The Storm

Let the winds carve open your wounds
Long forgotten,
The night-rain lash open glass panes
While the wood crackles in the hearth,
Heart breaks like twigs twisted.
Let the devil make promises
And young priests believe them.
Let God with a socialist leaning
Sign peace treaties with the west.
Men make love, women be cruel.
Ghosts and memories engage in duels.
Let the poet sell himself,
And the artist brazenly cheat,
Let the whores of Paris,
More pedestrians meet.
Empires will fall tonight,
Volcanoes will crack,
And memories of old heartbreaks
Come rushing back.

The Country to Which I'll Return

The Country to which i will return,
Will have saffron fields all over
The morning Azaan will be muted
The Fridays will be those,
Four days of the month
When blood will flow
To purge the country,
To which I'll return.

The country to which I'll return
Will have a single God,
One religion,
And one definition of love.
Rakesh and Prakash Can't hold hands
Amina won't love another Anand,
December 6th celebrated in over 330 towns,
The country to which I'll return. 

Unveiling

For today the world doesn't revolve around Mecca,
For tonight the journey is not between two cities,
For this month, no apologies for Islam,
And no extra security check at airports.
For tonight, Love is Atlantic's Blue
For tonight, Love is Vienna's Spring,
Sacred arias in a Rome Cathedral
Or the morning Azaan early Autumn.
Throw away your Hijaab,
Cast away the Prophet,
Wear my perfume
And chant my name five times a day.
Forget what they say in Koran,
I'll tear away its pages from your skin.
Shaarab is no sin with you,
For your words which kiss my name,
Are like Persian cups holding wine.
Drive away the Ullemas tonight,
No Kaaba, No Medina
My Mecca is between your lips.
Nothing is Haraam with you,
No Bandishein,
No one a Kaafir. 

On Mornings like These

On mornings like these,
I tend to bury my minutes in smoke,
Minutes which tick by,
With every door my poems knock,
And every rejection they face.
For you are across the ocean,
Working in a lab with a Prophet's vision.
And I, Frittering my youth,
In useless causes,
Impossible revolutions for same-sex love,
And rights to prevent laborers losses.
On mornings like these,
I plan to write my songs,
To right my wrongs.
On mornings like these,
Do I scribble novels,
Which won't see the light of day,
And whisper words which,
You will never hear me say.
On mornings like these,
White lillies wilt on young graves
For mornings like these
Beg not to break into days. 

Going Back On a word given to Myself

I have nursed some heartbreaks,
Like you nurse old memories,
Memories of the shower
That drenched you to the bone,
Or the time you realized that God
Was always away on an extended vacation.
Of summers spent against rushing days,
Or the sound of mountains speaking,
To each other through the mist.
Some heartbreaks I have preserved,
Like old leaves marking out pages
Which once spoke to me, of me.
Your handwriting still burns in the pages,
Like the candle in a mountain hut,
Alone,but oh so powerful.
Hissing, like damp firewood,
The words are past their expiry date,
Mumbling on how I had gone back
On my word never to write about you.

Yet Untitled

Whispers which are lost between
Words lying side by side,
Or in the white noise when the heart
Shifts from one Fm Station to another,
Those words you want to decode?

Meanings which are mired within
Entangled fingers of long lost days
Between the pains of sudden joy
And the crackling heart pining in love
Those words you want to unearth?

Clock hours which lose themselves
Between the siblings of today and tomorrow
Days and nights which swirl with ice
In the evening ritual of forgetting lives
Those hours you want to count?

Summers which have walked away
Ranting at bees for not buzzing too loud
And winters which arrive like country guests
Who don't know when to leave,
Those days you want to live?

The sea waves which to and fro
Tick like a child on a swing,
Nights which come and go,
Like thoughts and words in my midnight pen
That poem you want to read?

Weird

You say you have been weird since morning
Headache, Heartache...A sudden nostalgia.
Digging up the corpse of the past
And wiping your hands with new memories.
Hissing there and spite here,
Old Wounds preserved for all you care.
It is all part of feeling Weird since morning.
My little porcupine princess,
Too hurt to heal,
Flushing out words ans kisses,
All ready for a kill.

Once upon a time Valentines

Some have faded like old photographs,
Some with the turning of gramophones,
Some like yellow leaves falling,
Have walked out.
A few had lingered like old memories
And some born with the fate of honest politicians
Were banished.
Some masters in deception,
Tricked Satan with kisses.
One went away with a very kind April with her.
Some wandered,
Guitar strings in fingers,
And Baez crawling down their cheeks.
A few wrote letters,
A few cast fetters.
One shouted too long,
One demanded a song.
Some whispered, Some seduced.
Stitched hearts, pain reduced.
One went to war, poems in hand,
Building and furnishing castles of sand.
While some remain,
Like ghosts in a deserted house,
Coming alive once in a while.
Most have faded like old photographs,
Some like discarded clothes
Remind me who I was.

Struggling

I want to undress you,
On paper with words,
:Like the morning undresses,
The shame of the night.
I have been struggling for words
And also with what to write,
How to write,
How to love,
How much to love.
What to say,

Create words to conceal
Say things to hide.
We run like river banks
And unspoken words flow in between.
Rushing by, gushing by
And not bridging the sighs
That light up our
Noons and nights.
I still struggle,
To Morse code my words to you.
I search for darkness,
In a darkened room.
And these lines,
Like aborted lives
Never sees the light of your eyes. 

The First

That first Santa surprise
The first of your many white lies.
The first chalk dust on your shirt,
Your first gold searching in the dirt.
That first kitchen experiment gone wrong,
The first wet-haired bathroom song.
Those first bouts of envy green,
Skin wounds and hurt unseen.
The first five days' mood swings
The first spring shower that love brings.
This is not the last poem I would write for you,
Wanting to be,
The first of your everything,
The first of your everyone.