Just the Means, Not the End

I see everyone around me

Working day and night,

Cooking and cleaning or catching up

On sleep missed the last five nights.

I see myself falling into this trap

This masochistic need to constantly work,

To feel guilty if I’m not “productive”

When I’m only enjoying the comforts I’ve earned.

In school, it was easy—

Homework was only a hurdle

To cross before play.

It was easy in college too—

When your friends and new experiences

Were as important as your essay.

But somewhere along the adulting

We’ve lost the clarity we had as kids;

We’ve forgotten the freedom that

Living just for ourselves gives.

I heard someone say once

That they found theatre not a distraction but an escape

Because “a distraction is momentary.

An escape helps you heal.”

But art and dance and sports and romance,

A picnic with your family, or a drink with friends,

When time slows, gone are your woes,

Your heart is full as it can be—

Isn’t this where happiness blooms?

Isn’t this what life is about?

Why must this be only an escape

From the monotone we’ve accepted as fate?

Why must we forgo this delight

For endless chores and strife?

Why must responsibility constrain and pressure

Rather than be a stepping stone to pleasure?

So I’ve decided, to hell with this

Mad impulse to “be productive”!

I’ll read fifty books this year

And watch all the shows on my list

I’ll get to that novel I’ve put on hold

And write poetry even if it’s shit

I’ll dance as much as I can 

Even if I don’t get paid for it

I’ll go rock climbing with my friends

And on that girls trip

I’ll make new memories, not

Grasp nostalgically at old wisps.

When I need to do the dishes,

I’ll split with my mum and chat as we clean

When I need to run errands,

I’ll do it with a friend, with me or on my screen

When I need to cook dinner,

I’ll play a little music and dance through the meal

And when I need to do the laundry,

I’ll do it with myself, spend some time with me.

I’ll work enough to do this comfortably

Because I do love my work

But I won’t let it stop me

From living life for all it’s worth.

For art, beauty and romance

Are not an escape but life itself

And I won’t let this adulting frenzy

Get me stuck on the means, never to reach the end.

4

everything comes together slowly / a single, golden strand of love / the night belongs to longing / the mornings belong to hope / an app asks me how I am feeling, why don't you? / the food tastes of the soil. always / I don't make notes inside margins of books anymore / while building cities why have we put the rivers aside? / ostentation is the oxygen of our lives / shifa means healing / our dreams are a marathon not a sprint / in the lake nearby, two boatmen drop a net / listen to your heart before you have to listen to your body / how old are your parents now? Nine? / pistachios are the royalty of the dry fruits / I dream of the forest / the active voice is dead / my favourite meal is always with him at a low-key restaurant / what does the soil taste of now? / there are roads that lead to the past / hold the thought and put it down 

3

I learn the meaning of Urdu words from a 

Punjabi woman with long, dark hair. Zarf, 

she says, means the capacity to forgive, to 

endure. What is this life if all we need to do 

is survive it? What is the weight of a prayer, 

a wish? I hope it is light enough to ascend to 

heaven, even if it comes from the heaviest 

of hearts. Maraasim — the plural of rasm — 

the rituals of keeping a relationship. Visiting 

a sick person is an act of charity, they say. 

How long will the malaise of our existence 

bring no visitors to our doorsteps? The 

sympathy of our days adds up. We have no 

place to keep it. Leaving it under trees will 

haunt them. How easily we have forgotten 

the rasm of give and take. We have become 

Gaafil, like she says, beparwah, negligent. 

In such deep slumber (while being awake) 

that we are unaware the water is overflowing, 

the hot air is skirting in front of the door, 

the leaves are drying steadily. Maybe it 

was a custom to forgive our life. Maybe 

it is not a custom anymore.

Beauty

Beauty in nature is function, the oak

the most efficient way of making acorns

The bird's song a mating call, the artichoke

that purple for the butterflies and thorned

To protect its tender heart from me

and yet I can't help but see and be beguiled

by the fractal branching of the tree

in reaching for the light. Out in the wild

beauty is just a word the bee doesn't know 

Or need to pierce the secret of the rose

6. A Menu

A menu of the many ways I know:

The platform, in an instant, is the first,

But for the passengers, the very worst

Beginning to the day, so that's a no. 

The second, so the redness wouldn't show,

My wrists inside the toilet bowl, immersed,

Inside the bathroom at the mall, a cursed

Floor isn't what I'd want to leave and so—

"Hold on!" The fish said in alarm, "I feed

"On dreams like this much slower than I think

"You'd like me to. It's not that it's too much,

"Just too much all at once. So, please, I need

"A moment. Also, maybe take a drink

"Of water." Words as meaningful as touch. 

Sun falls on the girl reading by the water

and on the head of the boy

asleep on her lap. 

Some joys are for you to hold.

Some for you to witness.

Tough

Deciphering the script

in the iris of your eyes,

A little like eating marbles

with a fork.

Illusive and elusive- nights in my city

 The street feels like anxiety; like that clingy friend in college shadowing you that you don't have the gumption to shake off.

Serial lights toggle to project

Maramma and  Ganesha in green red and blue on to the streaming traffic

A Zomato driver has a screen of Google maps and within that another screen of an IPL match. 

It may not be his last delivery 

Honks announce a green light

Night seems unattainable

Part of a past that no longer exists

Nights when everything cast ominious shadows, rustling leaves held a mystery. 

Or a faraway bark made you hurry home

Happy you weren't that stray with a litter in the ditch

Nights seem part of once upon a time  moonlit story

AN ARCHIVE OF LEFT-BEHINDS

What is left behind when you move on?
A night sky's maternal embrace.
A newborn's guileless grin.
The validation of girlfriends' giggles.
The bigheartedness of a playground.
The forbearing indulgence of neighbours with TV sets.
The affordability of delights from a neighbourhood market.
The comfort of a collective of mothers knitting winter wear.

Moving on is  seldom about arriving.
It's about rummaging through a dusty archive of left-behinds.

Adenanthera pavonina

not a romantic name

for seeds that look

like love came home

that, legend has it

bring luck

blessings

healing

medicine

so much joy

when found.

I'd call them

love seeds

or joy seeds

these Red Lucky Seeds

that look like

love came home.

Today, without thinking, I went

to the park where we first met.

I had timed it wrong that day:

it was winter, late, only

a few minutes of light left.

It's early morning now,

A full day ahead.

Bad metaphors offer respite

In the slow wakening of bitterness.

Kalu and Angel OR Beware of Dog Part 2

Apparently another meeting

with Angel and Kalu was meant to be.
Angel, the announcer of rank outsiders
as they try to enter the premises
either knows my smell or
has become softer or
is too troubled by the heat
to care as much.
There’s a series of dutiful
yet forceful barks
only in the night and
only till the gate has been crossed
after which there is zero interest
in me while Kalu opens an eye
and simply goes back to sleep.
Kalu is clearly a morning dog
walks with me to gate and door
quietly passing on news
of a peaceful night.
Having been a dog-fearing person
I’m startled to note the joy rising
within when I am barked into the house
and gently walked out of it.


This poem could be a sequel to this one:
https://dailyriyaaz.blogspot.com/2023/04/beware-of-dog.html 

True Story

I saw the stop sign become the moon

And roll mountain-down. No more red,

She said, I can't be the cause of you

Not moving on. Be the green guy, go

Where you like but keep in mind

The red-ringed sign, and don't

Turn around.

Myself, I'm jumping ship, moving

My ass, swinging my hip. Could be,

As you say, a slippery slope,

But the night is young, and

There's always amber, the Colour of hope.

cherry blossoms, seoul

For the boy beside me 

to pick a perfect cherry blossom 

from the ground 

a bird has to alight

in the tree above

with just enough force

to knock it loose

but not break it.

spring has to come early

and the sun has to be out

so that the streets can fill with people

and the air with promise.

I have to look at a cloudless sky

and admit 

that there is so much and yet 

no more 

than can be held in 

this painfully lovely day

delicate and 

quivering with light. 

A DELICIOUS RECOMPENSE

Your baptism began at three on grandfather's lap. 
A spoonful of the hot brew and you were 
a convert for life. Long ago, in another world, 
elliptical leaves flushed along an eastern river 
and an elixir mythical, bitter yet sweet, was born. 
Swimming across oceans, sweeping over mountains, 
a russet liquid quenched thirst like a saviour's 
holy water does a parched soul. 

On a day burning with heat, a benevolent professor
serenaded you with sufi songs before serving you 
the elixir in a steel cup cased inside a deep saucer. 
Your memory imprinted Amir Khusro's words in his booming 
voice. Your throat still holds the sukoon, the contentment 
the liquid, browned with milk blessed it with. 

Te, cha, chai, tea. The supreme medicine that mends broken
relationships and demands obedient workers to heap delicate
leaves on their backs. To help fill jars in glossy showcases. 
A potion that bridges evanescent memories as it did countries
and continents centuries ago. Each sip, a delicious recompense.
For surviving surly politicians in sultry countries. 

5. Is this what normal people feel?

Is this what normal people feel? Is this

What I’ve been missing out on? Why was I

Left unaware that not to wish to die

Was something normal people felt? Abyss—

The word I’d found for where my restlessness

Was leading me—did they not find the sky

Its memory? Is that the reason why

Outside, the normal people didn’t miss—

“The ceiling! Sorry,” Fish was blushing red

(I’d named it Fish in haste), “I didn’t mean

“To pry, it’s just the feelings come with thoughts.

“So many words! And of them, ‘hopeless’, ‘dead’,

And ‘what’s’, ‘the’, ‘point’, ‘I’, ‘wish’ seem to have been

Abundant. So, is this how wellness rots?”

desire will never let us down

this is where we live now. meaning is only born from schism.
desperation is the same as romance i think. disillusionment is only natural.

we must remind ourselves that our desire is not the lack of. it is not a negative space.
it makes the world go round. and it makes the world stop in its tracks. and rotate relentlessly. and pause
and move again on its tilted axis.
science is turning onto itself.
a heatwave is fast approaching
i want you in the mornings. and afternoons. and when i walk back from the station. there is no end to the wanting.

the people go to work and smoke their cigarettes and eat paan and get on their buses and hold their flighty children close to their bodies and the work day ends in the evening and they go back home to their husbands and wives.
the earth moves once more while they all sleep and i still want you. routine is good for the heart.

 

Scarred

 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.

Heat Wave

Overpowers
Seals my lids
Melts cognition
Soon am swimming
In cool water
A gold fish
Dreaming of air 
Of a gentle breeze
Flowing through trees.

What can't be said

The form a thought takes, so that I know

I thought it, noun and verb in order, bound

together by a magnetic force so

strong that once fused can't be undone, sound

and meaning, this my language, my grammar

the crude tool I use to make the world make

sense. But language becomes a hammer

turning the world to nails. Words are opaque.

Those moments when the screen of words gives way

the world pours through, all liquified. Last light

on the lake before the sun goes down, aflame

We dived into the water that was ice

not so long ago, lay skin to skin, speechless

Under the aurora borealis

#3 Pink ball

 a pink ball rolls

around a corner

of a rectangular park

a newly erected fence

in green and gold 

edged with spears and arches

stands inscrutable

you can tell yourself

in a sinister whisper or 

a bouyant shriek, 

'I SEE traffic through a trellis'

with a burst of screeching friction

and heaves of mortar fattened pillars, a metro train passes above.

pink ball stops rolling,

settles itself, somewhat unclaimed.

turn of the corner reveals

an urchin with lopsided buttons 

and his merry belly button running,

brandishing an yellow plastic bat.

walkers gather pace, crunching

on scattered orange leaves

 of an Indian almond tree

 unafraid of solitary pink balls

Parting words

Go gently into that night, Ma.

Rest your tired eyes.

Cast off your tattered clothes.

Follow the soft fragrance

Into the garden beyond

The pitch-dark tunnel.

Go peacefully into that night, Ma.

Be a child again

With soft-pinky hands

And a shrilly voice.

Find a new mother

And I shall behold you

In every infant.

Walk happily into that night, Ma

Dark as the Krishna on your altar.

Let go of my hand.

Snap the thread that binds us.

Crash the pitcher of pain

Burdening your head.

Trust the dark, Ma.

Run along to meet Him.

By a limpid pool across the night

Bathed in light

He waits for you.

most condolences are not heartfelt

in the absence of your voice i construct a day for you
what are you doing? besides being far from me
daydreaming of your day on the way back from work
are you skipping breakfasts or walking to class? what movies are you watching? and whose mouths are you touching?
i hope it is you. my skin, my eyes, my phone, my shampoo, my nails, my ears,
my door, my laptop, my utensils, my books, all hope it is you.
my heart is a heavy, brute, unwieldy cyborg
and it beats too fast too hard too willfully

warm up

 In youth, the body 

needs little notice.

Shaken from sleep 

it will walk into 

the hard edge of day.

Little thought.

No aftermath.

As in the body 

so in poetry.

Cold start.

Quick finish. 

The pain

forthcoming

still in the middle distance. 

4. Be Not Afraid

"Be not afraid," it mouthed to me and swam

In circles round my fast-collapsing brain,

"I am a simple guest. And you're..." "Insane?"

I dribbled, "God, I must be. Yes, I am..."

"My host," it smiled, "Within you such a dam

"Is built of so much uninspected pain

"And fear that I know it would be no drain

"On your emotions if you had–" "A damn

"FISH inside me?!" But I soon became

A little calmer as it spoke as if

Its words were sapping from me something made

Of tar and hair and phlegm and guilt and blame;

The feeling that can make my spirit stiff 

And heavy. "Now, I trust my rent is paid?"

consolation

every day is laid to rest
in the arms of the next.

Sitting on a cushion

Sitting on a cushion
I tried to find liberation
from loopy thoughts
autopilot patterns
judgements rising like acid
from the stomach
after a badly chosen meal

my skin was on fire
sukhasana became dukhasana
my mocking mind rejected mastery
playing both Tom and Jerry
sometimes hanging from the roof
laughing at me, or a trapeze artist
flying from one thought to another

fidget fidget
scratch scratch
itch itch
ouch ouch
liberation is not for me or
this path to liberation is not for me where
a minute is an hour and an hour a day

I need to walk, I need to run
I need to see the world pass by
I need to sing, I need to hum
I need to laugh out loud
I need to hug, I need to write
I need to feel my feelings
not sit eyes closed, back straight

silently watching the drama within  
just witnessing, just observing
letting the darkness come closer
letting it touch me, letting it hold me
letting it take me deeper into its fold
down pathways I would rather not go
letting me sense the slivers of light

Sitting on a cushion
I tried to find liberation
and lost so here I am
happily lost or a loser
as you will
writing poetry to find my way
writing, to join the dots
between light and darkness.
 

OUT LOUD

For an aeon, a fountain refuses to burst 

open. It remains pressed like a weak

water pistol. Even with strong triggers,

no more than feeble spurts squirt out. 

Sad hearts find safety in silent rejoicing. 

No fireworks, only noiseless snow. 

Why don't you do it loud, my mother asks. 

The jokes aren’t lame, my water pistol is.

LOL, my soon-to-be teen niece says,

her face deadpan, the expression of

humour a cryptic postmodernism. Our

faces balloon and burst mimicking her.

We're from a different century, clearly.

On a warm, power-cut afternoon, 

my husband teaches three of us, 

two twenty-somethings and me, 

a Punjabi word meaning labyrinth. 

We fail to pronounce the p-h phonemic 

peculiarity. His instructions become 

hysterical. Pupils dilate, voice rises, 

chest inflates. We copy him, fail, copy, 

fail, his pupils distend even more, we fail 

irredeemably and erupt. Fountains of 

laughter leave our throats 

and the trapping heat our bodies.

Close to half a century on the earth later

I manifest my mother's decades-old 

request and my niece's robotic code. 

    

(Laugh 

Out

    Loud.)

This is how growing old and growing up trade places.

The paradox of writing

In the net made of words I capture my thoughts

as they swim in the deep so wild and bold

Here on the page they turn black and they rot

Thrown back in the waves they flash silver and gold

The Poet Wishes To Write of Joy

 

Joy is a haiku
Its timing is exquisite
Birdsong in the night.
A heaping of blades of gold
Shining like a haystack
A heartbreak of falcons in flight.
Joy is a reaching, a metaphor
A thread in the needle of desire.
Risking blood in the need to
Hold, daring your heart
To lie on the pyre, a piercing
To the core.
May falcons fill and fire your sight
And hay fields blaze your yearning.

There are always two voices dancing in my head:

There are always two voices dancing in my head:

sometimes, they are mine and yours

sometimes the preacher and the question

sometimes they are justice and despair

sometimes the eyehole of the self and the tsunami of the world

sometimes the moment silencing the hours.

Surgery

 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.

Say O

I wasn't really listening   until that song came on

that Thyagaraja sang      in Khamboji

to get the god's attention   the one who's lying down

in the temple in Trichy    O Rangasayee

All those musicians we know by their initials

sing it  TMK  MDR  MSS 

but this one   Semmangudi

Is known by the place where he was born

his broken voice remade

by mind     music made of ideas

He begs the god to say 'O'

a god I don't believe in 

but at the fast part   the notes

become the words   even  uneven

voice   violin

'This place is heaven'

Not the god, I'm the one

he's singing to

What else can I do?

DUST TO DUST

Dust is a disillusioned historian.

Mistrustful of self discovery

dust roams from Rome to home.

A particle, minuscule, joins

a million more. With the

fanatical passion of a new

believer it storms cities,

citadels, forests and thrones.

Over tedious gale flights,

red dust from Rajasthan

holds Australia's horizon 

hostage in an amber haze.

Dust travels with hulking

marauders galloping across

territories. The dust of

destruction. The lust for land.

Dust seldom settles. Even 

when it does, flimsy like hair 

falling off a burnt scalp,

it asks to be scattered.

Dust on a grave; an itinerant's

rest before passing on. 

we have a neurosis in common

we have a neurosis in common. her and i. a blithe
worldview is unbeknownst to us. a way to read.
a way to interpret. a way to dismember the
events of the day. locked out of my own room
staying up late into the midnight hour. wondering
if i am any good at all. she thinks i am i think.
aren't we all praying for something or the other.
i am praying for her. it leaves and comes back and
it leaves and comes back and it leaves again.
it being the fever. the fever is persistent. and
the falling down is too. once she is done seeing this city
the burning will come down. the waves will subside
the clouds will part and the flowers will change
into their summer forms. she knows too much
about herself. she knows she is on my mind.
i am left alone with her madnesses when she is not with me
nearing the finish line. have so much to say but nothing at all
there must be a celebration in her spirit.

3. There is a Fish

There is a Fish that swims inside my head

Where once there was a voice, quite loud, but still

As water that reflects for us a hill

With shrill cicadas singing to the dead,

“For seventeen rotations have we fed

“On sap from tree roots. Now we’ve had our fill

“And, born aloft by newformed wings, we will

“Arise!” And so, they fly until they’ve bred.

Perhaps like that it was the Fish awoke,

Transmogrified from still life to the brush

That moves across the canvas. Thus, the Fish

Leaves traces in my mind. When first it spoke,

I blocked it out and whispered softly, “Hush!”

Then, horrified, I felt its tail fin swish.

The memorable YA fiction

Silver, black and grey,

Those were her colours. 

Scars, wounds and tears,

Those were her fate.

Panic, fear and pain,

Were felt upon her entry.

From a an unwanted dog that she was,

A wolf she became.

Not the most ideal main

character energy she carried,

After everything that happened,

with love she was buried.

I have grown up reading a lot of YA fiction. One of my favourite book series is the “Young Elites” by Marie Lu. It does not have movies or a show. Just three books and few simple strong characters. I usually forget the books I have read, but this one has stayed in my mind. The main character had powers that were dark, negative and harmful. She was an unusual main character who did not have a high moralistic ground or a very kind personality. She fought for herself and those she loved. I highly recommend this underrated book series to anyone looking for an anti-hero from the times when such characters were not the norm :)

2

I read about the politics of loneliness and stir 
a teaspoon of sorrow in my tea. Do you get to 
feel alone and have it called an epidemic? Do 
I get to feel alone and have myself be deigned 
an old hag? I want to fail spectacularly at life, 
be free of the lingering hope that it will turn 
out like everyone else’s. You, of your perfectly 
designed life events; me, of my unorganised
existence I carry around in sustainable tote bags. 
How can our loneliness be similar, scampering 
around old bars in cities, flirting with each other 
when they meet? How can your loneliness tell 
mine that it is a mirror, a friend, a deep well in 
a far corner of the black forest? Why would it 
ask my loneliness to hold hands and escape the 
darkness? Mine is older, has been in love before, 
and lost. What do you know of losing? You are a 
study in human psychology. I am a memoir of a 
woman, unfortunate. You are a research paper. 
I am an old wive’s tale.

Esja From the Traffic Lights

 

 

You can’t always say you’ve seen the light

But it’s not as if the universe isn’t trying.

You’re on your way, what more do you need.

But you’re idling at the crossroads, crying.

You’re not even looking, you’re scrolling

Your facebook feed, whatever it’s selling

You’re buying. I’m not judging; god knows

I feel your need. You don’t want to walk

If you can’t be flying. You can’t always

Say you’ve received a sign,

But it’s not as if you’re even counting.

Its true that there’s a yield board before

That massive uprising of rock, where the light

Seems to pour forth in fountains. But before

That one  – right in front of you – there’s

The figure with a shovel: a sign

That you can move mountains.