Oh baby's home.

Love Liberates by Maya Angelou.

Portrait- Yellow dress

Like a lily she stood in the drizzle
Under that glistening green leafy tree
With one hand on her waist
What a sight of absolute authority
In a sunshine yellow tattered dress
Talking to a stray dog
I saw her from across the second compartment
Of a moderately crowded train
Across the vacant and filthy railway tracks
A little girl she was
In a small dumpster colony
Ready to lead the world
Her innocence and grace rescued by the huge tree
She was probably giving instructions to the dog
Who seemed to be paying a lot of attention
I just had to put a frame around them
For this was my second portrait
Never to be clicked
Always to be carried around

First Portrait: Here

I am learning

I am learning.
I am learning.

He is teaching me the art of nothing
She is telling me about a night
Stupendous lies
Sparkling desire
Gushing forth the lava of dreams
I am learning

The old woman is talking about death
Her beauty, her age
Her withered secret garden
The little kid talks about his love
Laughter, with a streak of nervousness
Laughter, rich and frothy
I am learning
Everyday
From everyone.

It is alright, she tells me.
Talk, say what scares you the most.
Then snuggle up with those dark truths
Like they were your lovers
I am listening
I am learning

He tells me about pain
Its glorification, its hypothesis
Its scientific nature
Its potency
I am listening
Intently.

This other one tells me about colors
Of blood. Of passion.
Red. Purple.
Black.
I am looking.

He takes me around
From corner to corner
Hoping to give love
Inheriting love
While we drink whiskey
Talks about pleasures
Simple. Complicated.
Complicated. Easy.
I am experiencing.

I am in this.
Deep.
With you, with everyone.
I am learning.
I am learning.
Everyday.
From everyone.

दिल है, बहता है

सिमटता है
सिकुड़ता है
एक खाली रास्ते सा मुड़ता है
सुनता है
कहता है
दिल है
बहता है
सन्नाटो से गले लगता है
शोर में गुम हो जाता है
तुम्हारे आते ही
नई दुल्हन सा बन जाता है
करहाता है कभी
कभी मरहम बन जाता है
दिल है
बहता है
कभी नुस्खे आज़माता है
कभी बेवजह शाम सा लहराता है
मचलता है
बेहेलता है
दिल है
बहता है
तुम चले जाते हो
तब कही जाकर
झूटमूठ चैन से सोता है

Beautiful and empty

Finally, after years,
They had exchanged places.
She was now chasing her shadow,
He, love and longing.

Here is hoping though,
The years after separation,
The separation after years,
Remain equally beautiful and empty.

In between

I am good at love.
I am good at hate.
Its in between that I freeze.
Been working on it,
But its too late,
Its been too late for years.
LEONARD COHEN

अलविदा

वोह तो दरिया था
दफ़न करते भी तो कैसे
एक पल ही तो था
उसे पास रखते भी तो कैसे

सड़क जैसा बहता दरवाज़े तक आया
चाँद सा पिघल कर उड़ गया
उसे याद रखते भी तो कैसे

किसी दिन फुर्सत में मिलोगे तो बतायंगे
की चन्द सिक्के खोते भी तो कैसे

The blank mirror

There is a poem,
Trying to peek into the mirror.
However, it shall not be reflected.
The muse's soul is tattered,
With a cover of steel.
There is a light at the deep end,
Harsh and dim.
The words are turning around,
Some of them are just melting,
Some of them playing a trick.
They trickle down the lovely face,
Not mine,
Not yours, for sure.
This shall be a prayer,
A curse,
A lover's plea.
This poem shall not be written.
Lets celebrate the blank mirror for once,
You and I know how blissful it is.

My Dreams by Deepti Naval

"My dreams
Look for the real thing
And my reality
Chases a dream!"

Read more poems by Deepti Naval here: http://www.deeptinaval.com/poet-BW-index.htm

Moon

Is it just me,
Or does each lamppost on the road,
Looks extremely lonely to you as well?

Do you think that the long train passing by,
Looks like a glimmering snake,
Entering into the night,
To be eaten alive by it.
Have you ever wondered,
That your lover might be on it?
I have.

Have you ever walked across a chaotic road,
And just a few blocks after,
Walked into the most perfect moment of your life?
A full moon,
Amidst skyscrapers, next to a tall coconut tree,
In the blue sky.

Have you ever gotten completely dissolved,
Inside a strange alcohol bottle,
Waiting for no one and nothing?

Finally, he had left the room

There was a fresh coat of paint,
Bright and subtle.
Words on the wall,
Were now a spunky graffiti.
The spaces in between
Were not struggling to breathe.
Finally,
Finally, he had left the room.

The most perfect day

It was a few days before this Christmas
I was dressed up in anticipation of a new love story
In a pink cardigan
The substitute of red, for the day
Colored eyes
Stood on the edge, all through the train ride
Hair flowing against the wind
She had a walking stick in her hand
Far way, she was climbing up the steps
Feeling each step with the bottom of the stick
A young boy came like a true stranger
He looked just like a long lost friendship
Held her hand
No questions were asked
He dropped her where the road was flat again
I thought this was the perfect day
It was
But there was more
A little girl stepped on my ugly green painted toes
I didnt even feel a thing
It was like the usual carelessness
Of someone you fell in love with too soon
But then she turned back
Oh man, she was an angel
She gave me the most magical smile and said sorry
Me, who barely ever smiles at strangers
Can you imagine how perfect the day was
I smiled at her, like I would just take her in my arms
And kiss her cheeks with all the love left inside of me
She got down at a station
Turned back and smiled at me,again
I felt like a bunch of flowers in a lover's hands
I did not know who to thank for such a wonderful morning
And then he forgot to call in the night
And I couldn't help but smile
It wasn't even ironical anymore
It was the most perfect day

Thank you Mr Dylan for this song

My mother's daughter

After forgetting most of my mother's birthdays, I told her today that she dare not forget my birthday tomorrow. She laughed and said that 'You are forgetting something. I gave birth to someone on this day, so may be its a bigger day for me than its for you.' And I realized that it indeed must be a big day for her.

Thanks to stupid Freud and his Oedipus complex, I have always blindly loved my father. Even if I am angry at him, I call up my mother and bitch about him or worse, vent out my anger at her. However, I will be 27 tomorrow and I realized that even though my father dominates a lot of practical aspects of my life, emotionally, I am my mother's daughter.

Actually, me, my mother and my maternal grandmother- we form a sort of a circle. One is a typical Rajasthani woman, with her obsession with colour yellow, who has stayed in Jaipur all her life with her gorgeous husband and four kids; another shifted her roots to an alien and monstrous big city to move in with her husband and a new strange family and another one who moved from one metro to another in her twenties, to start a new chapter in her life (if not a new life altogether). But all three of us are just the same. Wild, resolute, stubborn, loving, crazy, rebellious, sweet, honest, liars, impulsive, emotional, manic depressives, addicts, rooted, free, lonely, attached, mothers, daughters.

A lot of things have been passed on to me by these women as a legacy and some of them I have imbibed and snatched from my mother over the years. Her metamorphosis into this immensely powerful and independent woman, her blind faiths, her lost of innocence, her fall to a child like state, and then her grand rise from ashes like a phoenix, have been the most inspiring things in my life.

While my father has taught me the value of hard work, principles, innovations, good health and savings accounts, my mother has taught me how to actually live and more importantly, how to really love, and all this, without ever preaching anything. This 27th birthday is most definitely dedicated to my mother.

Deja vu

Each layer was slowly coming off,
Like the slow death of an era.
It was a moment of nothingness,
I could not even talk about it,
How do you fill nothingness into words.
The empty sentences dragged on,
Danced in front of me,
Mocking me.
It was like a deja vu,
Of a badly lit night,
Whose dawn I am still waiting for.
It could even be a nightmare
Where I am slowly degenerating,
Hoping that someone would wake me up.
Feels like a block of ice,
Eaten alive by sunshine,
If its reality,
Then I can wake up.
The clock has rusted off however,
The time we crossed is a universe now.
And the lump in my throat is now stuck forever,
Drinking moonlight to gulp it down,
But then again, if its a nightmare,
Moon is always far away from my reach.

Portraits

"Most of my pictures are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person's face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that I guess you'd call the human condition."

Steve McCurry
http://www.stevemccurry.com/

Picture: Afghan Girl (Sharbat Gula) by Steve McCurry

हर एक कश में

हर एक कश में
एक ज़िम्मा रखा था
ज़िन्दगी बहाने का
फ़िक्र आज़माने का
लम्हे बिखरे
एक फ़कीर की फरियाद की तरह
शाम की विरासत
रात ने लूटा दी
वोह पानी की तरह बही
आँखों में
मेरी, तुम्हारी
अब कश लम्बा हो चला
कुछ पल मेरे होठों पे रुका
तुम्हारी नज़र की तरह
अब वोह भी उड़ गया
खुले आकाश में
जो बादल से बंधा था
अब रात नहीं
कश भी नहीं
तुम भी नहीं
तुम्हारी याद?
खैर
हर एक कश में
एक ज़िम्मा रखा था

'All Souls' Day' by Frances Bellerby

Let's go our old way
by the stream, and kick the leaves
as we always did, to make
the rhythm of breaking waves.

This day draws no breath –
shows no colour anywhere
except for the leaves - in their death
brilliant as never before.

Yellow of Brimstone Butterfly,
brown of Oak Eggar Moth –
you'd say. And I'd be wondering why
a summer never seems lost

if two have been together
witnessing the variousness of light,
and the same two in lustreless November
enter the year's night…

The slow-worm stream - how still!
Above that spider's unguarded door,
look – dull pearls…Time's full,
brimming, can hold no more.

Next moment (we well know,
my darling, you and I)
what the small day cannot hold
must spill into eternity.

So perhaps we should move cat-soft
meanwhile, and leave everything unsaid,
until no shadow of risk can be left
of disturbing the scatheless dead.

Ah, but you were always leaf-light.
And you so seldom talk
as we go. But there at my side
through the bright leaves you walk.

And yet – touch my hand
that I may be quite without fear,
for it seems as if a mist descends,
and the leaves where you walk do not stir

When I saw you smile

Little boys ran naked on the field
A little arc of sunlight on their heads
Made them look like angels
Or lovely little devils

The mother filled her empty bag
With vegetables and glory
She looked at the idyllic sky
A soft viola played
A famished father called out

A lover collapsed in his beloved’s arms
And died a hundred thousand times

Flowers flew out
Butterflies lazed around
Birds took a cloud ride
Clouds took a sun roller coaster

The fruits were ripe
And none were forbidden
Shy girls gorged on them
Some even wrote poems

This is a bit of what happened,
When I saw you smile

RIP: Jagjit Singh