The Way of the Word

On and on I wax and wane to attain a spotless moon
And they lied who say youth’s carefree.

My tangled threads may unknot but cannot smoothen the creases
On the brow of time, the map of my mind.

The world’s was too wide to hold a purgatory, so Dante journeyed,
And I wander on, to wash the wound of words.

My hapless words were yelping dogs, yet called the bitches bite, now
Voices float up on merciless shores like the dead the tide throws.

The wanderer did find wayfarer, but the way wound away,
The tongue did try to utter but truth had turned astray.

So like an ascetic’s white I donned wordlessness
And often dreamt of colour to paint blank leaves.

Till nauseous pain fought and summoned this pen back
Where to? I know not, perhaps another wordless way.

Tell me a story...

‘Maa, tell me a story naa’,
Four-year old innocence
Tugged petulantly at pleats
Of the yellow dhakai saree
Which blurred, then merged
With the damp blue patch
Cornered with spider-threads;
Drawing afternoon and sky.


So she began
Like a practiced teller
Of summer-noon tales,
‘Once upon a time…’
Raking brown leaves
That crunched beneath
Heavy-hearted steps
Waiting to be trampled.

Swallow-hopping the surface
Of several mossy green
Memory-waters, orange reverie
Flooded through sieve curtains,
Of another boy who had tugged
Saree pleats, braided hair
And entwined knotty fingers
In search of a story

‘Tarpor, then?’
Tiny fingers fingered
Hers, and so,
‘The prince fought
A terrible long war…’
So sense battled
Grey nostalgia
Flint-edged pain.


White-laced fantasy lined
Faithfully the edges of untruth,
While a black-night seered
Like chronic corporeal pain,
To blow tales away,
Faraway discordant played

A beauteous note
On a broken flute.

So lie won, and
She strung the tale
To a perfect finish,
‘And so the prince
Handsomely rescued
The frail nymph
And rode into
Happily ever after.’

Fallen

Words, running through these pages
Strung into verse, tale and book,
Or hung on threads invisible
Moving back and forth amongst us;
All to whom I have gone as a pilgrim,
Nay, a seeker–for peace, comfort, understanding,
Words again, that strike as trite now,
To our too-accustomed, cynical ears
That catch din, clamour ever so better.

They should walk
Only so far,
Never cross thresholds
That marks them
As treasures,
For having fallen over
They can never quite
Raise themself.
Rag pickers, now.

Wandering

Shifting from my earlier blog wasn't easy but I suppose it is worth it...and afterall, this is how I am--the eternal itinerant, restless, impatient, a thousand ideas bursting forth in a fountain of enthusiasm to become drops of scattered water resting on the grass, basking in the sun, rising to become memory-clouds. And it seems there's enough space in blogspace for both blogs to co-exist in harmony! here's the link tot he earlier one

http://shabcheragh.wordpress.com/

So somethings carried over from earlier and a bit of the new. A couplet, a first...

Kisse to kaee hain, tere maey mein doobi
Qalam-syahi ki talaash hai...