Poetry

Perhaps you need a key? 

It was never a fleeting proposition for me.
Once my mind was made up,
My heart plunged into it,
Knowing full well
That the door on the other end
Would never open.

But I see the glow
Emanate from the window
of the keyhole, flickering
And yet bright, as hope.

To know that the light exists
To have only just known,
It suffices.
I’ll let my heart dive deeper still,
Let the oceans buffer it.
While I stand here for the door to open,
I’ll let you find the key.

High Jump

And now I realize
how limiting our worlds were
We set boundaries for ourselves
Never realizing that instead
of keeping us safe, the walls trapped us.
And now, all come to expect us
To lie still within, inside the boundaries,
When all the time we devise
Ways, figuring that in due days,
We jump over to the other side.

And now there are walls within walls,
One that holds us in
and the other that guards our thoughts
It’s not the enemies I see
that can threaten me anymore
They only see a blank slate
Filled with old thoughts
It’s the traitor inside, treacherous
habitual me that likes the status quo.

Sharp as a scissor, swift as the anvil
the walls need breaking,
both outside and within

Soundtrack to go with the verses: 

—-

Minor Adjustments

If I may, burn fully-scribbled pages

Start over with the Refresh key

Re-lay the plumbing ov’r

Old plans divinely ordained.

I would rather have severed ties

And not hold in all the words

Hit back at my detractors

Halt the steady droop of shoulders.

And when the time is ripe

The bags are all packed

Am ready to fly the coup

Not look back in anger

At the untold desires

At the held back pain.

Unquestioned laws,

The unbroken chain

Of thoughts that aim

To slow down and maim

Hope.

The curved lines on pale palms

Played their hands o’er the years

Minor adjustments are imperative

To retune some fatal errors.

This time around it’s

all an empty stage, I see

no parts to enact, no

dialogues to breach reality.

When the clock is re-set to 12

And I put my head to pillow,

“I wish to awaken as the woman

I dreamt of growing up into”

—-

Container full of synecdoche

Bits and pieces, odds and ends

Junk and clutter, the sacred and profane,

The road map to my house

Is alive with throbbing veins

Follow the trail of shoes and books

The chipped walls ripened with age.

A left from the coiled wires

& lavender-cupped underwire,

Go past the broken mirror and half-seeing eyes

Toss your coffee cup into the stainless sink

Pay homage to a faith-less god.

Here is a container full of Synecdoche

A cartload of rusted archives

Those given away or hidden, rest

Within the cartography of my mind.

The shutter captured our moments

Things froze on the click

We all get ready for the frame, to

share space on painted bricks

—-

Accolade for her

My strength was tenuous
I kept re-pasting the ruptures…
and in the madness one night
as I floundered with morals
this girl skipped along
held my hand in hers;
colluding in my madness
kept me sane and wanted.
The act is oft repeated
And thank yous are insufficient
I paste my thanks here
By writing an accolade for her

—

Unraveling the Iconography

Have I lost my religion,
After flying 6,000 km oversees?
Chewing on food filled with pork oil
The sacred thread vanishing.

I tried to debate the ethics,
Of halaal, makru* and forbidden
But the gnawing hunger in my gut,
Rendered all arguments unspoken.

I drank in the Eastern scenery
With the food a distant second,
I counted the days to my return
To the jugular bleeding chicken.

Four days down the tarmac,
I am left unsure of my Qu’om*,
The greetings in Arabic remain the same
The solidity of meanings, now multifold.

Timelines are adjusted,
And so have the cell phone networks,
Currencies and body clocks follow,
It’s the heart that keeps rebelling.

* Makru = Not forbidden, but considered unpalatable food
*Qu’om = community

Digital Darshan

I ring the temple bell with my sign ins
I pay homage to my god,
The unraveling time is my incense stick
The virtual texts are sacrificial blood.
It’s a sacred space for reflection
We meditate in the silence of white noise,
The gaze holds me steady,
I look back at me | my god.

Manifesto

I have crossed one too many lines,
Of – tradition – taboo and – law
Standing atop the arsenal of
The home front, I formed links which are strong.

And where weapons could have
Sundered lives, my words breathed alive…
Formed the image of the deity,
The God I see as I.

It’s too late to be correct hence,
To unimagine the blank slate of slogans
My treasons take me to a place afar,
Where politics and poetry are blurring.

Wedded to an Idea

It was too quick and hurried for me,
The day my wedding dawned,
My mother in law declared me her wife
With a gold chain tied to my throat.
The Qazi sang his holy tunes,
And the husband proclaimed himself my mate
But no one remembers the thricely refrains,
‘Kubool Hain’ remains unsaid.
I question the legality of tradition,
When law was totally kept in shrouds,
A trip to the court is quite unconventional,
When days tauten the bond.

I Chose Neither

Would you like to hear stories,
Of long lost love and unrequited
Pining, for the one who has left,
Without a backward glance.
Or would you rather be comforted
By the true tales of the girl,
Who mistook the first glance
For what it was not,
And surrendered her heart
To the one: Him,
who always knew about the
car that would be waiting out the door -
Oh foolish girl, what stopped you
From looking out the window
Before you opened the door to your heart?

—–

Adulterated

In being the infidels in our marriage,
There’s so much subtleties that we employ,
Ploys that we enforce,
And whitenoise that we drown.
The undercurrents are vast,
As dangerous as the seas,
So caution drives us to trim,
The unsung strings to a stream,
Commas punctuate the pauses,
And ellipsis act as contrived means,
The continuum takes on a whole new meaning,
With the semi-colons as unspoken dreams.
Of great pleasure are these secret sparrings,
Theatrics unfolding in every nuance,
Curtains down seems an ever present reality,
…With the applause, a tempting thought.