He goes through phases with his hair and his heart.
Sometimes, he likes fur and big goggle glasses
but then, he turns grey and is a mystery all over again.
I tell myself I know him,
but there are nights when
I see dreams of his face but not his name.
It’s difficult to remember it all.
It’s difficult to articulate it all.
So, I bury the memories under sand
somewhere in my mind’s backyard
and walk away. (more…)
Am I a dilapidated structure that looks like a castle on the outside?
A mirage in a wet desert of unclean dreams and forbidden conversation?
Or am I real like your breathing on my neck, gentle nudges towards the sad, narrow path?
Tell me, who I am. (more…)
A short story I wrote about a family, torn by a painful past and an uncertain future…
If I was not careful with my words,
diplomatic, biting my tongue and lip –
I’d say, Godse’s spirit runs free today
like an untamed horse galloping
on no man’s land.
But then I won’t say it, for fear
of being branded with the anti-nationals,
grouped with the seditious.
Screw it all.
I just want to teach peace
and quit the violence the way
the whites quit India.
Political associations are the bane of my destiny. (more…)
I’ve been reading a book named ‘This Summer and That Summer’ by Sanjeev Sethi and I have been enjoying it greatly. If you’d like to read my review on the book, check it out via this link-
For now, I’m going to share one of my favourite poems from the book. (more…)
Narratives are often exaggerated
for fear of unaroused laughter and silent
mockers. There are those that wear diamonds
in their ears and walk around with side swept hair
and burnt broccoli in the pockets of their white collared shirts.
They do not care for comical stories of unrealized
imaginations and dreams of blemished rejects,
dark skinned and unlike their distant loves.
The world may talk of new beauty beyond sizes
and colors. I know white creams and botox
still make the most money.
Photo credit: kissabug via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Because he loved me the least and he hurt me the most.
Because somewhere I got tired of still waters.
I fell for tsunami waves, crashing on my shore
destroying every little piece of me. I hated him in the beginning.
I hated him in the end, but somewhere in between
I fell in love with the idea that the roar in his waters was meant for me.
He screamed and cried, and I cried too. And somewhere there
I began to see the words and melody that formed on my lips. It was
magic. But the painful kind. (more…)
Red hood cars with metal rims were prepared
to whisk away that indignant girl who votes for the hand,
and Baboo ready to spring on those
half-wit photographers who had no credentials to their name.
There is no value for framed certificates in this land of street credit.
Motor cycles burn. Lathis charged.
It’s just collateral damage. (more…)
I am happy to post a submission by Willie Gordon Suting who is a poet and writer from my hometown, Shillong. For me, it is always heart warming to read poems from one of my own. This poem is laced with imagery and a subtle message of hope for the hopeless. Willie’s style is prosaic, simple and full of raw potential. His writings have appeared in the Sunday Supplement of The Shillong Times, a daily from Shillong and also in The Northeast Today (Online Magazine) .He currently works as a schoolteacher in Shillong. (more…)
She used to be just an Egyptian goddess that I would read of,
with a zero figure and pretty face of yellow, hair I want. But today,
these days, she is not a goddess and she is not history. These days
she walks around with black masks and big guns, slashing throats
and reeking of poisonous terror, evil I cannot comprehend. Now,
she is not only making films of severed heads with men who hate
the west but speak like it too. She’s started blowing up dreams (more…)
A Poetic Journey 