A Torn Note

The moon’s last cry

Sound of lilies

Frosted in the violin

Winter nest             bleeding womb of poppies

Wail of papyrus in summer                   n o o n

The petal Book of Black

A scalpel tears

the algebra of Braille...

My shadows fall apart

Red-orange-yellow

Aflame

Thin sunlight s...i...m...m...e...r...s in rice pot

She stitches fresh roses

On dew dipped blouses

Inside hijaab          

Little tulips fight

For Spring

diaries you wrote

Still smell of camphor

Your letters sway on c-l-o-t-h-e-s-l-i-n-e

A blast somewhere

In-visible cities

Atlantis appears on your swollen skin

Tin kettle sweats of Shopian

Glossary

Hijaab – a head covering worn by Muslim women

Shopian – A small town in Kashmir also known as the Valley’s Apple Orchard

Published in Brown Boat magazine

Questions

1.
Is the grape only a ripe pitcher 
Of Shiraz and Bordeaux?
Or is it the breast of a pagan goddess
Hiding behind the leaves 
Of primeval thirst? 

2.
Why does Chopin leave
wet roses 
on lines and dots
of Guernica?

3.
Is a tear 
an ocean’s only jewel box 
or does it hold 
Bohemian treasures also?

4.
Will the letter-box 
filled with blue moonlight
Ever taste 
the salty winds 
of floating worlds?

5.
Why do white roses 
of your mornings
bloom 
In wombs and words?

6.
Which harbour 
do lost paper boats
Drop ancient childhood 
laughters to?

7.
Is the butterfly a flying flower?
Or had Monét stolen
all the water lilies
From its wings?

Bangles

Halo of planets

Kaleidoscopic

Dance

            Body flames

Light up iced-candle-eons

            The sun stole

From our mouths

            Moulding rainbows

In glass

Breathe, like a gentle rustle of feathers

Dreams are melting

Into slivers of moon

The dome of the Taj shakes kahkashaan

                        Millions of stars rain

                        On thin, brittle entrance

                        Of Koh-e-Kaf

Zafar’s broken syllables

                                          Hang

                                                     Sun-washed

Silence dribbles down

                       Hennaed wrists:

Calligraphy in blood

The dewy air rising from Zabarwan

                                        Wraps the

                                        Cool ivory

                                        Hands

The jingle of stars gives way

                        For a diamond to cover

                        The islets of eyes

And shakes snow off

The glow of planets

 Descends

 Tinkling

With palms rising as lotus

Sending forth murmurs

To the fajr skies

The silver-dust seals the envelope

                        That in dreams

                        You called Prayer

Footnote

Neruda’s songs

Fill

Your ankles

            The waves in the seashells

            Die

            Under heavy boots

            Descending from

            Ghost trains

Fish the fading sounds

Of your lost tongue

In the net of blue mist

Pocket a few syllables

And scatter them

On tufts of grass

                        Growing near rusted

                        Rail tracks

                        Separated by

                        Sand of old voices

A handful of glittering granules

Make a glossary

That the wind will

Carry as rose scents

                                    To the frozen faces

                                                At

                                                    Lal Chowk…

For You

                                                                                                                               

In my veins

You? Reign?

                        My scarf was a lonesome bloom

                        In the shadow of Autumn

What was that sun

On your rooftop?

                        Have the seashells carried

                        My future

                        Azure? Ashore?

Question marks always turn liquid on balmy beaches –

The nazm I dived in

Was God

Sleeping

            In ice sheets

A bleeding dream mated me

                                                Trickling from silver birches

Orion tasseled with vākhs

Brings baskets of birdsongs

            A world filled with green and sun

            Awaits its own return

Frontiers of colours

Sun the park benches

            It will take an epic

            To pluck your phantasm

            From ripe fruits

            From rice shoots

From the sleepy hazel ocean

A bud of Word bursts open

                                                An aster world has fallen

                                                From the dot of i

Fall reigns

Over tufts        

Of honeysuckle!

The forlorn future is my watermark

                        Papyrus dyed in lamp-years

                        Curls around

                        The soul in inkpot

The last twinkle

Of sodden Night

Shall drip

            On your closed eyelids…

Shortlisted for Raed Leaf Poetry, 2013 Contest

A Misty Song for You

Iris of photons
Gets entangled,
With gossamer penumbra…
Between interplay of sunshine and shadows
Are born you and I...

Frozen peach trees
are misty roads to Pari Mahal
Curving their way to alphabet of Time
Couplets of Faiz and Mir sink
In the summer of my skin
Liquid roots give birth to our sun filled shadows

Lighthouses wake up
Murmuring shipwrecks…
And ancient cities exhale
Songs of saffron fields.

Dissolve in my blood
Night, Sleep, Death, and the stars…

Champak odours
Is what inky skies will be written with
I shed eons from the caves of my eyes
Muddle of stars
Draws maps of Macedonian secrets on your chest…

Lotuses of Light crumble
My soul withdraws its anchors
Piercing in me the Ruby Dagger
An angel of Silence wept
On necklace of Queen Bilqees

Kingdom of Darkness
Is where you locked yourself

On its rusting gates
You will find nothing but an atom of me…
While Providence flounders madly
In a jungle of bluebells

I was the fresh rain
That sipped the arid deserts inside you…

...my absence shall forever be a harvest
Of sweet lavender scent
On your pillow…

END (Published by Nivasini Publishers for its anthology ‘Celebrating India :Love without Borders’). The anthology also features works by celebrated poet Gulzar.

Sin of Semantics

Inherited by a sentence

What is it that weeps

Inside the frontier

Between

the rivers and mirrors?

Darkness s  p l   i  n  t  e  r  s  as my sun

And I   —   f   a  l  l

into a

place

That stems from you

Wounds bloom like morning prayers

Flush of glass-doors

Brush

The paisleys

of my shawl —

Broken stars are

plucked wicks

On the roof of eye..

Light pregnant with Silence

was coppice

              of dotted lines

Oil-lamps glimmer

On birth of wet letters

Cold, dark

Planets

Floating on killed papyrus

Noah’s Ark

Ferried the corpses:

Chopped words don’t always

Die in a gutter

…the gray patch is curled within

Deep wine voice

Moony blossoms

Announce the mist of past:

Archangel of waiting lines.

Thoughts-winds-feathers

Blow

As unripe harvest of commas

Cascading on

Rain curtains

That in your world

Never found a name

Between a blue and a red

Night bled

Gilgamesh

Will wake up

the next autumn

In the leaves that flew in periods…

Mahmoud Darwish

Waited too long

For Frisky Air

To build its nest

On his palms

Olive years burn

With what

Saba Arwah s…p…u…n

Questions

          loop, lament, and laugh

          inside

the white night

dying

for a black moon.

Labyrinths always have

doors in c—o—r—n—e—r—s

of lapis-lazuli.

Or perhaps visions will still

be stuck

in blue flood

seeping from footnotes!!!

END (Won First Prize in a contest of  Wordweavers – an online journal)