Thursday, March 31, 2011

The last harvest

Whose path did we cross to come this way?
 in the blind turn of the road
we will never know
whom we met for the last time
 
The curling smoke around those
mist laden valleys have stories to tell
of you and me
sitting in the dark night
stoking the fire of passion
drying around those lips
 
Whose flicker were the last words?
we will never know in dying memories
crystallising in the myth of time
 
We will never know the last leaf to fall
the last snow to melt
in the never remembered winter
 
Disparate time passes under those lips
like  waters of different summers 
tracing paths along banks of remembrance
 
In the smoke filled valleys
of wilted flowers and dying dreams
we will never know the last lily
which smelt not of gunpowders
 
Histories bind when centuries disappear
in moments of immortality
I and you
before we kiss it adieu
lets send a tear filled letter
to this last cloud on the horizon
whose moistness will dance
for the last time among the waves
before it rains down
for the last hands to caress
the last harvest, the last existence

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Smell of sense, the smile of life

One of the early poems that I had written. I don't know why I put the title the way it ended up being written and what was in the mind when one was writing and what starts as something will never end as the same thing. It always waits to transform itself and with a lot of water flowing down the river, one wants to hold on and pause for a moment and look back for what it was when it began and was it worth afterall. It is not an exercise in self-judgement or self-criticism because every work in itself is that act of criticism of itself, of emerging through different dilemmas in one's own mind and differen revisions and conceptualisations but yet some of the writing resist being re-written and revised and are written at one go.....they might not express the beauty of words, nor the beauty of expressions but sometimes just a beauty of spontaneity...to qualify it from a sign post in time, to look back one just wants to be with it and in that being tries to be with the time itself..it neither arises out of nostalgia, nor out of a revival of memory but out of pure forgetfullness of chancing around something which was deemed to be lost or repressed some where deep within and failed to be acknowledged in the certain circumstance.

I know you are a mirage, a mirage of senses worth exploring
I know I live in dreams, but dreams of eternity they are

You are the dream of the summer, where the yawn of the day meets the sleep of the night
You are the tranquil reflection of the moon
The still calmness of water, the movement of the stream
The silent cacophony of the night
The perennial spring of eternal hope, where in the valley of flowers arises the aroma of life
Where the snow-capped mountains reflects the beauty of the soul
Where the desirous destination is not the journey, but the journey is itself a destination

Love flourishes in the hope of hope, in the timeless journey of the selves
Transcending the destinies of mind, I keep to thee, revel in thee, imagine in thee and trace myself


Saturday, March 19, 2011

परतें

मुझे कभी शब्दों का साथ नहीं मिला
जैसे विरासत में मिलती हो वो पोथियाँ
जिस पर समय अपने भूलने की परत छोड़ जाता
ना ही मिलीं  वो लोरियां
जिसमे नींद के अंतिम प्रहर का इंतज़ार करते करते 
शब्द थक कर खुदबखुद सो जाते
  
बस मिली एक खामोशी 
एक अविश्वास में बैठी इंसानी परवाज़  
भीड़ में सुनी पड़ती सड़के
और ऊंचे होते  मकानों में
कुछ उखड़े हुए लोग
 
मिला एक साथ अधूरा सा, एक गहराता शून्य
और सपनों से पथराई हजारों आखें
खून में डूबे हुए कुछ हाथ
और अँधेरे का एक वीभत्स नाच
 
भाषा की अंतिम गलियों तक सोयी
एक विरक्ति भी  मिली
एक अभिन्न सी छुअन
जैसे सदियों चलता हो
लुका-छिपी का खेल
जिसमे निरंतर बसा एक डर
अपने पकडे जाने का

जिसमे धीरे धीरे उधड़ती परतें
एक उधार मांगे  जीवन का एहसास ही
छोड़ जाती थीं

Monday, March 14, 2011

Translation

The dance of the words on those lips
reminds us of the strangeness of language
what remaines our own
when adorned and left our lips
seemed strange when I see only
moving lips creating a strange
kind of poetry
inviting into a world
till thus unknown
waiting to open its arms
yet strangely
yet with suspicion
but with a nauseousness
of a friend too
Suddenly I see myself
drowning in this chaos
where words are not mere words
and yet they are words
where contexts dont mean
and things appear 
not in their images
nor in representations
but just by their
being in the world
When words are let loose
they acquire wings,
characters and
prejudices
that we owe to ourselves,
dreams to transcend our own
meanings.
Life dreams in this other
where the other is not me
and me in the other
always finds the other in me.  

Sunday, March 6, 2011

शब्द और रंग

वो जब भी पास बैठती एक
साया अक्सर ही छोड़ जाती
और तैरती रौशनी में वो
साये  कुछ धुंद की तरह  छटक जाते

मै हमेशा सोचता  उसे एक  ख़त लिखूंगा
 स्याही उस साये  से ही  मांगूंगा
 मुझे पता है वो मना  कर देगी

 उसे मै बहलाऊंगा
 पुचकार कर  एक नाम दूंगा 
वो अड़ी रहेगी मेरी मेज पर चिपके हुए
घंटो निहारती हुए मेरे टेबल लैम्प को
 फिर घंटो तक चलता
रहेगा शब्द और रंग का
सिलसिला

वह रंगों में खोयी रहती
मेरे कैनवास के कोने पर  धीरे धीरे पसरा करती
 ब्रुश से आख मिचोली खेलती 
और अक्सर ही एक तस्वीर उधार दे जाती

मै शब्दों में डूबा रहता
उसकी एक एक नरमी
को कैद करता रहता
उस  कविता में जो
अभी लिखी  जानी  थी

शब्द और रंग का ऐसा मेल
शायद प्यार नहीं कुछ और ही
था

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

लकीरें

हाथों का क्या है 
लकीरों में शब्द छीपा
लेते हैं
बस इन शब्दों के नाम
नहीं होते
गुमनामी में अकसर
राह भटकते, गलियाँ छानते
जाम तलाश करते ये शब्द
अक्सर अपने  को भूल
बैठते
भूला शब्द साथ छोड़ जाता
और हर छुटता साथ
लकीरों कि गहराई