An Apology

Baby, baby they do not want you
Baby, I know not what to do.
This world is a bad place anyway
People here die a new death everyday.
My sweet, my precious, I have no power
They shout, they stomp…they make me cower.
Yet I wish you had seen the moon
Poems, chocolates, ballads I croon.
I wish I could hold your little toes,
When you cry, your tiny crinkled nose.
Baby, my baby please do not blame
I was ignorant…only playing a game.
You’ll never see these salty drops of tear
You’ll never feel my heart freeze in fear
Of hurting you, of losing you
When they abort you and my soul too.
Darling, angel please forgive
A weak mother who truly does grieve.
In reveries and dreams come back to me
You and I baby, happy shall we be.
Bye my child please do forgive
Poor your mother still has to live.

The women in the story.

I

She sits there
amidst flashlight bulbs,
crackling microphones,
cameras and
a sea of eyes and mouths.
Bathed in a pool of light
she sits, silent.
The lights are too weak
to trace the hollow in her eyes.
Or her eyes have ceased reflecting.
An angry buzz surrounds her.
Protests and heated debates.
The flames do not touch her.
She sits alone
in a crowd of well-dressed, learned people.
In her soiled saree
and comatose eyes
she looks a complete misfit.
Some marvel at her composure,
the strength of her mind,
the incomparable tolerance!
Their praises do not reach her.
Comforting fingers do not reach her.
She sits, stares blankly.
Perhaps memories crowd her brains so...
she can not think.
And then it's so hard to believe.
She doesn't cry.
Tears wouldn't heal the gaping wound.
Tears wouldn't fill the neat, round hole.
One could look through it
and see a death and a crowd.
Everybody claimed justice.
Perhaps she should claim him back.
She is too tired.
She needs some sleep.
She searches for his face
somewhere in the crowd
to take her home
and lull her to sleep.
Somebody is wishing her a happy Eid.

II

In the hollow cave of her room
She sits,
away from prying eyes
and voices dripping in sympathy.
Sleep is an absurd commodity
her father can not buy. Nor her dead husband.
Things are so haphazard now
that she lives inside her head
and relives her short-spun life.
She despised tragic-heroines,
sacrificers and sacrificeds.Always!
And he knew.
Mother's hands are not so soft now.
They don't bring sleep.
She wonders why.
And her eyes;those twin pains!
They do nothing but see and dream.Him!
And him!
She never thought he'd torment her so
haunt her so...
He who promised he loved.
The pink on her wall is so bleak!
Layers of dust on green leaves!
And those inauspicious drums!
Her head aches!
This palatial prison suffocates her.
Mother's womb would be safer perhaps?
Or...Or...
that box under the green turf...
inside it, beside him,
not yet turned to bones perhaps.
At least the grass above would be fresh and green
and the box cozy and warm.

The saga of the music box.

They trampled it under their heavy spiked boots
with a vengeance weighed against wads of notes.
They jabbed at it viciously with naked hatred
lurking in the safe recesses of their goggles-clad eyes;
eyes snug and secure in not-seeing and shadows.
Their cold metal fingers pierced at it wildly
while imprecations rained on it
“his goddam fucking heart”-they called it.

It was a little red music box.
Quaint shaped.
Small as a fist.
It sang of love
Unwavering, undying love
and danced too
to its own rhythm.

It took a battery of armed mercenary
to quieten that little music box
and bury the songs it sang.
Battering it to an eerie silence
they heaved cold sighs of relief
“his goddam fucking heart has stopped”
till she lifted her wide-brimmed eyes
and they read the words
poised calmly in the single film of tear
“it was my heart you stopped
and my song you buried”

They pulled back the goggles in place,
the lord and his henchmen
and retreated to their safe world
of shadows and not-seeing.

Unwavering, undying love-songs
reverberate in the plain once again.

P.S-I have used words here I strongly refrain from using in my real life. Not snobbery or anything...I apologise to those of my friends who find these words crude. The poem is dedicated to Rizwanur and Priyanka's love.

Desires.

I want to walk barefeet on soft green grass moist with morning dew in the wee hours of morning. I want to be the first one to be touched by the first sun-ray of the day.

In the still, silent afternoon heat,I want to drink the mild fragrance of white and orange orchids, anoint myself with the soft breeze and whistle bird-songs.

I want to stand on a mountain top overlooking the vast stretches of green valleys below. I want to fall down, float in the wind like a feather and hit a bed of vibrant hued flowers with a soft, dull thud.

I want to take off from the peak of a mountain and soar high into the azure sky,high above the clouds. And when it rains I will come down,spread my wings and feel the first drop of rain trickling down my shiny white feathers.

I want to dip my callused feet in the transparent green water of a mountain stream that leaps over rocks in a lively gait making a gurgling sound as I sit watching the fiercely bright day mellow down towards a golden...red...violet end.

When the summer moon rises, round,milky and magical, I want to sit on a bed of fallen maple leaves, red,brown and reddish-brown, on a forest floor, listening to the tinkling of the clear blue stream rushing nearby as the vanilla moon melts in it. I want to be silhouetted against the moon light.

In the midnight hours, I want to lie down on the edge of a cliff and count the millions of stars thronging the beautiful night sky. I want to forget myself and enjoy my insignificance and wonder at the beauties of this world.

I want a sky-blue sky, green forests, red flowers, grey clouds,blue streams and a box of colours to colour them anew.I shall mix the colours in strange proportions and exult in the creation of every new hue...like a creator.

I want freedom and a lot of sky.

The Love-song of a Jilted Youth

Blueberry eyes
and strawberry lips
who would have plumbed
the venom-sea in you?

Blue black-hole eyes
had a steely end to them
A cul-de-sac
Love bumped against.

You painted my dreams
with the blue of your eyes
Or the venom
running through the soft blue veins
beneath your glassy white skin.

I drank your red,
you flowed with me
and I drowned in your venomous waves.

Blueberry eyes
and strawberry lips
from a mound of dust and bones
Stare at me.

Narcissus

I am Narcissus.
Born from the shadows of night.
The pale moon, the inky sky
beautify me.
My colour blooms
against the dark of the night.

Stranger, you may drown in my eyes
and never see them again.
My fragrant songs may bewitch you.
Beware! Walk not in this path
if you fear a thing to lose.

I take myself apart
part by part,sense by sense.
I examine their beauty,
caress their softness,
kiss the bruises away.
Then I tuck them back,
my broken parts,
join them by a feeble faith, a fickle faith.

Everybody loves this body
of a patched-up rag doll
but only in the dark of night.
I am a fairy
born in the absence of light.

Visions.

Splinters of broken resolutions,
dark maroon blood trickling down one
clotted on the other.
phantasmagoric visions of a red and blue night.

This city can only sleep
This city can only die.
This city can cozen humanity out of humans
and showcase a herd of mannequins.

The little roadside flower
without name or pedigree
has survived yesternight's rapacious gale
I call her 'Hope' now.