Thursday, June 23, 2011

Half a pause

The sunshine and a smile
lost on half a track in the
rattling of the rails, a few
escape to the flower in your hair
opening up a deceased song, a
few stink like half dead 
carcasses from which poems 
of love refuse to be born. 
A few are lost in the sea 
and in its hands carrying the 
heaviness of millions of memories
only to drown itself in the 
forgetting where the rotting 
forgiveness will be washed on the shore. 

And you who walk
cautiously, yet tragically on this 
shore of time, a time knowing no 
history of immortality, what do you 
collect in your hands, why do you 
make this bag heavy for yourself? 
Did you yet find half the song
buried in those shells when your 
breath touches it? Did not you 
find a wail, a half cry, or a trembling dream 
there? Why yet you 'being' keeps walking? why yet 
you rails keep moving? would you know till the last, 
what moves when the tracks don't? 
what sings when you don't? 
who cries when you don't? 

And you the 'being', the born and 
'half a life' yet know not.
have a pause, a silence 
wait a moment, slow this time 
and this run, for
you and me

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A dying word

A word dying in my hands
stuck to my pen to reveal
its last breath by not writing
but opened up inside me
bit by bit, inch by inch
like a slow pain and the
scorpion crawling inside
crafted a web trapping lost
forgiven memories, devouring
a love I never had



Sunday, June 12, 2011

ज़ख्‍़मी शब्‍द

मैंने एक ज़ख्‍़मी शब्‍द चुना और उसके इर्द-गिर्द रचा अर्थों और
किरादारों का एक घरोंदा
भर दिया फिर उसे आधे जले गीतों 

और बिखरे टूटे रंगों में
वक्‍त बीत चला यादों के कारवाँ के साथ
और साथ ले चला अपने उसका नाम
हाँ शायद वह मेरा बिना ही खुश है
मेरा आँसु , मेरा प्‍यार

  • This translation was an outcome of a dialogue, as most  translations are. This was possible with a dialogue with my friend Pramod who zealously reads my work and creates a new work in translation itself. 

Saturday, June 11, 2011

A wounded word

I picked a wounded word
built a home of meanings and
characters around it
stuffed it into half smoky muses
and weathered storms
of broken colours

Years passed, memory played its game
and remembrance took away its name.
perhaps its happy without me,
my tears, my love. 

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Words

Slowly verses will die down 
as mist trickles through the ashes 
we will not remember that day where 
dream was covered by a passing snow flake 
and the last tourist forgot her destination 

A melancholy settles down in my song 
as the rattle of rail tracks awakens me 
in the dead of the night and the last flickering 
lightening threatens to reveal my shadow and 
the lonely wandering cat gives me a lone stare 
knowing not my purpose 

I am slowly forgetting you as my 
fainting memory struggles to rekindle 
a dream last shared, as my words refuse 
to reveal the last muse etched for love