Darkness falls like a curtain.
And between the two of us
Words lose their way
In hidden mazes
Of the treacherous air.
I have communed with
The dead and the past.
But dead now
And banished to silenced words
How do I touch your hand?
Words are the most unruly of all things
They don’t fall in place.
And nothing, not love, not hope
Can ever transcend death.
And that night when I kissed you,
Pressed my lips on yours,
Your skin rippled under my fingers
And I could feel the waves
Travelling through your candid frame.
Your eyes were closed,
Your mouth rosy and ajar.
I knew I was pushing you to madness,
To the point of no return.
But this isn’t an apology.
I don’t deign to console your grief.
It was a mistake I had made
Thinking Love would impart some warmth,
Melt the chestful of freezing loneliness
That made breathing so hard.
It was then that I let you go
Unfastened those encircling arms
That trusted and clung,
Feigned indifference to your frenzied tears.
Because, you see, I was afraid,
Afraid that your heart,
So young, so eager to love, so prone to life,
That lay on my cold withered one
Would freeze to death,
Like hers had, so many years ago.
There is darkness enough in there
To bury myself in…
Like in daddy’s huge, black overcoat
Silent, safe and sweating in it…
Through games of hide and seek
On long summer afternoons.
You stretch your hands to touch me
There’s mastery in your fingers, and triumph
As they try to unbutton this coat of darkness
And expose my invisibility.
I cringe as the black turns grey
Fading, as drops of knowledge
Inundate my existence.
There’s a better darkness somewhere,
and darker still.
So in the dark pool of non-memories
Sprinkled with pieces of a broken self
I drown…inside me.
The wait is long…
It had started in this star-lit valley
Twenty crescent moons ago
When the ghost of the faded moon
Had not yet left the mauve sky.
Through incomprehension
And blankness of burning days
It grew old…
Evening has descended on the leaves
Of gently swaying palm trees
And their grey shadows have grown
Black.
The moon has burst upon the bare sky.
With a vengeance.
The leaves shine
The smell of wet mehendi on beguiled palms
Waft in.
The silken feathers you had clipped
Have grown again…stronger this time.
I want to fly, yet I want you back.
The wait is long…
And the night sky allures me.
I’m on the verge of a take-off
Return soon and fly with me.
The pent-up anger of a burnt out day
Sublimates into a purple haze
Of rain, smoke and dreams.
The earth is angry.
Trampled to dust
By numerous pairs of marching feet
(so alike in their fated doom)
Kicked and mauled
Day after day, night after night.
It is as thirsty as desire.
The red eyed traffic monster stares at
The impotent anger
Of people who lose against time,
Dissolving into eddies and puddles
Of slime and rain.
The earth has licked the rain,
Sucked in its share of
Ambrosia
Before the lesser gods strike again.
Tonight the city shall sleep.
Tonight it might dare to dream
Before the red-eyed monster devours them
at mid-noon...
tomorrow.
Delinquent stars peep and blink
At me, outside his rusty door
That has claw marks and dried blood
On it’s weather-beaten, crumbling body.
His door has on it, some charm
The witch-doctor dipped his palms in
And applied.
Like an ointment on a wounded body.
Though rusty and broken in parts
The door doesn’t allow me in
Nor my pleas
Nor my angry kicks,
Nor my amateur black magic
So I tried his dreams instead
Where I knew,
the rat-woman sat sipping wine.
But he has forgotten my face, it seems.
He takes the rat-woman in his arms
And says “who let this witch in?”
Delinquent stars peep and blink
As I go back and claw at his door.
