Category: Poems

The martyrs haunt me, nothing else.
My eyes have waters, nothing else.

The dervish peeked into our hearts.
Found desolations, nothing else.

In vain you seek my heart as home.
My heart has stories, nothing else.

What could I give to charity?
I own these worries, nothing else.

In ashes of my doom, they found
Naiveté and nothing else.

My hand of Ace and King was lost.
His hand had Queens and nothing else.

Why, Misra, pride myself on claps?
They’re kindnesses and nothing else.

---

Translated from my Hindi Poem “कुछ नहीं”

kucH nahīn

yād mein Kurbāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn
hei ānkH mein pāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

sabke dilon mein jhānkta rahā darwish
mila virāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

Fuzūl baserā DHūnDH rahe ho is dil mein
yahān kahāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

sadke mein kyā hī detā jab mere paas thā
in pareshāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

Meri tabāhī kī astiyon mein milā
Meri nadāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

meri ikkā rājā ki joDī hār gayī
uske hāth rāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

kyon gurūr karūn in tāliyon pe ‘Misra’
ye meherbāniyon ke siwa kucH nahīn

You couldn’t even give a home,
what mansion will you give?
Just fill my begging bowl with alms,
what treasures will you give?

You left this blameless babe alone,
by calling it your sin,
To buy its docile silence now,
what premiums will you give?

Your whole society knows my name,
so many times I come.
Beyond this gossiped existence,
what stature will you give?

You shut your ears, lightning-quick,
before my thunderous roars.
I am a cloud, I’m meant to cry,
what license will you give?

When love itself you couldn’t give
in all these barren years,
So late in this relationship,
what respect will you give?

The only thing you still can give,
O Misra, is your name.
Beyond my own identity,
what birthright will you give?

---

Translated from my Hindi poem, “क्या दोगे”

kyā doge

ghar nahīn de pāye imārat kyā doge
ye kāsā bhar do bākī doulat kyā doge

cHoD gaye is māsūm ko galtī bulā kar
ab iskī Khamoshī kī kimat kyā doge

nām jāntā hai sārā mohallā tumhārā
ab is-se bhi zyādā shouharat kyā doge

band kar lete ho kān mujhe garajta dekh
bādal hūn rone kī ijazat kyā doge

mohabbat to tumse kabhī dī hī nahīn gayī
ab der ho gayī hai ab izzat kyā doge

sakte ho to do mujhe nām apnā ‘Misra’
pehchān se badī ab virāsat kyā doge

No sleep arrived. No dream arrived.
A boiling fear extreme arrived.

All well-cooked couplets quit my mind.
A half-cooked, verse-filled ream arrived.

With broken lines and missed accents
A faux-poet’s esteem arrived.

To hide my fear of losing face,
My facial boldness cream arrived.

My eyelids, tired, had hardly fell
When knocks of a sunbeam arrived.

Again, to show my debt of sleep,
The redness of my gleam arrived.

---

Translated from my Hindi Poem, “गैरमहफूज़”

gairmehfūz

na nīnd āyī na KHwāb āyā
ubaltā ik Dar betāb āyā

sab pake sher miT gaye zehen se
adHpake nazmon kā kitāb āyā

TūTe misron aur cHuTe nuKton sang
jHuTHe shāyar kā KHitāb āyā

KHauf-e-zalālat to pehle se thī
naklī beKHaufī kā naKāb āyā

jab wazan-e-thakān se palkein girīn
tabhī dastak-e-āftāb āyā

in ānkhon ki lāl lakīron mein
Fir cHHuTe nīnd kā hisāb āyā

In the time this moment passes,
My wrath will burn it all to ashes.

The pillars of our steely bond
Will melt to mild molasses.

That wish upon the shooting star,
Like stars will turn to gasses.

Your tears may douse the fire today.
They’ll drain tomorrow’s glasses.

---

gussā

jitnī der mein ye pal jāyegā
mere gusse se sab jal jāyegā

humāre rishte kī mināron kā
wo Faulād bhī gal jāyegā

TūTte tāre se māngī wo duā
us hi tāre sa DHal jāyegā

ānsuon se āj bachā loge par
unmein dūb humārā kal jāyegā

I take galactic Scrabble bags
And pour them in an hourglass –
Each tile a grain of halite salt
That crashes through the bottleneck
Composing, with its fellow damned,
A babble of eclectic hopes.
I wake into an empty page.

“I’m meant to be on top of this”
Is keeping me from sleeping, when
It isn’t in my hands at all.

The overthinking is a way
To somehow overcompensate
For feeling so inadequate.

Sometimes excited, sometimes not,
I stare up planning through the night
To find the morning changed again.

Except the heartbeat in my ears.

I see myself arise in rage.
I realise it isn’t me.

My voice is raised.
My BP, raised.
I realise it isn’t me.

How am I calmly seeing me
So agitated, rampaging?
I realise it isn’t me.

Is that why I’m not feeling guilt?
Is that why I am feeling proud?
I realise it isn’t me.

Nor rampaging, nor noticing,
Nor calmly guiltless, proud am I.
A someone else, another else.
I realise it isn’t me.

Beyond the money, lunch, and drink,
The people in the protest march –

The ones who wobbled days in trucks
To brake the speeding Capital –

Had other pulling engines too:

To meet my sister living there.
The train would cost me half a month.

To raid the National Handloom Fair
And melt into the shouting crowd.

To watch the Indian cricket team
In practice for their World Cup match.

To run away from family
With that one on the women’s truck.

To see the Taj Mahal! Say what?
It isn’t in the Capital?

Is language such a savage tool
You will not stoop to pick it up?

You speak to me in overlays
Of tastes and coloured archetypes
In motion with emotion’s scent
In contours of constructed time.

You scoff at my translated verse,
And scold me for this scaffolding
Of words and space in measured lengths –
Impressing now, expressing now –
Secured with strings of syntax stripped.

You mind if I remind you it’s
Amusing how a musing must
In music move to memory,
Afraid of fading in a frayed
Crochet of crude rememberings?

Whatever your aversion be,
Remember that my gratitude –
So grand and great an attitude –
Is merely motes to mighty moods
That blow beyond the Beaufort scale.

Remember I am amber that
Preserves the servings of your verve.
Remember I am humble ’cause
My kneeling kneads your naked nerves.

Remember it’s my craftsmanship
With language that enables you.
Remember I’m an amateur
And yet, I am a master too.

You learn that it is possible
To cry all day and cry all night
And wake up crying from the sleep
You don’t remember losing to.

You learn you can be split in halves
Or thirds, or quarters, but no more,
Attending to the tasks and those
Who do not have the words you need.

You learn the shape of family
With bleeding fingers lining up
The edges on the other shards
The broken part has left behind.

You learn that gravity of loss
Is infinite, explaining why
(He would have rolled his eyes at this)
There’s weight in massless emptiness.