Recognise

 

From the Marine Drive, Mumbai.

Some weeks are darker than others

some fortnight’s just shades of agony,

the distress of fathers and brothers

is hard to stand witness and see;

but every darkness gets over,

it's transient, temporary,

each minute it’s spinning closer -

some sort of lightfall. Clarity.

 

Not all light must be a sunrise,

all darkness doesn't cradle stars.

Sometimes the dark is a disguise,

for light’s got degrees and avatars -

lift up this face and recognise

light and darkness for what they are.

Um...lend me your ears...maybe...??

I've been reading my poetry lately - first for the Colours of Life Festival last month, and then for a Diwali poetry fest this past week. So I thought I'd try doing it here as well. Let me know what you think...if you'd rather read...or if this is moderately tolerable? 

Incidentally, in Bengal, a tiny rag dipped in a runny rice paste is used to draw patterns on the floor on major festival days - mostly auspicious symbols such as (goddess) footprints going in, overflowing pitchers etc. The folk artform is called 'Alpona,' done by women with great artistry. You need dark earthen or plain cement floors to show them off.  Also need knowledge of the traditional designs. And of course, massive rag control. 

Diwali 2018 - Seeds of Light

The sky flows like a river into these eyes,

there’s a golden mean and meaning somewhere -

but not right now, not in the city square,

not in the swoosh-words hoardings advertise.

But there’s no place where the river doesn’t flow,

and gold is hard to get and hard to keep;

unless you count the sodium streetlights’ sweep

and signage blinking in LED glow,

and this darkness that’s some percentage light -

partly wakeful crickets, partly starshine

the horizon a faint fluorescent skyline

the towers vanishing into their own height.

Nothing extra anything else can impart –

the seeds of light sprout deep within the heart.

It's Diwali week - the festival of light, which is on 6th and 7th - I'm celebrating with some more poetry readings at a local Diwali fair. Apart from the traditional oil lamps of course.  Happy Diwali to you if you are celebrating. Have a brilliant week and November.

Step lightly

Turn then to face your own light, so shadows

fall behind, and wherever the path goes

uphill, down, or peters out, stay the trail

even if the odd constellation fails,

even if the coppery moon never glows.

Paths and poetry both come to an end,

words fall and shatter, useless to pretend

otherwise, their edges sharp as broken stone.

Step lightly into yourself and go on,

turn up that wick that can’t be darkened.

City walls and step-wells and piled up peels

Somewhere the lamps shine brighter, but here dim.

I balance on my lashes coloured lanterns

from an entire city lit up, the trembling glint

of glass-fire on water, the night’s darkness burns

with a sandpaper-sadness under my lids,

points out again how fruitless the returns,

the yearnings for things now lowered and closed.

The weight always hangs heavy on restless eyes -

motifs of calligraphies made into mosques

the architectures of reverence, and sighs,

inlays of centuries sketched and now lost,

and sleepless owl moons winging across skies.

Still carry within - the small-writhing husks,

the peels of years which vanished at the bend,

the slithery skins and scales of time piled up

into mountains of sharpness, stone-stiffened,

the city walls and step-wells untidily tucked

behind arches still standing though weakened.

I can call it a ghazal if I like

You read it only when a spotlight shines on it,

and it’s the light itself that fades the lines on it

 

so should I fix this light or switch to pitch dark

and will you find the sense without clear signs on it?

 

nibs scratch the surface, silence leaves a deeper mark

so ink or blank? and now they both look fine on it

 

can’t say for sure which fades first, which stays fast

nuances its meaning and goes on, refines on it

 

who stands by me while I make the darkness last

no matter what the blank white light defines on it?

The big reveal

No tree falls, so there’s nothing to hear

just a shrub of lilac flowers, they appear
pale, bleached to white in the harsh sunlight
the fragrance too delicate to be clear

 

even when breathed in deep and long. Outside

the four winds quickly disperse it wide.
I bring an offhand handful in the room
and a dimmer light reveals what sunlight hides.




 

Anything hollow

Flames are rarely flame-shaped; winds put them out

or stretch them into long licks of tongues, rude
and pert; squash them with fear; force them to brood
crouched low, trembling under stars. Slap them about,
make them gulp. Fluttering hearts against mouths
of open darkness. Coerce servitude
as they want – wilful, arbitrary.  Skewed
and sharp gusts brushing past from north to south.

 

So, I never see the tents come alight

with the right tear-drop flames, row after row;
there is nothing to see, hardly a spark
to my festivity; sit content, quiet;
my lamp too is no lamp, but anything hollow
filled with oil and a wick burns in the dark.




It is Diwali night.  Back in India, my hometown and every home would be draped in lights, sparkling with fireworks and noisy with loud crackers and hissing rockets, quite deafening.  I am in a different place, and here it's impossible to light the traditional oil-lamps, even if I had them as it is too windy for unprotected flames.  So my Diwali consists of a single brass lamp lit inside my room, and silence, and peace and poetry. And that feels uncommonly good and right. Happy Diwali to you if you're celebrating.


Shared at OpenLinkNight@dVerse

Touch

I feel your touch on my nape

across the room; when the shape

of the shadows change, and the doorway there

frames your silhouette.  The light flares

into a precious dimness like never before

when you block the light-stream at that door.

Haven’t you felt mine?  Haven’t you known

the same lightness at your collarbone?

each time I shared the same space

my fingers on your face

like soft rain on the sea

soaking into anonymity.

Touch me here again and make me flare

into dimness, into rain, into anonymously rare.