Just a game!

Lover, yesterday it began
I ran- there was this cute little one
Drowning…
A pickled heart, dying,
I got curious why,
Was it time enough?

Well, there was something crazy
I had overlooked,
When I quit on one,
Leave everything
And restart
With a heart,
That has seen everything
I would know love
And cleaning up!

A woman, mine for long
That I hate her is alright
That I love you is also
Something true
A fright
Would money matter-
Or her,
Would she cry?

I saw a man who died
Only yesterday, he had left hospital
Cured,
But a weak heart
Today,
Sick of alcohol
Never mended
And of course
With him, romance died!

He had a lovely scrawny crying woman
Who asked why
The lover won over him
When she just tried
Sex
And had a child,
Ten years old

When they took him away,
His face in the sheet that brought him in
Declared DOA
As the ambulance took him home
Uncertified
No post mortems

But lover,
I tried
Always…
It was a game we loved to play!

Tell me
How many more
Would I love-
Beyond tonight
When you take my poems away?


The Muse came to me in a hospital as I waited for the surgeon outside Casualty/ER. This man had been brought in dead, of a heart attack! I wondered, stared at the wife, stoically braving the bleakness that had surrounded her. I asked the hospital superintendent, a friend, about him! Then he told me his story... a philanderer, drunkard, lover, father, husband... and I thought yet a man who had a world of his own, now lies covered in a shroud!

Where were his poems now?

The Tavern

The call of the Tavern left me long back, in shame

It had lit in me love, a flame,

And then each day,

It played a trick, it called my name

It lingered, it claimed the Muse, my soul and all, my say

What I could I did, the dried quill resigned

The inkpot left bare long behind

In shadows behind the curtains, blind

The call of the Tavern, where the wine

Poured down parched throats unimpeded left

Verse choked, slurred voices lost in theft

Deep inside, raked by pain as I lay in the cold outside,

The laughter wore a muffled croak

The heart dead, the tears dried,

For the Muse, she hid somewhere, the alcohol

Was saddled deep inside,

And the tavern just an alter, a shrine

To a million words, to the poems left behind…

There are odes I hear to the tavern they call life

It pleads, it gives a joy ride and yet, strife

There is wine- there is sunshine,

An incense permeates the flow of Time

As the Tavern changes its shape and shade

The Woman of Words just stays aloof, I fade

As the sounds of clinking glass

Gurgling flows of mellowing croons

Sung in the moods of indigo blues

Divided in ambivalence, the Muse

Watches perhaps from far away,

As twinkles in starlight astray

The poems mutilated, mindless

I witness the bouquet the Muse had shed

The Tavern still has poets, racing words

Laughter, mistresses and admirers

Critics and critiques, words of fire

And yes, the Muse lurks in hot desire

The old poet banished, famished,

His wine, sobriquets, epithets

Brickbats alike in exile, vanquished,

The Muse looks on heartless

The wine flows yet, hours in the darkness

Cries the poet, poems now a mattress of tears

In a sky, stellar, cosmic, immortal yet unread!

In the Tavern of Eternity, forever a shop

Of dreams, an ethereal bartender of words

Weaves secret tapestries, pours the wine of romance

Who cares? For poets drunken with the golden rye

Fizzes and cocktails of rhyme,

Time stands still, only favors die!

27 Nov 2009

Oracle!

Much before I met her,

I could infer,

I was green and small

Just an inch and half tall

It would not be long since

One day I would be a Prince

And someone, I knew,

Would be in love with me too!

My world was so tiny and dark

A corner of the neighborhood park

I peeped at the passersby

A yellow butterfly

Would nag me

Tease me

And ask- touch me

Why won’t you try!

But I knew

It wasn’t you,

I just let it be-

As the summer mellowed in melancholy!

The heart ached-

Not knowing why!

As I saw the starlit night

And the flitting firefly!

It was soon cold, a time

To sleep alone

Below a big stone!

Chirp, chirp, wakey!

A sparrow befriends me

To croak along

With her song!

In my little pool

By the white toad-stool

Stood my Princess

In a green wedding dress,

An inch and half tall

Waiting for the spring ball

A spectacle-

Predicted by the Oracle!

What do you think- do miracles happen every day?

Contemplation

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

I wonder why chicken try

To cross the road only to die

I wonder why that chicken stood

In a confused and befuddled mood

As I drove over him/her and thought of food

Don’t cry for the de-feathered dude

That did not die, but he/she thought it rude

To be left in the middle of the road in the nude…

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

The chicken was a disciple of Rajneesh the Osho

Whenever it could see a road it would say No!

No, for I cannot cross, I would transcend

My earthly habits I must resign and mend!

And the Godfather was negotiating a truce

He made her an offer she couldn't refuse

And the chicken crossed the highway at noon

They picked her up with a fork and spoon

But still I would not get my answer, dude, why

A chicken must cross the road, if only to die

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chicken must bear their life’s loss?

The answer is not blowing in the wind,

It seems chicken are born with a genetic kink

The spirit of adventure in roosters and hen

Would lead them across the road now and then

The chicken was female and obviously interpreted

The pole on which the cross sign was erected

As a phallic symbol of which she was envious

But to herself, the point was never obvious

That when one is afraid to do something

One may be called chicken shit and sing

If they don’t do nothing to cross the road

Chickened out, someone will goad!

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

It is the Mother of all Chickens that cries

Whenever a road-crossing chicken dies

In pursuit of happiness on the other side

And scaring the trucker, on the road bona fide

I envision a world where all chickens will be free

Or not too cross when a truck they see

Without having their motives scrutinized

By humans on daily duties and or whims and wiles

That place them on speeding automobiles

That Leda sometimes would ask of Zeus

Don’t dress as a chicken it is of no use

Mortals have the power to kill chickens

And you, if you masquerade in your nonsense

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chicken must bear their life’s loss?

The other side is just as dull as this one

Don't talk to me about chickens. Not done!

If it was a historical inevitability chicken

That know not to cross the road when

Will not return, even if driven by economic necessity

They would certainly be martyred. A pity

The chicken that cross the road must know

For that one crossing, there is an equal and opposite

Crossing of merciless sixteen wheeler fleet

That may not stop. National Security was at stake

Who gives a fuck about a fucking chicken, for God’s sake

It is not a necessity at all, there already was a chicken

On the other side of the road, born of a different hen

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

I wonder and muse, why a chicken has to cross

Why can’t it fly, why does it not try a horse

The Newtonian dictum Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest

Chickens that do cross the road, are never cooked at best

It was a government conspiracy that built the highway

Such that hapless chicken would die straightaway

But why would chicken cross the concrete lane

Is a puzzle to drive all awfully insane,

And why we are at it, Bob Dylan sings

Of chicken dying on highways sans wings

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

Sir, for as long as I have, had you known the chicken,

You would not so readily enquire, but abstain

And feel rather the need to resist such a public display

Of your own lamentable and incorrigible ignorance everyday

The chicken that crossed the road is not the eternal chicken

Many a thinker and poet has gnashed and wrecked his pen

Star trekking may be, to boldly go where no chicken has gone before

Those who cluck do not know. Those who know do not cluck sure…

I did not have improper sexual relations with the chicken

I was asleep, when she crossed the road at ten

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

The Dreamer from Beyond

I

I woke slowly. Two things were very clear- I was barely alive, wrapped in a hospital blanket. I could see the men in strange uniforms walking about in the corridors. The language they spoke was something I thought I knew, yet I could not make out. The air smelt of ether and of people crying, whimpering in low voices. Sleep was welcome, but my arms seemed locked somehow…

Once in a while a sterile figure in white walked in and looked at me and said something- I could see that she never understood me at all! She held my wrist high, and I saw the tube… and she made a brief note after sometime and faded out of my sight. I dreamt of a manhunt!

The prey was faceless- he had a mission, and he had erred while returning- he was wounded, crawling and thirsty for two days, caked with blood, wounds festering and dirty. The sporadic rain saved him from the tell tale smells of the hounds- but they were never far away! A hell as hell can be! Hills with very sharp sunrises and sunsets… these were the Pir Panjal Ranges! The hills had vegetation that could hide or betray at will, it depended which way the sun was shining. At night, the animals let off tell-tale noises of the alien. Barely sixty meters from the LOC, they saw him, and fired upon him- his own people! Return was difficult- these were his own countrymen, but they did not know he was there! Each time he tried to enter the forward defended lines, they let off a salvo, lit flares and brought down mortar shells too close for his comfort. Then one stray shell exploded near him with a blinding flash! And when he came to, he knew he had to get help! He turned back- for one last time, and then saw the Ranger Patrol… they had a dog!

There was no border, and there was no way he could go on indefinitely in his present state- he barely managed to be conscious- until he did go under, almost fatally!

The Rangers were in doubt. This man, wounded was coming towards them when they saw him. They lost him… and found him two hundred feet below- he had rolled down and bruised, incoherent and was calling out to someone- sounded like Fareeda! No not an Indian spy at least… but who knows!

Asleep, adrift, unmoored miles below the surface called consciousness, lay the poet in the dreamer’s mind… which way was up?

Coming Back Soon!
The musk

Had me pinned

It just called me in

I slept

Cradled

As you looked on

For eons!

To languor done

Dreamless

By the songs

Of sobs and wails

Sedated

As your eyes

Keep guard

I dream

Of caresses

Autumn leaves

Words

Echoes afloat,

A row boat and the oars

Drawing lines on my chest...

Millennia pass

The layers of crepe

Stripped offI hear

The muezzin

The clergy

I smell ether

Cleansing the scars

Of gunshots

I feel

The medicos

Fussing

And the merciful eyes

Wet

HopingI am not dead!

The beeps fade-

Another day

I know

I shall awake

Resurrected

From the stake!

The man on the bed was restless. Dr MKZ had been cautioned to keep this man alive for interrogations… there was an unaccounted for Indian intrusion some one month back- the same time when this man was brought in. The Ranger Captain had brought him in and dumped him, but the “other ones” were too curious about this handsome one, a twenty-six year old, obviously a soldier, lying semi-paralyzed in the bed- though the vital signs were good, and there was no other sign of permanent damage- severe concussion, perhaps ill treatment at the hands of his captors may have caused this condition. The two bullets that were recovered were evidence, kept in a locker somewhere. His shattered fibula was now well set. The loss of blood suffered was tremendous- they had put in three units of blood, and he wondered how at all he survived. He was certainly strong. The man’s breathing was disturbed, the monitors showed distress… Dr MKZ gathered his thoughts- he decide against enhancement of analgesic. Move him towards the southern window- let him soak in that glorious sunshine, and may be recovery would be better!

II

I saw myself lying on this hospital bed on and off… I knew I had been operated after I was caught- but why was I caught? I remember the pain- dragging myself, breathing hard, that abysmal pain in my leg… and I was put on a ventilator. Did I have chest injuries? But no, my chest felt whole… where exactly was my wound then? Why had they tied me up?

Signs

Gunshot Echoes!

My coma leads me

Through phases of dark and light

Amnesia

And drugged delight-

Battling for life

Docked like a submarine

To the oxygen machine

A stark roof

Limits me

When I am high!
The pips

Echo and measure

My heart,

Sometimes

When I die,

They call me back

From my friend-

Gabriel

He walks along in my dream,

And smiles!
The sounds of clinking bangles

Terrified squeaks

Of a woman at the bed side

Sobbing

Premonition speaks

Through her tears

I wonder why...

It is hard to leave

Love and hope carved

With the surgeon’s knife!

Wither?

Adrift in the twilight zone-

I wait-

For the road sign, alone!

Memories flooded in, still without a hint of who was I, where I am now, and why I was here. I feel a little hostility towards me when I see the people visiting they want to ask, and it is strange I cannot speak in the language they ask me- I have my own. They say some word for me- Baluchistan, yet I am not sure I know what it means!

III

The handsome patient, as they called him was now coming back from his long comatose sleep sessions. He smiled once in a while, moaned sometimes, and never spoke. There was something wrong with his EKG- it seemed he had amnesia too, he could not reply to any questions about himself so far. Nervous deficit was there in his back, yet there were involuntary movements in his lower limbs- was it a temporary thing. Dr MKZ thought, rather hoped that this man would recover enough to walk. One thing was sure, he was a fighter. And Dr MKZ knew he had no tattoos on his body, nothing that could tell who this patient was!

The handsome one was sleeping too much, one could see the smile on his face…

When!

When-

I awake and stare at the blue light above

I wonder from whence came the dust on my robe-

And why the birds that sang flew, the white feathers

Drew a boat afloat with my blood-

As I lay on a leaf bed,

Faces stared, was I dead?

When- I see you sit and face the West

And pray, I know I almost died to get your love,

And you are here today, don’t say

I just know, what all there is to know worth

My Gods live in the North!

When- I surface, every day,

The inquisitor waits- would I confess?

When- the chestnut hair touches the ground

As you rest on the chair, I know

How far it is from the barbed wire fence!

IV

The Diaries
I prayed silently- the only prayer I knew! Mother of God and Virgin, hail, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou hast given birth to the Savior of our souls.

I was walking at last- the limp would go soon too… where is my memory?

The handsome one was walking- they had to let him go. But he did know where to go after the hospital phase ended. The police had come here too, and they seemed to have no interest in him anymore! The field security people from the Cantonment too had visited him, and taken his photographs and left. In fact it was they who had kept a few guards outside till yesterday- the 93rd day of the patient’s stay here! Dr MKZ hoped he could talk.

The Diary: 11 November 2003

When I heard the news, I was shocked… I am going to be discharged in about two weeks, perhaps into prison- where they keep spies, and other dirt! I do not know what I am hiding… they think I am from Baluchistan or from Sind! For God's sake, I crossed over for her, let’s call her FJH, and I find myself in a lot of shit!

FJH notes everything I say in my mind! The nurses hate her- I think for they must be aware that trans-border love is bad! She is also a bit tired! She cries a lot! It’s all in my mind, and my diary is unreal too… Fareeda, how far can you be, and how near too- I am hallucinating still I guess!

This place is difficult!

When I wrote this post in my diary, the world as I know today was not created! I am alive, and will tell you my story, somehow! FJH won't mind!

Lucidity

Lucidity-

comes in puffs of hashish,

when I lie alone,

praying for the satanic streams to pass,

and for Divine bliss!

I moan-

awash with thread-less wisps of thoughts,

dreaming of what not, weary.

Is this my forever fate?

V

Diary Entry: 04 Feb 2004

Somewhere deep within,

I know, this too will pass somehow,

The miracles and the broken shackles,

Something lies ahead in store!

There are layers and more-

Like my bedsores,

But the voices have gone,

I lie in a stone room with a cobbled floor.

The old crone comes every day-

She smiles and stokes the fireI hate her,

I ask where is Fareeda,

And where is this place…

She says Zannat,

And your houri is long dead!

When you sponge me Crone-Maid,

I hurt, and your smile, I hate!

I am not Zia- nor Noor Mohammad-

I am not Ansar, a shame

Who knows... my name?

Tomorrow, I want hashish,

And the viper on my lips,

And when I sleep,

Bless me God,

With the kiss of death!

Diary 7 Feb 2004

I dream from time to time- I have subconscious awakenings, and I am scared too.

Who am I? I wonder! Why do I have the thoughts that I feel are a sacrament? This century knows terror- it comes ready- a packaged environment friendly RDX with the grinning kamikaze… a young bomber, cuddling his guardian- the M36 grenade!

Orgies begin when the cowards call their slaves lashed in dread, parade and the AQ yells fuck you all!

I remember my village- walk along the village streets I see- Caucasoid and Mongolian mixed bred kids with golden hair, green eyes… the brats, they talk like locals, born of lies in captives, and I wonder how came babies suckle the oozing milk in local breasts!

The canons of decreed faith preached by radicals harvest death! Yes? This is politically incorrect, a slip, now face the whip!

Badtameez, kafer! As the rifle butts hit, I lie on the ground!

The flies feeding on caked blood, orchestrate my thoughts now! “Kill and propagate the Faith!” says God, Benevolent, Merciful, We bring the century of peace, wrapped in the Sacrament, Covenant of the Satan… Oh, how dare I?

So yelp, hear us, you have committed sacrilege!

Fareeda is here- just beyond the invisible line of control, so much a part of our lives- we were born with it dividing the village in the middle, and the soldiers watching over us like vultures! Do I dare?

Beyond The Fence

Eyes stare through the veil,

New one, where from do I hail?

Query the quarry-

The rabbit on the run,

Trudging the strange soil

The black band,

Toting the machine gun

Nothing new

But they know it is futile

When I trudge the last mile,

A bit weary,

But the unhurried steps

Disarm the inquest!

The gunfire begins,

The man knows trouble for sure

Lie low

Don't tempt fate

More wounds to endure…

He awaits the sunset,

Trailing the Rangers

And their counterforce

For the gap or the gate,

Past midnight,

The last of the moonlight gone

A fox slithers below

And calls its mate,

The rabbit wades

Home…
Something pings against my shin bone-

I am engulfed in a sea of fire…

Soldiers…

Walking me with hands tied,

This side knowsI crossed, not why,

I await the trial that may free me

From the shackles

Or like the terror merchants

Just throw me across,

To die!

Thus began my beginning… or my end! Incomplete yet!
From Poems in Captivity: A Book of Plastic Verse

IT IS NOT SO…

Some Sunday
When I'm young again
I'll write you to find out how you have been-
Your frenzied lips and dutiful skin
Your pleated skirts- moods to tease the volcano
When we are young again
I'll kiss your cheek and say that I have learnt something…
Some Sunday
It would be the paradise humming within
Like bits of cloud, the raindrops-
On blatant portals of amorous thoughts
Finally coming in thick squints
The suicidal moon- you test a darker complexion
And breasts heavy with gravity
Out of nowhere a sudden scar
Faint gallops of rhetorical moist lips
Rocking on lounge chairs
Watching flesh burning hot
You’re too predictable
Turning in through
Dishonest doors, indifferent windows
And shadows in the pillows
Sunday morning stripping the Barbie
Watching beautiful hard lines of flesh
Voids, misplaced dominoes
Strangers at every corner with lipstick on
And the radiance of careless words
Buying, eyeing obvious vanities
Malfunctions in touch- grenades
You tried to tell me how beautiful it was
To be like live torn stockings cheating up cold legs
Obvious vagabonds- fingers sans eyes cruising
Some Sunday when I'm young again
I'll write you to find out how you have been-
It is not so, the future
Is unseen, of Sundays within…