A shelf in dreams

I have a shelf in my dreams
which dreams of books
yet unread, calling from
miles apart, times and destinies apart
I keep on piling in them
new collections which were never read
and someday when the time is ripe
and the fruits of imagination would have dried
washed in the blue smoke of life
and the tree from beyond would have
devoured all its fruits
and the mountains will turn back on its rivers
time will be still

Books still the time in you
to carve this image which would never be,
better than the images which are
to curb the violence of the world
and turn the cycle of life.

I will return to books and clean my shelf
for dust of centuries have laid its hands
there is someone who comes, sees, lays hands on
my books of dreams and yet cleans not
for history resides in all we read
and future in what will be read.

So yet in the future till it comes
I will ask the carpenter of my dreams
to build more stacks, for books to fill my future
where all those which you read, and which
you hold out with your hands will be mine too
to dissolve in the ever non-existent time

She will meet you as a night

In a distance she will meet you as the night
with an ash laden body she will cover herself with sheets of death
in the unending constellation of stars will find herself a star of her own
and then will shrink like a memory in your loneliness

She will drown in the never ending time
dont ask me her name
she could have any name
like faces we fail to recognise everyday
in the corner of the road when the story
died in the memory
but before her becoming, as the being of time
she had adorned
the caravan of the fog in the never ending roads
where our paths never converged

वही चेहरे

जहाँ भी जाता हुं वही चेहरे पाता हूँ 

किताबों के पन्नो से झांकते वो चेहरे 

जैसा कवियों ने लिखा, कहानिकारों ने 

गढ़ा और जिसे चित्रकारों ने रंगो से सराबोर

कर दिया 

अब बोर सी होने लगी हैं मेरी

आदतें,  भीड़ मे खोकर चेहरे तलाशने की

फिर हताशा मे एक प्रयत्नशील विष्मय गढ़ने की जो 

मेरी कवितायों मे नहीं ही आ पाई और रंगों के खेल 

मे खो गई 

सातवें मंजिले की उस बाल्कोनी पर कुछ शब्द 

डाले थे मैने सुखाने को, भीगते-भीगते अब उन्हे 

एक अरसा गुज़र चुका है, अबकी साल जो तुम आई 

तो तुमसे धूप का एक कतरा उधार मांग लुंगा जिसे 

मै बरसों पहले तुम्हारे कांधे की अलग्नी पर भूल आया था 

जब तुमने आखरी बार चांद उतारा था अपने कानो से 

और मेरे सारे रंग समेट लिए थे