grace

We do not give thanks 

in this country 

for small kindness.

The man who points me in 

the right direction 

has returned to his tasks

before he has finished speaking 

just as I have turned

in the direction of his pointing hand.

On the train

the woman who steps on my foot

puts out a silent hand

to touch me 

before raising it to her lips 

to her forehead. 

You may take for granted

that you are owed generosity

as you, too, 

owe it to others.

Not all that is done

must be noted.

Ours is an economy 

of unspoken grace.

time's running out

 

On many nights my friends and I would take ourselves

out to the main gate to buy a lone cigarette. A pack

would tense our lungs but a singular one is noble. Laughing 

at something from emanating from our phones. An undeniable 

tune stuck in all of our minds together. When we 

collide with friends of yesteryear — the herd

expands into a precipitous army of voices and madness. Talking 

over one another and cultivating four conversations at once. Where else

but my college campus would I learn about the sound from 

the operatic chinese flute dizi. or the developments in my friend’s 

curious polycule of lovers. or adorno’s dogged but futile attempts at 

employment in america. we’d take the forest shortcut back

to our rooms successfully using the pythagorean theorem

to make our routes exactly eleven minutes shorter. Starting to think 

I want those eleven minutes back with my friends 

J K L M N

The letters come crumbling down

as easily as walls. The air here

is infected with the saliva of

a zillion shrapnel. We once went

to school, we tell others. It's

mere gossip now, a lame joke

manually nurtured. Only J, K,

L, M and N still stand on a strip

of a wall that has survived shelling.

We scour them for lunch-time giggles.

They return only our unerring fear.

J for Jenin, J for jail, J for jeopardy

K for kaput

L for lame, L for lies,

M for madness, M for mayhem, M for mother, M for martyr, M for moaning, M for mourning, 

M for mornings we've lost forever.

N for Nobody -- who we are.

 

 

Counting Nights

All of me lies here dazed
                                                here awake here tonight.
No, it is not pain, I can't
                                                help but still just love
this dumpster-fire world
                                                where nothing seems right —
the poetry-steeped calendar
                                                      wilts on the wall above

A new poet shows up each month
                                                                  just so I don't sit alone
to find a tongue of words when
                                                             the eyes dry up of tears.
The dusk of despair, even if just
                                                             dusk, is a long one
it runs for years dark, it runs
                                                       through the sunny years.

- Kartikay

After Vikram Seth's 'All You Who Sleep Tonight'

There’s an obvious Faiz reference.

still, life

still, life

on a bed of charcoal chalk sit
three pomegranates, ripening,
ripening, going off. inexperienced
hands painted the one going
off: not enough
paint, too much water, gen la
said, brush in hand, ripening,
ripening, seamlessly from
almost-salmon pink to ruby
red, like the seeds they contain.
lime green leaves turn
into personal-favourite paddy,
adorned by golden choodiyan,
chalk outlines that form the literal
highlights of this traditional
tibetan art-form. 

like levertov, i wake from afternoon
naps, or even nights spent
on the couch—who's going
to stop me?—and there they all
are: chilling
brightly within my line
of sight, all the gold,
green, ruby against black,
pulling me in. the three
hydrangea on black
the anaar sit next to, there, too,
hardly any gradation: no
pantone cards applicable,
apart from baby green (sage?),
baby blue (sky?), and a dark baby
purple (lavender?). those ripening
anaar and hydrangea in three
shades of baby
are all i see
in this room that i've created.

no. the room, and this
home, too, if we are to be
nitpicky. and all the relation-
ships that flourish outside
of these walls, that will soon cross
oceans & continents to be here in
these white mountains, ripening,
ripening.

 

Day 4 poem based on the naprowrimo.net prompt for day 4: write your own poem about living with a piece of art.

 

wellspring: an ode to the step well at Visthar (Bangalore)

given up on

labelled barren

dry

useless

a failure

and left alone

she had thrived

and grown herself

a garden

a forest even

complete with

a peepal tree

sprouting from

her stone walls

holding her tight

showering her

with leaves

written over

with poems

for her and

all who find

themselves

spiralling

unravelling

only to be held

firmly on her

soft soil

inside her emptiness

that deemed

wasteful

became

for many

a wellspring.

Broken cup

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.

in and out

every breath
takes me back
to the beginning
that one day
will also
be the end
of my journeys
cyclical
circular
in and out
out and in
story of a dot
that became a circle
that became a sphere
that became a dot
and then – nothing. 

Time

second   minute  hour  day

heartbeat  footstep  breath in  out

moonrise  sunrise  each one sets

dream   know it's a dream

count  give an account

One day you took peyote 

and stared at the sun

falling asleep in summer

Tiredness

like summer heat

comes suddenly 

leaching from you

some vital inner thing

so that you wake
from misremembered dreams
house dark
skin hot to the touch.

my many muses

there is a dog
outside my door
scratching persistently
dreaming of the pedigree packet
leaning on the door's other side

there is a dog
outside yamuna hostel
he loses himself on purpose
everyday. wandering around the buildings
in dreams of the windy scooter ride

there is a dog
outside the dhaba
rolling feverishly in the mud
hankering for some romance
fondly jumping on my white clothes

Ah

If only I could
write as well as
I wipe the kitchen counter
not once but many times
very wet cloth making
way for wet cloth
then cloth wrung dry
that I make circles with
before peering to see if
I can see my eyes
looking back at me
from the black granite
asking what the title
of today’s poem will be

between me and my evening tea

the evening traffic stands; the sky is grey black; vehicle lights smudge the evening air; home is far but the heart wants what it wants; the nose smells acrid fumes

bumper to bumper
shadows of trimmed trees
slice the road

the city looms between me and my cup of evening tea; cardamom, cinnamon, almond milk and turmeric await; far from here a bay window is empty and an Indian Badam tree leans flirtatiously close

orange pink sky
the purple line metro
streams through

summertime low

summertime low

 

summer has yet to arrive, yet

the day’s already hot & heavy. the cat

& i both slept in the afternoon: having

fed the plants, the cat, & myself; having

nourished my heart & mind with mary’s

wisdom: “yes! no! […] to pay attention, this

is your proper work.” could barely watch

the spanish telenovela—can i even call

it that, when really it is the spanish version

of bridgerton—like me today, its plot moves

at a snail’s pace, its conversación muy rápida,

notwithstanding.

 

woke up to a great jhund of eagles so low

in the sky, so close to home: google AI tells

me, a soar, a congress, a convocation, an aerie

it was. lone eagles from up high all convened

at the mandir today, circling like mad: mata

daruni must have offered something big, after

perhaps something of a bali was offered to her?

 

and, now, my lids feel heavy again. laundry,

kitchen, household chores await, tomorrow’s

workday already stretching ahead. pay

attention, is what mary said. work

this muscle, no other way: it’s only day

three, another twenty-seven to go!

 

April 3 | Day 3 free-write based on sukoonaama's prompt "summertime low"

Bearing Witness

 

I cannot see your face. You cannot
See mine. I see
The embroidered cloth that
Covers your head. I choose a fine
Brush and paint
Your scarf instead.

A few things that make no sense, and heartbreak

Do you know of Prince Rupert's glass 

drop? The one that can take the world 

head on, but shatters with a pinch 

of its tale? 

Do you know it is impossible

to not think of an elephant? You are 

doing it right now, aren't you?

Do you know that heart-

break sounds like glass shattering? Did

you not grow up on Bollywood songs? 

But the problem

is that a shatter is an event, clear start

clean end (apart from all the mess) but 

heartbreak is the tectonic movement of 

your self from one face of the world

to another. All the while what is deformed

is still a world. And, you guessed it, no 

sound. Until eventually someone shows up 

and makes an absurd claim that the volcanoes 

erupting on your periphery are the sound

of this torsion. And suddenly those fires 

you thought were ancient, now heard, 

are quiet. And suddenly, you are at sea

trying to make sense of this stormy calm.

- Kartikay

ILLUSORY EVENINGS

We look for curtains to partition the day.

To glide to the other side of work and the world.

The evening’s a gossamer wisp.

Before drifting off, fragments of songs assure memory of its existence. 

A screen lights up. 

In an alternative universe, quick quacks efface tough politics with cockeyed master plans. 

Escape is only an illusion after all. 

Why else would office jokes help reclaim dregs of joy?  

Little minds peek inside big minds. 

The art lies in persisting as children for as long as we can.

Purple weddings and silly love can still make a squalid realm, 

putrid with orange excess, poking noses and outrageous statements

worth living. For another well-earned, sun-warmed pillow rest,

another illusory screened evening.  

Slow mornings

What a delectable experience 

Slow mornings are.

Brief master of your own time.

I have tea and some breakfast

Stare out the window

Crafting my glow from morning’s brightness.

It’s not like I do not have to go.

But I can take my time.

Perhaps I could sneak in a nap again.

Perhaps dance and stretch a little.

Slow, slow, that’s how we should live.

But I too scroll on my phone too much.

Slow mornings I am glad to have,

Hope slow mornings come to you pickle.

Spring

The sound of rain that freezes while it's falling

like nails on the glass, all flowered with frost

just as the lengthening days are calling

the buds to break from the bark, to be lost

What a cruel trick, the sap in the trees

already rising, and the crocuses

the snowdrops, already opened to bees

to go below zero. But it is ever thus

In April in Canada. I should know

by now not to pin my hopes on new shoots

too tender to survive late frost and snow

I must depend on the deep buried roots

for roses when the summer's here

What's in the depths will persevere