never before
i have seen such a face like yours
One side of a face wants to live
with an eye looking
at its future of a crippled life.
One side so dead with a blind eye
with the smashed jaw
and broken bones.
"Brother! touch this
See! the bones are all broken
into pieces"
I touched your face
knowing i would write this poem
helplessly peeping through a night
that tells me 'I dont belong here'
first time i saw you
you were lying half unconscious
at AIIMS
with the nurses giving you injections
that your generation already has more or less
unconsciously on some hospital beds
or consciously hiding from the wind that carries
the smell of a rotten valley
You came to Delhi
with a bullet in your head
with one eye blind
with a father who sold away
his land to save a son.
Perhaps Delhi is the origin
of the bullet in your head
yet you come here carrying
your half dead body
Doctors they looked at you
with their face squeezing out
like rats
You came out saying with the best smile
i have seen:
"they say "bahut mujkil hai""
i distracted you saying
"there was an article on you in tehelka"
you asked "Is my photograph there?"
you wondered how your friends would react
after seeing you.
But your face is the face of our generation
every broken bone is the broken dreams
you believe you will recognize
the one who shot you at that night
Yes, slowly this world will forget
only you will not forget this world
and your father in his slippers
walked away for his sick sister
Leaving us alone stranded
And we shook hands
but you passed me the anger
and you left me
carrying the unconscious land
on your small shoulder saying
with your innocent smile
"i will catch my own vehicle to Manipur Bhavan"
I asked to myself
"who left this land here?"
I see every pieces of it in your face
I see it turning its back on me
as you walked away
like it is prompting;
I can't do anything like every ship of fools.
I watched you fading away
And i found myself in a market
of potatoes and tomatoes
looking for something to cook
that could make me feel home
Collage: Free Verse
Cut my tongue
slip it inside your cunt
it will start speaking
something else to please you
or it may die
before it reaches your womb
it is not the tongue
it is the matter of heart
Waking up at this hour
i cook bamboo shoot
as the dream smelt home
i sold away my freedom
to all birds
in return they pay me
bird's eye view of a tiny insect
who seeks freedom
from elephant
slanted eyes they look at me
poisoning the sound of silence
deprived of a clear blue sky
i pray for a red one
a red sky with nipples
which rain freedom
some go for bullets
some go for tablets
or all they sit by the roadside
chattering like sparrow
and they celebrate
a feast in the name of east
is it sadness or madness
that night is crying
through the hole
of the old banyan tree
with the fallen leaves wiping
the streets scarred by their boots
slip it inside your cunt
it will start speaking
something else to please you
or it may die
before it reaches your womb
it is not the tongue
it is the matter of heart
Waking up at this hour
i cook bamboo shoot
as the dream smelt home
i sold away my freedom
to all birds
in return they pay me
bird's eye view of a tiny insect
who seeks freedom
from elephant
slanted eyes they look at me
poisoning the sound of silence
deprived of a clear blue sky
i pray for a red one
a red sky with nipples
which rain freedom
some go for bullets
some go for tablets
or all they sit by the roadside
chattering like sparrow
and they celebrate
a feast in the name of east
is it sadness or madness
that night is crying
through the hole
of the old banyan tree
with the fallen leaves wiping
the streets scarred by their boots
To a sick Man
To a sick Man
who coughs to be scolded
by his wife
to a sick man
who lays on bed when his night
tangled up in his eyes
to never let them close
to a sick man
who sings like crow
who still collects books of poems
when bombs rain on his tin roof
To a sick man
who demands his friends to revolt
when all he knows is
how not to sleep at night
when his wife is sleeping next
who coughs to be scolded
by his wife
to a sick man
who lays on bed when his night
tangled up in his eyes
to never let them close
to a sick man
who sings like crow
who still collects books of poems
when bombs rain on his tin roof
To a sick man
who demands his friends to revolt
when all he knows is
how not to sleep at night
when his wife is sleeping next
Slippery Indian Citizen
Sailing across the Indian Ocean
fishing with a bamboo stick
all the way from the Koubru mountain
fishing pearls for my love
who left me for good
who left me hanging between my rusty guitar strings
a small town boy I was,
who has seen the ocean only in Baywatch
or in Discovery Channel
I have never smelt an ocean before
but it smelt familiar
it smelt like the god of hand's job
the god that create humankind
No, it was all a day dream
call it a poet's fantasy
I was sailing in my own semen
with my bed as boat
with my zero balance ATM card as map to nowhere
with no compass to tell me I am east or west
north or south.
Why? Why?
Why did I confuse a pool of my own semen
with Indian Ocean?
Why, you tell me?
I remember reading by heart
the preamble in school of fools.
still I remember by heart
all the fundamental rights.
Yes! I am an Indian citizen
with bonus fundamental rights
"right to to be shot any time
right to be called an militant"
again later that night
I smelt something familiar
I couldn't move too
It must be a nightmare I thought
after reading Hindustan Times
and Tehelka Magazine
with 2000 farmers committing suicide per page
with two women raped in Kashmir in a corner
with Manipur in flames
I couldn't move
I have never understood India's head
but now I felt India is on top of me
with all its blood on my face
suffocating me
that morning I woke up tired
in the garbage boy's knock on my poor door
until the day I went to Khajuraho
and saw those god given positions
I didn't understand that
that night I was in 69 position
with India.
I never had sex that way
but why with India?
Was my citizenship demanding too much?
Why did India let me suck all her blood?
Why did India take my tongue within her slippery organ?
My tongue was stuck, it tasted blood
Why did it all happened before I could see India's face?
Or Is India wearing a burqa?
Nevertheless I discover India
I am the third after Vasco De Gama and Nehru
But I have become a joke
since I claimed it
like my own sperm
dying under the Summer fan.
O! I have become a slippery Indian citizen
fishing with a bamboo stick
all the way from the Koubru mountain
fishing pearls for my love
who left me for good
who left me hanging between my rusty guitar strings
a small town boy I was,
who has seen the ocean only in Baywatch
or in Discovery Channel
I have never smelt an ocean before
but it smelt familiar
it smelt like the god of hand's job
the god that create humankind
No, it was all a day dream
call it a poet's fantasy
I was sailing in my own semen
with my bed as boat
with my zero balance ATM card as map to nowhere
with no compass to tell me I am east or west
north or south.
Why? Why?
Why did I confuse a pool of my own semen
with Indian Ocean?
Why, you tell me?
I remember reading by heart
the preamble in school of fools.
still I remember by heart
all the fundamental rights.
Yes! I am an Indian citizen
with bonus fundamental rights
"right to to be shot any time
right to be called an militant"
again later that night
I smelt something familiar
I couldn't move too
It must be a nightmare I thought
after reading Hindustan Times
and Tehelka Magazine
with 2000 farmers committing suicide per page
with two women raped in Kashmir in a corner
with Manipur in flames
I couldn't move
I have never understood India's head
but now I felt India is on top of me
with all its blood on my face
suffocating me
that morning I woke up tired
in the garbage boy's knock on my poor door
until the day I went to Khajuraho
and saw those god given positions
I didn't understand that
that night I was in 69 position
with India.
I never had sex that way
but why with India?
Was my citizenship demanding too much?
Why did India let me suck all her blood?
Why did India take my tongue within her slippery organ?
My tongue was stuck, it tasted blood
Why did it all happened before I could see India's face?
Or Is India wearing a burqa?
Nevertheless I discover India
I am the third after Vasco De Gama and Nehru
But I have become a joke
since I claimed it
like my own sperm
dying under the Summer fan.
O! I have become a slippery Indian citizen
Stranded
I am stranded
between this city and that land
my body here
my shadow there
nostalgia is a phobia
when nights die slowly
with fragments of poetry
i am caught in a pool of blood
yet my toes dig the morning sand
of my innocent days
i wear this city
with all its street lights
yet i cry the tears
that brought from home
i have sliced the night of this city
with words of anger
yet i sob as i learn
my anger is synonymous to hunger
that i carry from city to city
for the land i never own
between this city and that land
my body here
my shadow there
nostalgia is a phobia
when nights die slowly
with fragments of poetry
i am caught in a pool of blood
yet my toes dig the morning sand
of my innocent days
i wear this city
with all its street lights
yet i cry the tears
that brought from home
i have sliced the night of this city
with words of anger
yet i sob as i learn
my anger is synonymous to hunger
that i carry from city to city
for the land i never own
just a girl
i am just a girl
who bleeds routinely
sometime i bleed tears
sometime silence
And now i have learn
what to do
when i become a woman
who only possess a bed
and a kitchen
i will grow thorn
in the bed
i will cook poison
in the kitchen
salt it with my past tear
and a drop of blood
for every season
and serve them in my stained clothe
who bleeds routinely
sometime i bleed tears
sometime silence
And now i have learn
what to do
when i become a woman
who only possess a bed
and a kitchen
i will grow thorn
in the bed
i will cook poison
in the kitchen
salt it with my past tear
and a drop of blood
for every season
and serve them in my stained clothe
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