My Wall Project

The landlady is going to be angry. Very angry.

A Spaceman

(At Southbank Centre, London)

Your eyes

Your eyes lie vacant

Sometimes sharp like a lion

Who’s been hungry for three days

Sometimes mellow like migratory birds

On their journey to a new known place

Your eyes are fearless

Like a small lovely town

Undiscovered and flourishing

Your eyes are full of distance

Like a soldier in the enemy camp

Grim and angry

And optimistic about building a country

Your eyes

Slowly trickling down my skin

Quiet and sudden

 On the day we meet 

Ambivalence

Wanting to clutch
Hold on
Be free as air
Spreading thin
In the sky
Buried inside the earth....

My Red Backpack

लाल बैग की तो जैसी चाँदी हो गयी
पिछले साल पेरिस और स्पेन गया था
इस साल लन्दन जा रहा है
पिछले साल कुछ कागज़ पेंसिल लेकर गया था
वापिस आया तो किताब उगल दी
पीठ पर लटका लटका घंटो चला
कभी मुस्कुराते हुए
कभी कंप्लेंन करते हुए
इतना कुछ भर लिया अपने अन्दर
की मेरे कंधे थक कर चूर हो गए
इतने लोग, इतनी  कहानिया
इतना म्यूजिक, इतने कलाकार 
लाल बैग काफी क्यूरियस मिजाज़ का है
अब टिकट क्या बुक हो गया
ये  तो हवा में गोते भरने लगा
इस साल जाने क्या क्या भर लायेगा
लाल बैग की तो जैसी चाँदी हो गयी

Whiskey Sour

The stool at the bar is a bit too tall

She climbs up in a jiffy

Her hat slips from her hand

Each and everyday

She regains her poise

Orders for a whiskey sour

Make that three actually

The bartender wishes secretly

That she orders for a Merlot

He would serve free olives with that

But she never does order any Merlot

Whiskey is like a stone on her finger

On the right one of course

Smile doesn’t go well on her face

Flickers in and out before it can rest

Patrons don’t disturb her

Some for fear, some for mystery

The bartenders serve stories about her

Free with each and every drink

After all, it is a small bar

In a very big and busy town

She comes here for her long lost love

Some of them say

No wonder she puts so much make up on

She smells like cheese

No, she smells like strawberries

Are you insane?

She smells like whiskey and cigarettes

Of precisely 45 cigarettes and three whiskey sours

Some say

She climbs down from the moon every night

Some say

She locks children in her attic during the day

Some say

Each story lights up each table

Sometimes the stories dance around

A few even manage to reach her

A couple of young boys draw her picture

Some think about her thighs

A drunken old man thinks she is his dead wife

The stool at the bar is a bit too tall

She climbs down in a jiffy

And leaves 25 bucks on the stool

20 for the drinks and 5 for the stories

The night gobbles her up

Till she is back at the bar the next night

I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook

"And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now. It's all that there is"

Leonard Cohen

Shane Koyczan

"And if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little
longer."

Not only has he blown my mind away with 'To This Day'....



 ...Shane Koyczan's other poems are just as beautiful, and so powerful. Check out his work http://www.shanekoyczan.com/.

"We are not an abandoned car stalled out left sitting empty on some highway.
And if in some way we are, don’t worry, we only got to walk and get gas."

Poem

Toledo, Spain.

Kisses and wine

The house moved around them like an angry storm,
Only to settle down into a beautiful jazz song.
He soon left with the promises of morning tea.
The morning remained reclusive, so did the tea.
Finally, the moon settled down with the fall of night.

Then there were kisses and there was wine.

ये सड़क और कहा जाती है

घर तक तो आती है
ये सड़क और कहा जाती है

कुछ उधार के नुक्कड़ो तक
कुछ सिगरेट बीड़ी के धुए तक
कुछ सिमटे बेघरो की तरफ़
थोड़ी दिलचस्प कहानियों तक
घर तक तो आती है
ये सड़क और कहा जाती है

टूटे पत्तो से भरी हुई
बारिशों में उल्झी हुई
मुरझाये दिलों से गली हुई
घर तक तो आती है
ये सड़क और कहा जाती है

तुम भी तो इस सड़क से आये होंगे
वोह कुछ तो बौखलाई होगी
शायद थोडा शरमाई भी होगी
कुछ तो  तुम्हारे कानो में कहा होगा
क्या तुमने भी सोचा कभी
घर तक तो आती है
ये सड़क और कहा जाती है

Inspired by Paris

These cobblestone walls scream in agony,
Of pleasure, of love.
The river gathers in a corner,
Like your feet in the early mornings,
Lying lazily, moving laboriously.
Every building in this city is like a tombstone,
Ironic that it has tourist graveyards too.
You never hold my hand,
While we sit in the warm cathedrals,
To save us from cold,
To save us from fear.
We meet like this city meets its people,
Fresh strangers and fresh lilies.
In the evening, we devour the structures.
Walk together on different roads,
Going towards home and far away from it.
The city sleeps early,
And we keep pace with the night. 

Love is a dog from hell- Charles Bukowski

AS CRAZY AS I EVER WAS

drunk and writing poems
at 3 a.m.

what counts now
is one more
tight pussy

before the light
tilts out

drunk and writing poems
at 3:15 a.m.

some people tell me that I'm
famous.

what am I doing alone
drunk and writing poems at
3:18 a.m.?

I'm as crazy as I ever was
they don't understand
that I haven't stopped hanging out of 4th floor
windows by my heels-
I still do
right now
sitting here

writing this down
I am hanging by my heels
floors up:
68, 72, 101,
the feeling is the
same:
relentless
unheroic and
necessary

sitting here
drunk and writing poems
at 3:24 a.m.

वोह तो बस फ़िज़ूल बातें करते हैं

वोह तो बस फ़िज़ूल बातें करते हैं
इधर उधर के किस्से सुना कर
तालियों की गूँज पीते रहते है

होठों पर बैठीं रहती है शराब हमेशा
उधार की नज्मों में चस्का लेते है
कुछ पुराने कुछ नए शायरों की
कुछ ग़मगीन कुछ शौक़ीन

रोज़ युही इश्क में पड़ते रहते है
लड़ते है झगड़ते है
बस यूँ ही ज़रा मुस्कुरा कर
पेशानी पे कुछ हलके से बल लाकर 
दिल को बाजू पर अटका कर
वोह रोज़ घर से निकलते है

बस पूछों मत
वोह तो बस फ़िज़ूल बातें करते है
इधर उधर के किस्से सुना कर
तालियों की गूँज पीते रहते है

Old drafts

Lost the old drafts,
That marked the beginning of love.

We all died a little inside,
And donned a new life.
We gasped,
Look terribly amazed,
Re-lived what never happened.

Words spun over by centuries.
A short story,
That never ever ended.
An epitaph poem,
Where the poet stayed alive,
The poem was buried.

Kept writing,
On loose white sheets,
Crisp and benign.
A start to the end,
Of our new found lives.

The bottom of the sea

Deep deep down
About to reach the bottom
Of the sea

A river holding my hand
We talk about somersaults
Sea is our father
Sea is our child

The world discusses catastrophes
Here we just jump and turn around
We are never reborn
This is the circle

Deep deep down
About to reach the bottom
Of the sea

Je T'aime Tant

Someone recently said to me that French, the sound of it, is like love-making. A magical song. Heart-breaking words. And Julie Delpy!

The Missing People

This poem has been completely inspired by these images of "missing people" by Graham McIndoe 
via www.flavorwire.com


They are holed up in life,
Or freed in death?
Nobody knows.
They are the missing people.

The shadow of their identity,
Translated into paper,
With a pleading hope,
With a hopeful plead.
They are the missing people.

They are crushed, they are wrinkled,
They are creased,
They are in throes of winter,
They are the missing people.
Years go by, their skin doesn't age
Centuries multiply, they lie wide awake,
The posters wither, the skin dries up.
They are the missing people. 

They are the answers,
They are the rhetorical questions.
They rise like a duststorm,
And settle down into a pile of nothing.
They are the missing people.  

'Mayakovsky' by Frank O'Hara

My heart's aflutter!
I am standing in the bath tub
crying. Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it's throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.

I love you. I love you,
but I'm turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.

Words! be
sick as I am sick, swoon,
roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I'll stare down
at my wounded beauty
which at best is only a talent
for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win
what a poet!
and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.
I embrace a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.

That's funny! there's blood on my chest
oh yes, I've been carrying bricks
what a funny place to rupture!
and now it is raining on the ailanthus
as I step out onto the window ledge
the tracks below me are smoky and
glistening with a passion for running
I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O'Hara

Patience is not a virtue.

The beautiful, powerful and uplifting poem ‘Aurat’ by Kaifi Azmi met me this morning through this wonderful website. We weren’t strangers. I had met this poem while watching this movie called Tamanna. They have used about three paragraphs of the poem to form this song. The poem is one of the most powerful piece of poetry I have ever read. In a strange and not so strange way, it reminds me of Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’. Another masterpiece. Both of these creations have the power of completely pulling you out of the apparent comfortable rut and put you right in the centre of the whirlpool where you know exactly what needs to be done, even before you realise what has happened to you.

This line from Aurut ‘zindagii jehad mein hai sabr ke qaabuu mein nahiin’ (Life is in the fight, not in the patience) particularly fascinates me. There is something in this line. I don’t know, just something. I am not going to wait, I am going to run to, run away from. Patience has never been my virtue. And something and Kaifi Azmi tell me it might not even be a virtue at all! And I am not a big fan of stuffing patience and love in the same jar too. They create way too much ruckus.

Enjoy both the poems.