Between L4 and L5
A poem is stuck,
Softly cushioning
against
vertebrae of
calcified memories.
Let them not touch
like rusted swords
thirsty for
honour blood.
My lips, are still
pink
with a smile
between occasional
flashes
of electrical pain,
Because between L4 and
L5,
A poem is still
breathing.
Blood sindhoor flows
Rivers have been
red
forever…
Sleep tries to wear
a bulletproof vest.
Amputated hopes
ache
in search of limbs.
Bullets pierce
names…
It curdles
everywhere,
fermenting in
veins,
spilling on tulips.
Faces drained pale,
Earth dyed red.
This canvas is
painted
all wrong…
Heaven weeps.
It has waited so
long
to descend.
Earth weeps.
It has waited so
long
for heaven.
No heart is ready.
Birds have changed
their songs.
Beaks of sparrows
foam
With the venom of
battle cries.
Everything hurts.
What is your name?
I take pink gulal
and rub it on your
cheeks.
The only answer I want
to give.
You hide a blush
behind the colour.
We play a sweet,
nameless game.
What is your name?
I light incense,
The scent of
jasmine
rising to your eyes,
flooding them with
fragrance
making them close to
questions
whose answers don’t
matter.
I slice red hot
peppers
Sprinkle them with
salt
and place them,
daringly,
on the tip of the
tongue
from where
questions arise.
What is your name?
You are persistent.
I am ready to shut
that mouth
with anything.
A hue, a live wire,
a gulab jamun,
a kiss.
What is your name?
I toss a rainbow
over a cloud
Drawing in the gasp
of light.
It takes the breath
away
from your question.
I sit next to you
like a transparent,
empty cup.
Thin rimmed
thoughts circle
like abandoned
satellites.
You don’t notice
me.
There is no thirst
for emptiness.
An ocean waits
somewhere.
It wants to fit in
a cup.
I don’t ache for
your lips.
I don’t fill myself
with froth
to quench you,
I know
Zen is not for you.
It happens – or
not.
You get up
casually,
knocking me down.
I break into bits
on the hard cement
floor.
Your rushed feet
step on my splinters.
You bleed.
Now, you notice.
Coiled power.
Disguised,
invisible.
Only the adept can touch
the true essence.
Content to
hibernate,
it rests without
waiting.
Only nucleus
secrets in atoms,
understand what can
happen –
or not.
The powers of
Water and Fire,
Ida and Pingla,
Yin and Yang
to meet and merge.
The brew of
creation
is about precision.
The right hue
plucked from a
rainbow,
The secret kiss of
the dew drop
merging in the
liquid fire of love,
to tame the bejewelled
light that rises
to release a
terrible delight.
A miscalculation
can ruin
a miracle,
Hold back the
knitting of
gold and silver.
But when science
becomes art,
yoga becomes love,
We are ready for
tea and kundalini.
City bulbuls campaign together,
Tease in a chorus –
‘Tota myna ki kahani
purani, purani ho
gayi…”
The mynas turn their
beaks away
and continue
planning for fresh worms.
The parakeets
simply fly
to their Raintree
home.
These jabberwockeys
ar best ignored!
An eagle couple
watches
from the tallest
tree-top.
Nobody disturbs real-estate
hegemony!
The towering cement
wall
viciously radiates
cruel heat
after sundown,
Like a sorry
politician spitting
the last of his venom
on losing a seat.
The crows still
gather
on the terrace rusted
railings
for their daily
dusk meeting.
They don’t have
much to say
Nod respectfully
and fly away.
At least, democracy
is alive here!
I hear your whispers
the way deaf hear songs,
An electric tingle of delight
on the edge of my fingertips.
Drumbeats of your name
against the skin of my beating heart.
The valley of memory sings again
your name, your name.
I wear the river in dancing folds
of fluid light.
Rock bosom heaves.
We have broken so many times,
to sing clay songs in forbidden tongues.
I gather the marigolds of smiles
before they reach your lips.
Dreams appear and disappear, like meteors.
I gaze, lying on the rocky earth,
crumbling quietly.
There are no complete stories…
A comet sigh,
music without words,
the faith of grass,
love’s fleeting half-touch.
I’ve decided to move on.
The sign’s up – CLEARANCE SALE
Salt jar.
Packed memories -
rough, raw, uniodised.
Use it to make a salt lamp,
with a slow burn.
Every night, I’ll come laughing
to the shore of your dreams.
Ornate shawl.
I know its summer now.
But winter eventually comes,
if you live long enough.
Then the pattern will call your fingers
to the warmth of a velvet belonging.
The comfort of your grandmother’s lap
waits to wrap you, with a baby’s sleep.
Your heart will beat home again.
Shoes.
Not stilettoes.
Strong leather boots,
bought on a hill I loved.
Worn a little, climbed so high,
I could catch songs
from prayer flags
Clinging sacred dust, holding blessings
of selfless priests,
Meant for difficult, lonely paths.
Porcelain cup
With a blue checked saucer,
bought chipped.
Brokenness holding warmth,
like the father with a fractured heart,
keeping a cracked family together,
because it could still hold love.
Tell me what you want and
what you are willing to pay for.
- Harvinder
Cobalt blue glass,
translucent as a poem.
Frozen drops of unrelenting metaphors.
A sunflower shudders inside.
Some conversations are strange.
I drop my spectacles, to see clearly.
The sun in my eyes,
makes me cry.
Or was it your face,
through the window pane?
The morning rumbles
in half dreams.
A snowflake melts on my lips.
Curtains swirl like Sufis.
The kettle sings the Zen of tea.
Come. Join me.
- Harvinder
Chopsticks dancing a dandiya,
Flavour explodes on my taste buds.
Noodles twirling and twisting,
like complex equations,
Dissolving finally,
Taste their only answer.
I am five again,
celebrating a lollipop moment!
A mushroom slips,
like a piano note.
The symphony of taste
waits for the drumbeats
of colliding sticks,
to find their rhythm in love.
The sauce sits patiently
holding everything together,
lending soft flavour,
like the presence of grandparents.
Delight hides in the crunch
of crisp noodles sprinkled
like the wit of a friend
who punches without hurting.
I pluck time from a platter.
We never know
how long we have left,
at the dinner table.
- Harvinder Kaur
Deciphering the script
in the iris of your eyes,
A little like eating marbles
with a fork.
Come. Dare.
Kiss a scar.
Wear blood lipstick.
Smear a slide with words.
Watch
cells divide, rearrange…
an amoebic dance of metaphors.
The histopathology of a poem.
Waits
for the microscopic gaze
of your eyes.
Remove the tubes.
Wheel me into your heart.
Take me home.
Time unbandages.
A stitch cries in pain.
All that had gone numb,
Is wound, again.
---
Saline hope drips
into my vein,
Desert mouth opens,
Eyes an oasis, again.
---
Muffled howls plucked.
All that wasn’t said
weeps blood, finally,
I breathe, again.
I remember being burnt by snow,
the first time I touched it.
My small fingers learnt early
the common language of fire and ice –
pain.
In the slivers of a lost moon
the trembling dawn shyly ties itself.
You never know what you’ll find
on the other side of time.
I am a placid sheet of non-doing
between hope and loss,
Having learnt, full circles breathe back
into being full stops.
Love is the shiny coin
you found in the street
and discovered, it was of another country.
You’re poor all over again!
When you point to the nectar,
I know what I must drink first.
There’s no escaping venom.
If it doesn’t come from a poisoned kiss,
it will rise from our veins,
into an azure mind.
The new moon waits with a hidden love,
Daring wings to embrace
the magic of darkness.
I ask you,
“How was your day?”
‘Samovar’
Your zen eyebrow rises.
“Mine was suraahi*…”
My ornate voice lilts just a little.
Morning is cutting chai for both of us.
In the afternoon, I sip a mint pause,
slowly.
You swallow a gingery song.
A revolution brews in an aluminium pot,
in the by-lane.
The electric kettle is silent in the high rise.
There’s no power there.
Real power comes from real fire.
You strike a match.
I prepare the kulhars*.
We drink fire. Together.
(surahi – – an elegantly shaped long-necked pot with a spout, often
ornate, for holding wine and water usually; kulhar – unbaked earthen cup meant for
holding tea, popular in rural India)
Wash blood from the white t-shirt –
menstrual, sliced fingertip, and
some drops from the heart.
Mix raindrops in dried paint.
Pick the whitest wall in your house.
And, it’s okay to paint the grass blue!
Comb hair and thoughts.
Rub oil and plait neatly,
Too much wildness in the wind!
Mend spectacles.
They are too sharp focused.
Need blur to bear the world.
Cook. Slice reality and stew in imagination.
Fry in with till crisp,
Sprinkle peppery satire, and salt of desire.
Paint, dreams with water
on the drenched canvas of time.
Abandon brushes, use fingers.
Let skin spill over.
Striped bedsheets blue, white.
Medical gowns wrapping old people
in checks, blue, dark blue, white –
crosswords without words,
The enigma of disease,
the puzzle of death, without solution,
playing itself out.
Nurses move their small skeletons
in navy blue scrub suits,
balancing disposable crowns of soft blue caps.
The bed cupboard is a muted, matted, metal blue,
muffled by the blue laughter of
the bright neck-pillow.
The crying blue bed pan
hides under the bed.
Mud blue veins, without a body
drink saline dreams.
Nothing is more surreal than reality.
The zen water jug, a cool, calm blue,
watches all, saying nothing.
Blood is red, yet.
Suddenly, I miss the turquoise ocean
in your eyes.
I have always been scraping.
Scraping dinosaur scabs
from wounded knees,
before healing was done –
A habit that stayed.
Scraping off ‘malai’ deliciously burnt,
stuck to the bottom
of the thick aluminium pan,
sprinkled with sugar crystals,
delighting my childhood palette.
Scraping labels from bottles
and women - Miss, Mrs, Ms…
pointing to which man she belonged.
Scraping memories from
the clay tablet of mind,
This is not a script
I want deciphered.
Scraping melanin from my skin
so, I could fit into cruel fairy tales,
with a treacherous fairness.
Scraping the vine of desire,
its tentacles entwined deep
with the tissue of the heart,
changing the course of the
red flow of pulsating life.
I’ve always been scraping,
the way life scraped away
you from me…