memories of a cruel autumn on the black hill

it was a bad autumn as any i can remember

i couldn’t been more than nine by my gumption

i’d been coughing green phlegm all autumn and

mamma was afraid i was gonna catch consumption

and then on a cold guy fawkes day

she gazed at the gloomy yellow light

over the hill and said it looks like snow

it was early we thought yet snow fell in the night

and melted leaving long white smears on the scree

and then it fell again real heavy this time and though

from the drifts we dug a great many sheep

the ravens had a feast when it thawed

forever indifferent

there are places you don’t know yet and places that you do

places you’re just beginning to discover and places you once knew

places that possess you and places that you think you own

places you’ve lived in and places where you’ve grown

places you associate with sounds and smells for long-forgotten reasons

and in your head there are places you long for, one for every season

places that come unbeckoned, fully formed

the playgrounds, the messy classrooms, the echoing dorms

the balcony with the crumbling parapet from where you saw the black kite

and places that you struggle to recreate lying awake at night

the hue of the paint on the wooden pillars always elusive

the gate the wall the room like solitary characters in a warm light perfusive

the paths you took daily getting all mixed up in your head

and you wonder if you can ever go back and check

you remember going home as a kid in the vacations

but home was just home with its garden and its terrace with no relation

to the town where it stood the place you’ll never know

there was no one to meet there was nowhere to go

and thus there are places you’ll never know

for you got too close too soon

and then parted and returned but forgot to greet

and though you met your eyes didn’t meet

and you thought you knew them really well

until you found out too late that you didn’t

and you thought they liked you but you should’ve known

that places are forever indifferent

they’re like difficult lovers, experienced, full of tact

well aware of the heartache and the inevitable gaps

and so they keep their distance, their armours intact

forever aloof, their feelings always under covers
no wonder cats fall for places

they make for apt lovers

translating shiv kumar batalvi: ajj phir dil garib ik

gazal

today my poor heart again bows before you with a plea

give unto my pen today another tragedy

it’s been ages since i sipped from the cup of pain

to stir a fiery ember or two in my hurt would you deign

the paper’s blank desire silently watches on

as in the land of words wanders the lost caravan of songs

                                                                                                    

i want to walk with the pain of a thorn in my foot, the unpaved

distance however great from sorrow to the grave

oh come! it’s turning its back on shiv, even this pain that was left

this tale that he was counting on, that for ages he’d safely kept

utterly despicable

no, not callous by nature

but i’m messed up in my head

and the moment you say you like me

i'll go sleep with someone else instead

don’t hold it against me i'm just good armcandy

or take me to bed and i’ll be your slave

but don't make me a part of your plans fall not for me
and i say this for your own sake
i'll just drift in and out of your life confusing confused
and then alone my road i'll take

everyone is someone’s pinup

everyone is someone’s whore

my heart’s been bumped around enough

and now it’s way beyond sore

it’s hardened black and terribly sharp

worse than just a lump inert

i’m edward scissorhands

and all i can do is hurt

callous at twilight

you’re not callous by nature so why’d you leave

the lights on in the room where i’m asleep?

surely you must’ve been distracted

a new lover were you heading out to meet?

the sky’s going dark a bruised violet

and the lights are coming on in the street

i imagine you in a cheerful lit-up café

thriving in this city’s cloak of anonymity

the light’s attracting moths now and

bouncing off they land up on my sheet

i wish there were candles instead of the lights

they wouldn’t repeatedly be singed by the heat

but meet a fiery illustrious death instead

is there a worse fate for lovers to meet?

but blame not the lights with their exteriors

of glass, for longing is the world’s creed

for something else their hearts too burn

for another’s love they drool and greed

but you’re not callous by nature i know

so why did you have to leave?

life lessons from an economics major

the other day on the radio

that i usually listen to on mornings slow

and lazy, holding a cup of nice black tea

when you want to just sit back, just be

they were playing a song that i really like

it’s inspiring, the kind that strike

a chord in your heard and leave a smile

on your face, at least for a while

and in came the economist, strolling leisurely

and coolly changed the damn frequency

hey! that was a beautiful song, wait

ainh, it’s ok, nothing all that great

but hey, i was listening to that

alright, alright, i’ll put it back

the song came back, the same score

but it wasn’t really fun anymore

he stood there, staring at me

waiting for the song to finish so that he

could switch to something he thought better no doubt

that’s when i think i figured it out

this must be what they call hapiness’ relativity

relating happiness to when you are or are not free

and i kind of vaguely understood the artists

waxing eloquent about passion and spontaneity

let me find my voice, let me be me

coz the rain isn’t forced

nor the tree to burst into flower

coz with spontaneity comes a certain ease

like the beautiful serene capricious breeze

what beauty a smile holds 

that in your eyes begins

and then upon your lips unfolds

such a glow it gives your  face

and yet a forced smile is but a grimace

alright, whatever, f’get it. jo marzi laga le

he smiled, n i smiled back, with nothing to say

(from a notebook from sometime back; retouched)

white blossoms on a lemon tree

i’m reminded of a lemon tree standing beside a well

everytime i crush a lemon leaf to smell

a lemon tree in a courtyard where i’ve never gone

a tree that saw you as a kid growing up

in your village home long before i was born

i cannot keep my eyes open

if i crush a lemon leaf to smell

for you’d shut your eyes brimming with tears

with that far away look that you’d have

when talking of your childhood years

i miss you a lot though i know you can’t tell

and it’s not only when i crush a lemon leaf to smell

though life’s thrown as apart feelings don’t easily perish

and every memory you’ve given me every
moment we spent is most dearly cherished

faint echoes of the word escape

1.

strangers in a strange city listening to strangers read their poetry

we vow to be amongst them next year to be up there next year to be

not so lonely next year. me in my pockmarked sweater and you in your overcoat

and high heels we exchange glances from across the crowd and then quickly retreat

pretending to write something or be completely absorbed in reading what we wrote

for we both know that fiddling with cellphones is just far too lame

and we won’t profess to our loneliness, never, but instead claim

that we’re quite alright writing poetry about our lonely lives

for heartache is the substrate upon with art thrives

and so we quietly withdraw under art’s aegis

to cold beds and blank pages

2.

i‘m completely smitten by the bodies around

as they twist and turn into comfortable postures sitting cross-legged on the ground  

crouching on the parapet hugging vertical shins holding the camera up steady still

bending over the notebook the back a smooth arc the neck flat as over the pages hair spills

the head down horizontal the first two vertebrae like large beads above the t-shirt collar frayed

standing slouching against the wall with just a single shoulderblade touching it

your back a sensuous bow shooting arrows at me screaming to be sketched

hunched over in chairs the chin on the hand the elbow on the knees

leaning over sideways until the long earring hangs free

all straight lines and arcs and lovely shadows deep

if it wasn’t for the sketchbook i’d probably

be mistaken for a creep

3.

the faces absorbed as they contemplate words that resonate

that float about and hang still around us fluttering about shimmering

amongst the backlit leaves of the raintree or becoming a part of the masonry

forever embedded amongst the bricks and the whitewash in your memory

words barely audible words spoken softly words shouted out loud

words expertly flicked over the heads of the mesmerized crowd

words that caress your skin and get under your clothes

and claw at hearts and choke your throats

words that lacerate or lift weights off your chest

talking of things you love and  things you detest

eyes sparkling in awe at the dexterity

with which they breathe magic into words

and then set them free

4.

i run around fixing things

making sure they run smoothly while my eyes stay fixed on you

i listen to the words that pour forth and think of what they might mean to you

i hang back trying to strike up a conversation but there’s nothing interesting that i do

while you are an accomplished poet with publications and residencies and books and ya, fans too

and you quickly get surrounded by them and i wonder if famous poets too get lonely sometimes

i wonder if you are ever spurned by a lover abandoned by words or deserted by rhyme

i imagine getting to know you and i imagine how if you asked me i would take

great pains to spell out my mail address very very carefully forming each alphabet

for people i’ve heard them say have been known to get

lost for nothing more than a spelling mistake

translating shiv kumar batalvi: jaach mainu aa gayi

gazal 

  

of dealing with sorrow, i’ve learnt the art

learnt to slowly cry and distract the heart

it’s best that you are someone else’s now

it's put an end to worries of making you mine somehow

oh you who breathe, but for this one fear i’d readily die

they sell for money even the land to light  the pyre

my friends, lend me not these breaths

for i have not the courage to repay the debt

don’t try and drive shiv’s sorrow away

the treacherous rascal has a mind to cry today

the song, and text in english

for the sake of an earring green

i looked and i looked but i can’t find

your earring anywhere in my room

and the one you left behind on the window-sill

seems to be going a deeper green with gloom

the only way to find it i guess

is you wear this one in your ear

and we recreate that friday night and maybe

the trajectory of loss will become clear

come now, won’t you?

longing, oh he’s an old companion

long and far we’ve together paced

he’s wily when flirting with uncertainty

and most amusing when a life’s at stake

we engage in this game on and off

that on a simple premise is based

either i get the better of him

or he leaves my soul razed

the seasons they come and the seasons they go

though of my lover there’s not a trace

but the game is long and now it’s my move

and i convince him that i’m unfazed

like an itch at a gash on the inside of my ribs

i crave for your touch for a glimpse of that face

i languish i pine i thirst i yearn i ache i lust

and i watch on bemused my intriguing case

oh longing, he’s an old friend

and though occasionally for a lark he’ll lace

my evening drink with the morbid poison of melancholy

he’ll see to it that i make it through the days

but come now for though i wouldn’t admit to him

i’m beginning to forget your smell the taste

of your tongue the feel of your skin and though 

he won’t admit it the poor fellow too needs a break