Framed

Your photographs have come alive again,
They’re the only things that bind me to you now.
Did I tell you, I’ve made friends with the kinists
And the anthropologists? They despise my poetry
But they like the spare prose that I write for them.
I like this picture where you are with the tribals
And gently smiling into the camera…why do you
Revel in antiquity so much? One of the kinists talks
About the land that you’ve left for. Did I tell you,
I’ve charmed him and that he seems to be smitten?
Every night I urge him to talk about the land that
Seduced you more than I…every night the bewitching
Image of your gaunt figure treading those sunless jungles,
Looking for links, for lost worlds, for lost bloodstreams,
Feebly rises out from your photographs and makes me
Long for the comforting beat of your heart,
But there’s nothing there, just the dull cry of the
Insects that surround you now… Someday, I shall
Pick up the trails that you left behind and
Find out for myself what truth did antiquity conceal?


Now Playing::Phoolon ke rang se.........Kishore

Mutated

The changes are apparent now;
Changes that you wrought,
Your interferences,
Everything.
I no longer fret
When you ask me to strip
I strip, strip, strip
My tongue has licked bark,
My hands reek of
Cartography,
Whose bony ancestors
Have sprung open
In the soft pulp of your life.
I am contented
I have learnt to recognize,
Recognize love,
For it has taught me two things:
Never to believe in it
And forgiving often,
I have changed much
How could I not love you then?
Love you
More fiercely,
More fearlessly.


Now Playing::Jajabara.........Akhaya Mohanty

Substitutes

There is not a scrap of verse left in me now,
What is left is the mere smell of the older ones
That linger at my bedside
Rudely knocking off the lights
And demanding, why haven't I burned them, yet?
I shall not consider burning,
I shall consider drowning,
I tell myself and turn away...
A faint smell of a new verse drifts
In the air but that, too fades away
With nary a word,
I turn again to the older ones
Despite their disgust and ask them
To contain my ugliness in their
Soft little bellies for one more night
For the morning, I believe, shall bring
Promises of naked sunshine...


Now Playing::Veena (instrumental)

You and Sanity

I know why you took me to the caves today
And talked of water and I know why you said,
“I don’t want you to be Caddy.”

Every stone had burst into a thousand mirages
Then, and history gushed out of the guide’s mouth,
Echoing secret tunnels, wars, and faceless soldiers.

Someone asked for more water and we moved
Into cooler pockets. Let’s leave the crowd, you said,
And dragged me towards resonating pits of stone.

There was a deity in one of them, its priest a frail
Auld man, who sprinkled holy water on you, and
Called you ‘son’ and you obliged him with a photograph.

It’s dark now, much darker than the caves we were in,
I shall remember nothing of this in the morning, not even
The murky sweat stains of your hands on my jute bag,

All I remember now is the pale sound of water purling
Beneath those stones, which you say I might hear if I
Ever believed in a world outside sanity.


Now Playing:: Naam ghum jayega.........Kinara

A Midnight Poem

I need some comforting
tonight,
The world has been
harsh,
It has stripped me
thus,
I have been running
around,
Trying to save
face,
Let me spend a night
here,
There are forgotten
promises,
Let me take them
back,
And blur them with my
embarrassments,
Adore me once again,
darling,
You shall lose
nothing,

Barter a night,
I'll give you
My farewell in
Charity.

Now Playing: Dream a little dream of me.....Doris Day