Category: Poems

It’s not that I’m resisting poetry.
I’m just replete with okayish ideas
That I don’t really want to write about.
You know how exams slacken the trip-wire
With relatively easy multiple-choicers
Where the last option is a revelation:
That popular “None of the Above”?
It’s such a timely lifebuoy, right?
That it’s reasonable to tick that option,
To float along to the next question,
Without any real clue about how to
Snorkel down to the right answer?
Well, you can’t respectably do that
In a poem, you know. You can’t, right?
I wonder how with all these years
Of cat-landing my way through exams
And urgent-important work meetings,
I haven’t yet found a workaround for poems.
I should be able to reliably get away, say,
By airdropping a metaphor every fourth line
That readers recognise when I nudge them to,
Making them retrace the poem to count lines.
I should be able to write a recreational poem
Where I remix a reusable prefix repeatedly.
It shouldn’t be too reprehensible to suggest
That once in a while, when the rest of the day
Requires full attention to my responsibilities,
Resuscitating Creativity with a Snow White kiss
Should take priority over reverberating poetry
That resonates with the reader’s sensibilities.
I’m not recusing myself of my writerly duties.
I’m just respiring between the lines today.

My Morning Muse adores her mousse
Like Doctor Seuss adored his shoes.
She feeds the Cat out of its Hat,
As Horton hears his happy Whos.

My Morning Muse adores her Moos
Like Shaggy dudes adore the Doos.
As Scrappy stacks the Scooby Snacks,
She rounds the milkers on the loose.

My Morning Muse adores her moose
Like Bullwinkle adores the Blues.
As Rocky tries to beat the spies,
She gently tells me, “Hit the snooze.”

She leads a vowelous insurgency
Against the consonantine hegemony
Of rhyme schemes in English poetry.

Her miniature poems are carefully built
Sound by minimal sound
Stripped down to skeletal frames,
For metered maps of meaning
Charted by drilled marching feet
Of throat, tongue, palate, teeth, and lips
Do not spark that spontaneous joy.

Her rhymes often turn inwards,
Following an internal locus of control.
If someone fails to appreciate them,
They don’t seek that person’s validation.
Nor do they blame the person for failure.
They simply emerge again and again
With every successive intentional reading,
Like meditating monks sitting statue-still
But arising anew with every silent breath.

Have you meditated on a meditator?
That is how you read Kay Ryan.

The paper’s lounging moisturized
By memories my eyes have shed,
And every gouging prick of pen
Impels it bleed into the bed
Of sheets awaiting underneath
To rise, receive my pouring fears,
And store me blunted in a sheath,
Until the glint of glee appears.

I work with words, but cannot find
The right one at the right time.
My every poorly chosen phrase
Then tips a loaded scale that weighs
My choice against my choices past,
And adds a guilt that’s made to last.

1.

Sequel movies are about pouring
Good money till it’s bad, and then some.
Sequel poetry is bad from the beginning.

2.

Mumbai rooms are small
By design. No one has time
For entertaining elephants.

3.

When I see a painting,
I see a person a-painting.
Verb, process, input. Art.

4.

When you look for a parent
In a partner, you find one
Letter does a real number on you.

5.

The Marshmallow Test
Melts down every single time
You do it with ice cream.

1.

If a tree in a forest is standing tall,
But everyone swears they heard it fall,
Imagine the noise its silence makes.

2.

The day a monkey falls from a tree,
The others swear it is slippery.
It’s good to know the truth of things.

3.

A million matches a tree can churn.
A million trees a match can burn.
We light the way to our own demise.

4.

The birds flock to the tree with fruit
And die by stones the children shoot.
How ripe the blush of so much attention!

5.

The branches in a forest fight.
The roots instead are hugging tight.
A little privacy makes a lot of love.

Paintings like people and poems
Reveal themselves the longer you stare

What is merely aesthetic in appearance
Or thoroughly alarming in abstraction
Dissolves into a trickle of imperfections
Presenting themselves in their temple clothes
Emerging from behind the curtains of shame
After much coaxing from the intent eyes
Of an embarrassed parent trying their best
To make their little creations behave

Each imperfection is a deliberate decision
A conscious choice of what to reveal
And what to leave out of the conversation

Silence speaks loudest like the morning motor
Of a water pump that does the heavy lifting
Which everyone chooses to ignore as noise

Silence is the language a painting speaks
Only fools hear a mere thousand words
Entire novels emerge with Time
As the painting continues to arise anew
With every passing pensive moment

Ask anyone who lives with books and art
Ask anyone who lives with Time
Painting imperfections on their Praying Hands

Why don’t you try to look deeper inside
In the nestling hopes of finding your story?
Though all you’ll get is a little upset
At the emptiness of seeking glory.

It’s the ear of the viper
That can listen to songs
Playing in the vacuum of tomorrow.
It’s the hug of the boa
That can squeeze out the wrongs
Staying in the yesterday of sorrow.

Take up the green, slither out of the scene,
And leave the heroes to their crime-fight.
You do your own, go enter your zone.
There’s hardly any point to limelight.

It’s the punch of the python
That can crack out the jades
Shutting up the luminance of power.
It’s the kick of the cobra
That can shatter the blades
Cutting up your ambitions to flower.

So, come on in, come be a Slytherin,
And tell the Hat you know what you’re doing.
Keep up your stride, keep walking with pride,
Don’t mind the haters or their booing.

It’s the House of the Serpent
Where we do what we can,
Grinding, when it’s needed, as a novice.
It’s the House of the Serpent
Where we be who we can,
Shining to the fullest of our promise.

The Holy Mosque of Khaspa town
Is still the place where people throng
To watch the man on weak rattan
Convert a kerchief into song.

With pens in inks of resin hues
He brushes words of sizes all:
The small and large mosaiced as
The floral motifs on the wall.

Some days the songs are Ajrakh fields.
Some days they fall in Cashmere drops.
Some days they grow like Calico.
Some days they shame Suzani shops.

But everyday he draws his art
From wells of faith and memory.
And come the night, with much delight,
He gives it all away for free.

He eats the food the Mosque provides
And sleeps on rugs the Mosque discards.
He feeds the birds with loving words
And reads the works of arcane bards.

His story comes on local news
And sometimes barbers tell his tale.
And some compare his soul’s repair
To how a lizard grows its tail.

His prime had seen him quickly rise –
An artist extraordinaire.
They came to see calligraphy
Which had a painter’s scenic flair.

His songs could take the shape of stars,
Or shine as silver crescent moons,
Or drop as rains on window panes,
Or rise in waves at blue lagoons.

He sold his art to magazines
And traders of exquisite shawls.
And many came to buy and frame
Designer kerchiefs for their walls.

His wife could copy his designs
And stitch them on to burqa sleeves.
As she preferred the sparrow bird,
He hid some in the floral leaves.

He taught his art of dots and curves
To children who didn’t want to learn,
As they were smart and knew the art
Will limit their methods to earn.

“So what if strokes go squiggling out?
So what if I don’t make them tall?
It takes too long to draw a song
Which no one cares to read at all.

“The computers do neater work.
Our fingers want to type and click.
Have you forgot? This art is not
What customers now want to pick.

“The garment shops are changing fast.
They buy their stock from branded names.
They love your art, but do they part
With money for your fun and games?

“Do let us sell some printed clothes.
And once we learn the computer,
We can design and print online.
So, let us get a good tutor.”

It was indeed the case, he saw.
His customers were drying up.
But like a child, he only smiled,
Returning to his chai cup.

“The God above is watching me.
He knows I am an honest man.
So, do not weep, for He will keep.
Come, let us do the work we can.”

“The God above was hearing too,”
Or so the sons would later think.
“Within a day, He had His way,
And told your destiny to sink.”

A bus had hit his motorbike.
His wife had fallen: bled to death.
He had survived for he had dived
With Allah’s name upon his breath.

His writing arm was paralysed.
For many months, he lay bereft.
But rose again, despite the pain,
And started signing with his left.

He left his business to his sons
And left his name to history
To be alone, and so atone,
Accepting Allah’s mystery.

His children were supportive of
His decision to leave the place.
Why spend on drugs when prayer rugs
Can heal him with divine grace?

He brought with him a bundle of
Few thousand wheatish handkerchieves.
He brought his pens and will intense
To sing again in buds and leaves.

He taught his art of dots and curves
To fingers on his moving hand
And brought his best to Allah’s test
Ignoring doctor’s reprimand.

He woke up earlier than dawn
And lettered kerchiefs through the day.
Then with a scoff, he’d wash them off,
When fingers chose to disobey.

He’s been at it for eighteen years,
And those who know him from before
Are quick to note and cast their vote:
His art has dwarfed his prior lore.

They come to him in shabby clothes
To mirror his austerity.
They stand in queues, and let him choose
The ones to get his charity.

His children keep beseeching him:
“Please, do not give our art away.
The times are tough, we’re poor enough,
With many urgent bills to pay.

“These admirers are crooked men.
They love you for the cash they make.
They sell our art, don’t give our part,
And sneer at us. For Allah’s sake!”

He smiles at them and slips his hand
Out of their double cupping palms.
“My lefty art is from my heart.
Come, stand in line to take your alms.

“You think this cloth is worth a lot?
That patterned songs can now compete
With factory print, though once they didn’t,
And shower money at your feet?

“The kerchiefs will lose all their worth
The day we put a price on them.
It’s not our need, but only greed,
Which they will notice and condemn.

“These people come to see a man
Who lost an arm but not his skill.
They see my work as just a quirk
Of human nature and its will.

“I know their love is not for me.
I’m blinded not by this renown.
This storied fame is for the name –
Calligrapher of Khaspa Town.

“I’m not the name, I’m not the work.
I’m just a creature in His thrall.
My art I make for Allah’s sake.
His love is lovelier than all.”