A Dreamer's Journal

Three Haiku

2012-02-28T19:24:00.001+05:30

aster harvest-
I write couplets
only for you

muezzin’s call
light from deep blue ink
brings me winter songs

sunlit lakes
gulmohar falls on my palms
temple bells ring

Questions...

2012-02-05T00:43:00.003+05:30

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

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

3.
Is the ocean
a tear’s only jewel box
or does it emerge
from 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 his water lilies
From its wings?

For You Who Never Arrived

2011-09-11T01:15:00.008+05:30

"...And I ran to meet you in the rose-garden."
- T. S. Eliot

You
Are all the stars
That ever gazed
At the blue tulip of my body
Blooming at your fingers
Before being drunken
By the skies
That the Dreamer catches in his nets…

Your face:
Mirror of myriads of suns
On dewdrops
Shines, smiles
Only to merge with shimmering poplars

You walk
With morning mist
On the clear slate of a cerulean lake
While water lilies
Fill their veins
With the scent of your eluding face

You are the Dream
That raw sunlight whispers
Kissing red rooftops
With the fear
That even the slightest rustle
Of cotton flowers
Might scatter it…
But my happy harud songs
See it raining
As millions of diamonds
On the tender crust
Of the peeled Moon…

You are the legend growing in glass
With whom all my Sappho-windows
Trickle down
Disappearing in abundant bloom
Of bougainvillea

You elude me again
In kingdom of cherry blossoms
And I trail your blue shadows on snow
While the chilly air
Weaves me into its breath
Embossing me
On cypress leaves
As an unforgettable yarn

All my seasons close in you
As you disappear again
In sparks crackling from a burning log
The furnace will always need me
Before I catch
Your crystal phantasm
In another September twilight
Where horizons proclaim
Your arrival as a miracle
On whose borders
Language of Dreams opens its eyes,
Island of surreal worlds floats…

Song On A Misty Road

2011-08-06T10:47:00.005+05:30

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
Dissolving 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
The last night
An angel of Silence wept
On necklace of Queen Bilqees

Būt kahey kaafir mujhey…

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…

* (Taken from Walt Whitman's ‘A Clear Midnight.’)

Song In A Madhouse

2011-07-30T00:32:00.003+05:30

The window
Between
Fading sapphire
And pink walls
Is a temple of Blood

Draped with the white moon Dreams are offered onto the tongue of the oscillating pendulum…

Stained lips
Nail
Red chiffon roses
On a dripping canvas
Sold along with lotus stems in floating markets…
Resin dewdrops
Try mending a broken boat…
Slumber is a spoonful of water hyacinths
On the glass of eyes…

Oars get busy slicing stories
On the satin bed
Sodden with broken bangles;
Crystal songs
Fall
On the fiery forehead
Of an Andalusian city

Baudelairian flowers scattered in a sunny corner cry out a name…

Blue branches
Of the night
Crack mirrors
In hidden doorways
Infinite images in regression
Merge into tendrils of smoke...

Blow out the candle
Before morning
Can escape
From water-chains

Soap bubbles
Add cyphers to cyphers
Rainbows shatter
On lips of air
Fighting with liquid poison

Who plucked leaves of light from isles of irises?

…snowflakes
Create noise
On eyelashes
Brushing madness
Off the walls of this house
Scarlet tulle dress
Spills on it like sorbet

Cold ashes have changed prophecies written on the palm of the sky…

From the spangled shore
Of Life
Have slipped frozen stars
Into the dark sea
Of soul
May be Death can fish out a few beams…

Season's Greetings to All of You

2011-01-05T14:10:00.009+05:30

1st January 2011

Dear Wordsmiths, Weavers of dreams, Worshippers of Muse, and Cosmic Travellers,

The uncorked bottle of inky evening having soaked up all the days and nights of the year gone by sluices against the window panes:large and shiny gaping at different faces. Faces telling their own stories. Faces as different as novellas of Life. Faces beaming with unnamed expressions. Happy faces. Flushed faces. Laughing faces. Faces of men and women talking over plates of French fries and croissants at McD and KFC. Faces of children at Kathleen biting into too-large-to-eat Black Forests with glace cherries sitting delicately atop rosettes of cream. Faces warm and cold. Faces young and old lost in promenades mottled with fairy lights. Faces of Life & Music twirling in wisps rising from steamy mugs of coffee at Barista Lavazza. Faces to be flushed ruddy with the dawns to come… Faces like starlit skies… Faces like wet cool winds on burning deserts… Faces like distant cosmos… Faces like eerie islands… Faces like hieroglyphic codes… Faces comprehensible yet indescribable… Their faces, our faces, your face, my face … with questions, expectations, and a myriad other expressions…. Beaming with wishes for all of you in the coming year:

To set aglow with fireflies those words, crushed joys, smiles, relations that you lost and illuminate dark forests stumbling in somebody's mental landscapes… To fill your inkpots with fresh blue skies… To rub the scent of sunshine on your olive skins… To sip oceans from a raindrop playing on the mouth of a white lily… To drink stars from the eyes of nights gone by… To shake sleeping worlds from blue icicles flowing down rooftops… To breathe mornings coiled inside hollows where once sat precious gems… To traverse through whispering streets in misty landscapes… To conspire with Spring for abundance of bluebells, tulips, roses, jasmines, and orchids for grazed cheeks of Kalaharis and Saharas…. To splash waters all around from dewy Lake Saiful Maluk dissolved with Poetry…. To feel a soft snowflake melt onto the summer of your tongue… To see your own shadow fly to the jungle of sanobers, shahbaloots, and chinars for basketfuls of ballads…. And to see kaleidoscopic shadows of dreams quiver again in rivers flowing deep within you…

Amen…

Amen…

Amen…

Cheers,

Saima

For a Child of Kashmir

2010-09-27T15:10:00.006+05:30

Child,
Your mother
Has put a tiny tear of your dreams
And a firefly from her face
On a little paper-boat
Struggling on sapphire waters
Of butchered lullabies.

Bullets pierce
The mouth of the molten moon
Your small universe
Weeps in your tiny palms
Stained with white blood.

Child,
Do not long for the moon.
Tonight
It will be cremated
By wolves in khaki:
Guards of ‘Peace’!

The thud
Of their boots
Trample upon the wails
Reverberating from the red carpet
Of fresh blood
On streets.

The night preening
Its blue plumes
Drips as broken sounds
From the rows of poplars –
Silent spectres
Of Doom…

Child,
Do not cry.
Your beheaded doll
Will find a grave
Amid dark pits
Of deadly shrieks
Left unburied.

Child,
Hold
Tightly the velvety wings
Of a crushed butterfly
Even if you see
Blades
Of green grass growing
Out of smashed skulls!

Hear,
The ghosts
Of smoke
Have just sung songs
Of Spring
Blooming
As bleeding hearts
From black tulips of Nishat Bagh.

Child,
You will not get
A bouquet
Of colours.
In this land anymore,
Not even in the fractured fingers
Of your crayons.

Behold
Child,
Grey. Black. Red
Are the only colours left in Koshur.
Forget the orange colour
Of your candy.

The brutal blue night
Will soon remove all hues
Except RED.

The Devil in the chopper
Tries to erase
Verses written
On the white wings of the wind
With his fingers
Smeared with ashes of charred bodies
That burnt upon charcoal
Of myriads of mornings.

Fire.
The serpentine tongue
Swallows
Glittering pictures
Of fairies and dwarfs
In your story books.
Tiny sparks hiss
On needles of rain.

Child,
Go
Inferno
Engulfs
The morning star
That trembles
On the liquid glass
Of your iris.

Cover your pink ears.
Fables. Rhymes. Claps
Are drops of molten lead.
Stories of blood and gore
Flutter as bats
Licking the flowers
On the wallpaper
Of your skin.

Strange hands
Throw the wounded scarlet sun
In the black lake
Where Laughter was slaughtered.
Even,
The dead eye of prophecy is lost
In distorted maps.

See,
Child,
Forest scents
Try to mend the shawl of the torn sky
That your mother covered herself with.
Dirty scraps of blue cloth
Fall on a shrine
Of chinar trees.

Child,
Tell me,
Will anyone ever know
What it means
Breathing in a dead womb?

For You - IV

2010-07-04T20:30:00.000+05:30

Beloved, I am there:
In the gushing brook of ink flowing from your pen;
In the serene evenings wrapping you tenderly;
In the sweet songs of winter wind filling music in your oblivion;
In silver moonbeams caressing your face;
In cool raindrops washing away your tiredness;
In fragrant flowers making the arid deserts of your heart come alive;
In the soft pillow resting under your head;
In the jingling laughter that comes from deep within you;
In slumber taking you to valleys of dreams;
In golden dawn spinning yarns of fairyland around you;
In crevices of your own veins of which you are unaware;
In dreams playing hide and seek under your eyelashes;
In the smile playing on your soft lips;
In the sole evanescent figure lurking in the world of your dreams;
In the azure skies where diaphanous clouds of your thoughts float;
In lush green forests where your epistles sway with tall trees;
In frisky breeze bringing a whiff of my fresh perfume to you;
In words engraved for you on the huge pearl of Destiny;
Even Fate can’t separate me from you
Because I am made of you...

Beloved, I shall always peep from pages of your favourite books
And smile at you from enchanting sentences
That will not vanish like wisps of smoke;
I will hold your hand and take you back in Time
In silver streets painted with our vision
Where slivers of seconds are wrapped in velvety dreams;
Dreams which are iridescent and fragile as glass
These toss and turn in the scarlet alleys of veins
And traverse to mysterious worlds
To get our hot breaths, musings exchanged in murmurs, secrets painted on the walls of your room;
These ferocious travellers shoot flush
Of sanguine dawn on your face
And the morning of your face throws open tales
Written on flowing rivulets
With indecipherable letters
Silent and undiscovered like hidden treasures On seabeds;
The beautiful calligraphic words
Seem to speak an abstruse language
That once reverberated from your heart
And peep from misty roads pointing to locked doors
Whose keys float in each line, circle, and dot
Of paintings that you painted on a sapphire-blue lake
Whose ripples rise and fall holding the sun in their fists like a tiny firefly
This firefly will adorn my finger as a ring,
And all my fingers will fill in the spaces between yours.

Many a time you may have read tales of Mughal princesses
But here I stand as yours, untouched by Time
For you I have gathered pieces of times gone by
Which breathe of you and I,
Put your fingers on the vitreous surface
And scribble whatever secrets you want
Even the lines on your palms will rewrite Time and Fate.
I, too, with strokes of my lifeblood will rewrite these pages...

Beloved, I am forever yours,
Feel me melting in your arms
And read the obscure letters left by the kohl of my eyes
Smeared on your shoulders and neck
Redolent with the delicate scent of my raven tresses,
My reflection will not elude you
I shall always peep from the reflection of your own face
And I will sleep on your heart strings.

Beloved, Look around, hear the song of autumn
Feel the fluttering petals of a fresh red rose
And behold pages of your diary fluttering with the wild wind
You will find me sitting in each captivating letter that you write
And my thousand faces will emerge from the strokes of your painting brush
On whose tip I sit and play with the colours that you choose
Unwashed by rain of years
Framed forever in the mirror of your soul ...

Even Today

2009-07-07T12:24:00.011+05:30

Even today
The words that you spoke
Are inscribed like holy verses on
The walls of my soul
That resemble palace of an ancient kingdom
Narrating tales of what remained unspoken
That contained heat of your breath
Diffusing perfume of myriads of rose-gardens;
Each brick of the palace of my soul
Has become an epic of Love
And somewhere in distant lands
Glaciers have melted to give way
To singing emerald meadows;

Even today
The sitar of my soul
Produces melodious music
And sings the beautiful sonorous songs
Reverberated from the strings
Of beautiful sentences that you wrote;
Each calligraphic letter engraved eternally on my skin
Breathes of you;
My hot blood has given desired shapes
To these precious jewels
With which I adorn myself
For the grand ceremony
To be crowned as Queen of Babylon.

Even today
Dazzling diamantes of dots that you marked your words with
Trickle down my skin
Incarnating me as a handful of stardust
In beautiful mysterious worlds
Where I dreamt with you
Of dreams which are still yours;

Even today
The ink flowing from your pen
Gushes as a majestic sea inside me
Colouring me in shades of sapphire;
Fresh blue morning rises within me
And I fling a handful of pink morning stars
To the singing zephyr
That will soon shower this little gift of mine
On your bed where dreaming you lie in the arms of Slumber;

Even today
The scarlet flowers of your words
Bloom on my face
Swaying in glee
And the wet indigo sky steals
Evening ragas
From the smiling Spring of my heart.

Even today
The fragrant breeze of your breath
Makes your iridescent words
Fall softly like cherry blossoms
In the lakes of my eyes
Dipped in dark nights,
You walk surreptitiously
On the florid carpet of my dreams
To brighten my slumber
With the stars of your eyes
And enliven the idol of my soul
With your mesmerizing murmurs.

Even today
Your voice echoes in my ears
Shooting rain of hot stars in my blood
And caravan of cumulus clouds rise from
The moist heat of your breath
Traversing to parched desert of my eyes
A few drops glisten and then fall
To be soaked by thirsty sands
To give birth to colourful gardens
In some other eon, in some other land
Away from me...

For a Poem...

2009-06-24T17:05:00.001+05:30

Words of a poem always float on the river of thoughts carrying with them kaleidoscopic boxes of things unknown, secrets breathing in each curvaceous letter and tiny dots. For each word I’ve travelled on misty roads of surreal worlds to collect dewdrops hidden in the wombs of rose-buds, to unveil the secrets in shadows left by pink twilight; mingled my visage with unknown characters from fables; roamed in mysterious streets to hear unspoken words from silent houses; have listened to the murmurs of streams hidden in lush green forests; have transformed myself as a light spirit to float above rain-soaked mountains leaving behind the real world where I lived in; traversed to arid deserts to paint the horizon sanguine with my heart-blood; have treasured in my soul the taste of partings; have allowed my shadow to travel to unknown worlds in search of perfection while my real one goes up in the smoke leaving behind nothing but trails of charcoal smudged like kohl around the eyes of a weeping bride; have infused my breaths to resuscitate lifeless worlds sleeping on a blade of grass only to compose a poem, and that also, much to my dismay, isn’t my magnum opus !

Snippets on Turbulent Waves

2009-05-29T16:50:00.006+05:30

Time. It changes more quickly than the twinkling of an eye. By the moment the sky changes its colours or the wind changes its course, Time traverses from slices of seconds to bring vernal showers on arid deserts with the shake of its wings. While somewhere near the already swelling river, that stretches its arms to the farthest end, groping in darkness to hold onto something and ends up breaking its own heartstrings and bleeds profusely from inside, worlds get turned upside down. The flushed faces are ruined beyond recognition; effulgent lights are extinguished mercilessly in which soft faces with smiles were supposed to be seen. Huge venomous serpents hiss and sting where the wounds bleed the most leaving trail of blue poison in crevices of veins ever seen or thought of. How many mysteries dipped in tears toss and turn in bleeding wombs even the most sensitive of onlookers can’t discern. And soon Time, the merciless Nemesis, flings dark clouds of torrential rain to scatter the small huts of dreams as sand grains on raw banks, and silvery nets get entangled in the tails of mermaids called dreams getting suffocated to death. No light remains. The only time when eyes see something is under the cruel flashing of lightning, ready to engulf even the biggest of oceans. The earsplitting sound of thunderstorms makes the earth shake.

Amid such abysmal cataclysm she’s swimming maddeningly, to save whatever she can lay her hands on. Whatever comes her way, whatever she can fish out from the turbulent waters, whatever gets entangled in her shaking fingers. She swims, swims towards the sole eerie island tossing its head from tumultuous waves. It looks evanescent, quite far almost at the other end of this world, yet she wants to swim, fight with the killing tides and wants to be cremated there in the museum that she now has to build hurriedly ... To peep into its rooms and catch a glimpse of life punished by moments ... To see her own visage before it mixes with ghostly shadows ... To preserve a perishing smile, a jingling joy ... To save laughter gushing from deep within like frothy fountains ... To save the most beautiful sobriquet bestowed on her, which sounded saccharine whenever it resonated from a distance far away ... To keep hot breaths humming in her ears from becoming cold; that used to ignite her, shooting rain of stars in her blood ... To safeguard intoxicating words that became her lifeblood ... To conserve whispers, murmurs exchanged in tipsiness of gushing glee; glee of flying together in cloudless azure skies and running merrily on emerald grass ... To conserve destroyed dreams in iridescent colours spread once like sunshine in surreal worlds .. To preserve even sighs, that would become flickering fireflies in absolute darkness ...

Wails get coalesced in saline waves, and Time, the most uncaring of all friends, changes its course from swelling rivers to icy mountains only to bring chaotic changes; irreversible, unforgivable, unforgettable, hardly giving one a chance to salvage even the sliver of a second. It perishes everything that comes in its way turning rose-gardens into deserts and dreams into dust. What remains is only silence deadly in nature; almost that of a graveyard ... Unfortunately, none can anticipate anything for Time just tosses and turns silently flapping its wings noiselessly to bring forward what remains unseen ...

For You (III)

2009-05-07T15:26:00.003+05:30

Tonight, I am very heavily drunk
Drunk with the wine of your love;
I have drunken the light of all the stars of the sky
Their glitter makes your name blaze as lightning in my veins;
I feel all the rivers of this earth
Flow ferociously in my blood
Brimming with your fathomless love.
Myriads of golden suns rejoice in celebration
And become the colour of my skin.

Tonight, your face becomes my looking glass
And reflects laughter that oozed like frothy fountains from deep within you,
The wild wind blows my raven tresses
Infusing it with tales of a thousand onyx nights.
Rose-gardens spring from pores of my skin
Leaving trails of iridescent colours wherever I go,
And Spring laughs on my lips
I feel my soul and body redolent with the heady scent of your breath;

Tonight, my heart is a goblet
Deeper than all the oceans
Overbrimming with your immeasurable love;
My soul sips from it again and again
And dances rapturously
In the grand palace of your heart
On the tune of your heartbeats _
Mellifluous symphonies that no-one ever heard in this world
Before whom even the glory of maestroes pale;
The melodious songs of this golden palace
Reverberate from my heart too.

Tonight, I levitate on facade of unseen beautiful worlds
Letting go of anything worldly,
I am too intoxicated to be in control
I become unending firework of joys
Shooting rain of spangled jewels all over this earth
This world appears to be a small green pearl
In the vast ocean of this universe
Where I swim and frolic
And drink more wine from the carafe of your heart
Ethereal songs beguile my senses
But I don’t know the meaning of any song
Yet, every inch of my skin is a maestro of ragas
And star Mushtari’s brilliance inveigles me
But I can’t see anything
Because I am drowned in the ocean of your light.
Tipsy taverns entice me
But you have made taverns of taverns flow in the cup of my heart

Let me be lost in this ocean,
Let me die in this moment,
Let me stay intoxicated forever,
Tonight, I am too drunk
To come back even to myself...

For You (II)

2009-04-17T13:37:00.008+05:30

This night shall not pass into a dewy dawn,
This night is mine and only mine_
It is a chapter of myriads of years
Being written from eternity
With verses brushed with my kohl-laden eyelashes
And paintings embossed with sanguine heart-blood...

Tonight stars converse with me
About the cerulean sky of midnight
Holding lofty pine trees of your land
Closely to its bosom like a weepy beloved
Long lost in surreal world of dreams,
Whose spangled surface reflects your face or perhaps mine;
Because we are one.

A few Monsoon clouds,
After talking to the moon,
Whisper your tales in my ears
And adorn my earlobes as beautiful earrings
The song of winter wind
Shall scatter these clouds as raindrops to be transformed into soft snowflakes kissing your window-panes.
Tonight, you will travel from ice-capped mountains
To the brimming river of my poetry
On whose banks I wait for you
To melt in your arms,
Where exist my two worlds;
I feel the pearl of your soul safe within mine
Sealed with passionate kisses of love
That opens an endless book of unknown mysteries before me...

I hold you inside me like Holy Grail_untouched, unseen
Yet omnipresent like cosmic light;
You are what I ever know of Spring
And its fragrant flowers
Now carpeting the surface of my soul.
You are what I know of rare riches
More precious than treasures of Kings
Now mixed in the earth of my soul.
You are what I know of love and its divine secrets
Now seeped in the light of my soul,
Where you are the never-ending expanse of fresh blue sky,
And rise within me as a fathomless ocean
Flinging radiant rain of pearls inside me...

Tonight all your secrets are mine;
Tonight Divine Providence unites both of us as one soul
You are within me and I rise:
Above the dreams ever dreamt of,
Above the feelings ever felt,
Above the worlds ever imagined,
Above the sparkling stars,
Above the heights ever thought of,
From such heights
Death looks like a tiny insect, too small to destroy me
I can trample it under my feet;
Breaths lose their meanings
And dust returns to dust.
Your name which became my heartbeat echoes in misty valleys
The only refulgence that remains of me is you.

This night shall never end for me;
Its endless pages talk of you and me
And our fragrant breaths mingling above majestic mountains and starry skies;
You can wrap it with the endless sky of your love
And keep it safe
In the illuminated library
Of the luminous soul within your soul...

For you (I)

2009-03-04T14:23:00.007+05:30

With the kohl of my eyes
I have written your name on the spacious sky
The sparkling stars melt to coat it with shimmer
And keep it safe in the coral of cosmos;
I infuse the light of my soul in each letter
To make it outdo the glimmer of galaxies
And cast its ethereal light
Where our souls merged into each other
To become one.

Now, I have become you
And fly fearlessly like a skylark amidst clouds
Picking golden granules of our eternal moments
In my rainbow coloured attire;
Somewhere from the Seventhfold Height
Shower of musk & amber
Wets your name
Making it float on the waves of the scented ocean
A few sanguine drops float on it too
That are oozing from my heart since time immemorial
I have saved a few drops in a quartz chalice
For you
I will fill it with Nile and present it to you
Before the white moonlight becomes my shroud
And pushes me into a dark cave_darker than the face of icy Death

You plant a tender kiss of your warm and soft lips on this chalice
And place it near your window
Behold the scarlet droplets of my heart-blood
Sip the effulgence of dawn
While you become I
And feel me flowing in your veins as your own blood
As it transmutes the solitary narcissus flower of your soul
Into a beautiful bride...

2009-02-18T16:15:00.002+05:30

deserted road
pink and purple petals
carpet stones

Unanswered Questions

2008-11-01T11:47:00.014+05:30

Jasmine is spreading its incense even in the dark corners
Of my heart bedazzled by the stars of your eyes
Brighter than Koh-I-Noor and deeper than canyons,
They wake up the mysterious ocean
Where lay sleeping a million hidden desires
Wrapped in corals encrusted with gold
They amalgamate and take the shape of a maiden
Standing before the dressing table of evanescent dreams
To adorn my face with moonlight kept in a delicate glassy jar,
That once lighted up the cerulean sea
And to decorate my raven mane with trinkets of stars
Spread all over the buried civilizations like countless dark nights
In whose curls mysteries open up and get hidden
To be excavated by someone like you sleeping in some other age.

A cloud of black locks kisses the scarlet liquid splattered
On a marble rock oozing from the heart of a bleeding red rose;
A few ruby droplets float on the waters of river Ganga
That mirrors magnificent mountain on whose chest lies Autumn
Weary from the burning love of the previous night,
Warm with hot breaths,
Heavy with her silky eyelashes that painted tales on the ceiling of the sky;

She flings her attire of amber and rust red over the mountain
Fragrant with the smell of fresh flowers growing near crystal clear blue lake
That recites the tale of Echo and Narcissus
Secure beneath the pillow
Smeared with verses unsung, unheard and unknown.
As dusk darkens I wll put the Dark Night as kohl around my eyes
And infuse the light of candles that have burnt since time immemorial in my soul.

Does the wind travelling over the majestic mountains and brimming brooks
Whisper something in your ears?
Tonight the moonlight will touch your ebony black hair very gently
And will tell you about a dewy pool
Secure under a canopy of lush green trees
Far away in the lap of Blue Mountains
Tossing and turning even in deep slumber
To the melodious tune of a song
Wafting in the cold thick air from the frosted twigs of Maple trees
That speaks of jingling gold jewels, the glittering dawn left
On emerald grass of your garden
Where I will tiptoe silently and emerge
As a glistening dewdrop
Reflecting a thousand suns
Before melting on your warm broad palm
As the azure sky gets folded up like an artist’s canvas
Embracing a magical painting
Clung to its surface
That sprays rainbow colours in the dewy pool
And creates ripples of unanswered questions…

To The Little Lonely Star

2008-10-30T15:55:00.000+05:30

Why are you so alone?
O, little twinkling star
Lost in thoughts of your own?

Yet why every night
You behold me mysteriously
As if you know my lonely plight?

You are slowly burning your fire
In the loneliness of the sky
And no one to see your fire!

Come, glint in my dreamy eyes…

Noon

2008-10-30T15:50:00.003+05:30

Left behind
As the blazing shadow
Of the glittering dawn
Noon
Finds no peace, no place to rest
In pink roses, verdant foliages, thick woods;
The gleaming drops
Of fountains
Sip its saccharine glister
Leaving it exhausted
Like a tired traveller
Lost in dells;
Finally,
Inhaling the sweet fragrance
Of breeze
It surrenders its life
In the arms of its long awaited beloved;
The pink twilight…

An Incomplete Poem

2008-10-22T17:09:00.001+05:30

Tired, fed up with neutral monotony of life
The mind comes out
Of the mists of profound thoughts
And in slight tipsiness of rapture
It collects:
Glittering stars,
Glinting sun’s rays,
Glimmering moon-beams,
Glistening pearls,
And with these gleaming particles
It tries to compose a poem of glittering words
But then something interrupts its reverie
And the glimmering particles
Get scattered in the hands of Imagination
Taking which it vanishes
In unknown evanescence
And only remains
The jingling sound of glittering particles
And their shadows
As an incomplete poem…

Escapade

2008-08-22T12:01:00.005+05:30

Blue water danced before her eyes spreading plumes like peacocks, vast as heaven, majestic in its own right, yet mysterious as an unknown civilization.

The indigo liquid beneath seemed to uncork and splash its spray of freshness all over almost bathing the sky. Even the sky looked intoxicated with blue. It looked alluring, inviting. Inviting freedom to take her on a journey of bliss where even angels do not tread; away, away on wings of clouds to the ethereal world hidden in colours of rainbow, to jungle of stars and to crown her as their Empress.

Screen savers always provide escapades...

On a Wet Night

2008-07-10T17:56:00.005+05:30

I am wandering on this earth from eternity
From eon to eon in search of a slice of Time
Treasured perhaps in the depths of oceans
Or inside a house of Qahira emerging from smoke of hearts being burnt;
It may be wrapped in a red velvet purse with silk tassels tenderly kissed by the lips of the roses growing near the huge bed of Princess Sheherzade
Tonight the stars struggle to peep from behind the ghostly tents of Monsoon clouds,
I walk in empty streets
As Slumber enters the empty valleys hidden behind black curly curtains in Baghdad, Damascus and Patliputra
The giant trees stand like spectres of Doom while the raging Nemesis whips them with a swishing sound.
My umbrella swells with the vociferous wind and uproots itself from my fingers to fight the Nemesis.
The hidden stars above defy the destiny and come down as raindrops or tears perhaps;
The wet sleeve of my dress gives way to a gushing brook lost somewhere in green hillocks
Looking like a shawl wrapped around the shoulders of Penelope ambiguous yet awaken after the earth has changed its colours;
Thunderstorms produce sound of bugle that will be blown on the Day of Judgment,
While on the gigantic pearl safe in shell of ruby many figures vanish
And emerge and re-emerge in different shapes, colours
On jade-green grass, parched Sahara and icy head of earth
Surreal like the raindrops that fall on different heights of palaces, huts and brickwalls
United together with the strings of destiny;
My umbrella has gone up with the clouds to beat the Demon of Death
Soaring high as royal falcon
In search of another cosmos, another life, another eon
While my parched soul solitarily waits for its wings under the huge peepal tree nodding its branches in disapproval...

Stardust

2008-06-09T12:45:00.010+05:30

Last night the cold stars shining above Assyria
May have spoken to you about me
While I was roaming in the streets of Babylon,
Inhabited with houses wrapped in wisps of misty dreams,
Listening to the sweet songs of a minstrel
Longing for the Moon under the purple grapevine.
The rustle of my midnight-blue attire
Mingled with the soft whispers of wind kissing lofty minarets penetrating the swollen tent of the blue black sky;
I travelled on the wings of the wind
Over the fresh aquamarine ocean gleaming in starlight
That whispered tales of mysteries tossing in its womb
And about the smell it left on the skins of sailors;
The wind took me up and up
To the glittering world of stars which smiled and told tales
Of dreams, darkness and dreadfulness in the streets, walls, ponds and palaces
Of Jerusalem, Egypt and Magadha.
They appeared like glitter on the body and hair of a newly-wed bride
Who rubbed the glimmering particles off her body and gazed at nothingness in amusement
The sky too gazed at this bride
Taking a dip in the fresh blue water of Nile.
When you wake up the next morning
You will find the air thick with dew
While a few drops glisten on your fingertips
And on empty swings in deserted rose gardens
Tonight you may not find me in caves of Nalanda
Or in the gleaming Sahara.
Sit on the pristine banks of Yamuna
And wipe the tear hanging on the eyelashes of Time glittering with stardust of all the eons;

Tonight the sky will look like a dark gown wrapped around the body of a widowed queen
While the waning moon will adjust itself on her shoulder like a faded silver brooch...

Morning

2008-06-07T15:14:00.009+05:30

This Night adorns her hair with a sweet-scented rose

Plucked from a wild shrub bent on a pristine tomb of Naishapur.

The sickle of the Moon whispers something to cold stars: faces of myriads of princesses

sleeping on the dew-laden blades of emerald grass while surreal images take shape in their souls;

Destiny, from its ruby shell, has flung the diamond of luminous Zohra in the blue crystal ball

The clear azure liquid gets scattered all over

On gardens of King Zulqarnain and lofty minarets of Blue Mosque

The scene is beautiful like harvest of indigo sprinkled on waters of river Farat

The painter dips his brush in this blue liquid

To paint peacocks on the walls

Of a palace sleeping in the lap of an eon gone by.

The poet uses this fresh blue ink to write a song on the mirror of Nile

And empties the chalice filled with his shadow in the caves of Nalanda

To treasure its sapphire blue hue;

For ages I have been longing to sip a droplet of this blue liquid...

Surreal Images

2008-06-04T11:29:00.009+05:30

Ink gets spread on the hands of a misty morning
That your pen steals from my blue attire;
The moon has travelled from your palm to rise at the pipal treetops of ruined Magadh Empire;
This time you steal light from the molten stars of the onyx Night
And infuse the radiance in the poems written for me!

Ah! I am not Banalata Sen sitting on the pristine banks of a calm river…

2008-05-28T13:34:00.005+05:30

The little girl within her is trying to flit out again and press her small yet sharp nose against the chilly window panes curtained by needles of rain from outside. She suffocated the girl within her that seemed to tarnish the light in her large dreamy eyes auburn like winter nights; very cold enveloped in mist surreptitiously hiding many tales in its dark depths yet sometimes a log creaked and beamed giving a sharp focus on things around that died as soon as it was lit.

The sharp needles outside seemed to pierce somewhere deep inside her soul where the little girl shrank and only groped in darkness out of horror. But she couldn’t find any rope for support and with unwillingness she shrank further in the dark sodden couch. On the ink blue winter sky she could see patches of clouds amalgamating as if to confine the earth in a tent of huge grey sheet of rain. She closed her eyes and tried to hear the sound of musical notes floating from the other room that made her body jingle like a harp_sensation of joy filled the empty cup but before she could drink it the massive octopus drank it looming out of her veins floating in her system with the blood cells. She could feel its massive weight even on her soul. She wanted to throw it out of her system but it got so intertwined with her cells that it was akin to taking out a huge organ of your own system with your own hands with all the strength you could gather but the wounds get deeper for its roots have enveloped even the core of the earth and in the end you’d only exhaust your energy wounding the earth at the same time.

Blue poison did not show its marks on her skin but definitely it was eating her slowly almost like boiling water in the pot gets reduced to half. The fumes do not come out and accumulate inside. Before her eyes came a state of some kind when she’d be forced to give up dreaming, thinking and creating a myriad shapes even if elusive, out of her imagination. And there she’d lie in a corner like a beautiful dry twig with even its leaves painted in golden and the flowers a result of someone else’s imagination may be burnt orange, purple or even black. The twig wouldn’t grow nor would its flowers bloom or leaves fall. Yet the twig would be alive aware of every movement and numb to even its own reactions which is most necessary for life; if life is what we call as life.

The hour glass on the bookshelf between masterpieces of Gibran and Neruda is staring at her face with an icy look. Beads of perspiration glisten, she opens the window to get pricked by steely needles falling outside in unseen darkness. Frosty winter wind flings itself on her almost blocking the light in which she was supposed to be seen, at least.