,
an echo rebounds 
 
Silence is bearable now.

Life sways in gasps
a breath struggles
over sagging phone waves.
The words I send trip off
the line stretching two ends
swinging high above the valley.
I speak floating in clouds
the voice may reach you
over quivering cable
wait, let me die,
'Don't disconnect.'

'Don't disconnect' - last words on an Italian youth to his beloved from his hospital bed using a doctor's phone

Someday you'll come home
    to the truth
bursting your heart. 

Someday you'll come home
    to lies
blinding your eyes.

Someday you'll come home
    naked
in orphaned grief.

Some windows 
shut memories 
some,
open wounds.

I am a collector.

Really?
What now?

People, Places, Things?

Hmmm... Yes and No.
Of Desires. Dreams. Memories.

Desires,
For unsatiated sense of longing.
So People.

Dreams,
Floating images, emotions, fantasies.
So Places.

Memories.
That's all which is left.
So, Things.

I am a collector.

Really?
Of what?
Art, Pearls, Antiques?

Hmmm... Yes and No.
Of Sunshine. Spring. Smiles.

And how?

Sunshine,
For it paints a glorious rainbow.
So Art.

Spring,
That precious dew drop on greens.
So Pearls.

Smiles,
They are hard to come by.
So Antiques.

Lonely no more.

I cultivate crescent moons
adding slivers of memory
to crave, a glowing halo.

Misty eyes are blinded
defying the haze.
Frozen droplets
fill the crease of years.
The mirror reflects
the other side of moon
dark, cold, unknown.
You will see me there
when the earth turns
if... only if... you are
on the other side of the moon.

I drink 
your being 
in short sips.

A poem is born of a peapod
pierced by a nail. The shell secretes tears.
An eye grows on crooked thumb
seeds go asunder slipping through fingers
a slimy worm wriggles in mind
a caterpillar is born of the pen
powdery syllables settle on wings
a butterfly mates with o's and a's
impregnating a rhyme.

1 June 2020

a heart tumbled
a dream fell
a life drifted

Doors have become trees,
bars of a cell, blocking my way
drooping branches a noose, a wreath.

Sun and sin, both set.
Horizon cheats
west or east.
Anger oscillates,
hate the fulcrum.

I just learnt...

god and devil
are never divorced

Here lies the one
who lived between two moons

I drink 
your being 
in short sips

A visitor,
will soon be a rare event.
Exciting yet unnerving.

<garbage collector rang the bell>


CoVide times - 15

How silent is the street
I fear
there's no one living anywhere



CoVide times - 14

Recalling toys from childhood
I see a black ring running away
From a stick in my father's hand

All that's been told to us were stories.
All the stories were once real.
All we leave behind are stories.


- February 2020

In my dream I see a dark girl
there is a window with a thin layer of dust
that obscures her face
inside the room there is the last light
of setting sun, the orange beam slitting the door
whispers a bronze sheen on her bare shoulder
outside it is dark, with no escape ladder
I wait on a moonless night
to watch her glow, she moves closer
out of focus, closer still, ah
the face fills the window glass,
that separates us. A breath imprint struggles
to escape the barrier - misty vapours
eatherise the faceless over my lips.

I drink 
your being 
in short sips.