Kandhamal...

Let’s write our destinies on the leaf of desire,
Let’s bring back the dead from the burning pyre.

Why smear some ash, some vermillion on the face,
Why act like mercenary puppets on hire.

Let’s not think for thinking makes it hard to remember,
Let’s forget for once that we created the fire.

Why blow over cinders and feed them with straw,
Why not let it be subsumed in its own mire.

Let’s pour some libations for the spirits, who watch,
Let’s not knowingly get into the gyre.

Why pretend to sleep while dying tonight,
Why fall “Mirage” and pretend to go higher.

Post script: This post/gazal is an appeal to the people of Kandhamal(a small district in Orissa) and Kashmir, where they are killing each other in the name of religion, in the name of God. Do we have a right to take away something that we cannot give to others? It is honour killing. Which honur? Whose honour? The pseudo secularism in India has not failed to bring shame to humanity for so long now. the bloodshed in the name of religion has to be stopped. There is only one religion, the religion of LOVE. How difficult is that to follow?

Secondly, this genre of English Gazal has been inspired by Agha Shahid Ali's innovative use of the Gazal Genre into English.

BEING HUMAN!

I burst the blisters that cling to my flesh,
To dye the blood, with my frozen hands;
My cracked heels, thawing toes, perform,
A strange barter, between me and sands.

Together we grow, Together we suffer,
Finding our way, through times untold;
Moving past mirages, searching for oasis,
That exists, for we believe, will unfold.

I wouldn’t reach, the desired place,
I was desert, Desert was me;
I still fought on, shifting landscapes,
Churning constantly the cosmic sea.

I knew, the oasis was within me, yet,
Centuries of time to seek and strain;
Becoming the oasis, drop by drop,
Let go the desert, grain by grain.

The eternal moment on the vortex stands,
As the epochs ripple along with lands;
Yet I know, I will transform,
Renouncing the oasis, revealing the sands.

SILENCES

They slowly creep into my home,
Settling behind the shadows high,
In the forsaken corners,
And solitary spaces,
Sighing sundered,
Scarred.
Stoic.

DREAMS.

They stay suspended in reality,
Hanging down from the lush gardens,
Of green words with ripened fruits,
They grow on huge trees, ages old,
Long, thick, off shoots of language,
With heaving tentacles that,
Penetrate back into the earth,
Be one with the soil,
In the embrace of the roots,
To rise up all over again,
Undaunted yet again,
With new flowers,
Fragrance, Which rises and grows within,
Till all the senses are intoxicated.
To gather the world and ignite life.

ILLEGITIMATE SANITY...

She sat in the corner of the room,
Gnawing at her words,
Licking at the piece of paper,
Where lay her meaningless rants
Carefully swallowing every crumb
Of her vomit on the page;
Her bare truth, her naked instincts;
An acid that brew her soul as ate her body

Acid that could not be sustained anywhere,
Acid that was not to be borne anywhere,
Acid that was to be, to be.
Acid that she had to be.

She had to scald and seethe
Into acid find retreat, before
She be welcomed back again
To this world, for the sane.

Parallels.

While living the lines,
In mind, through mind;
I wander far away,
Slowly I draw this,
Magical power of apparition,
Fused with multiple identities,
I cry, smile and breathe
The air that whips the images,
While the feelings bleed,
Tears purgate my aimless efforts,
Of creating a line;
Or being created as a line;
Celebrating the protagonist.

I close the pages,
I come back,
And go on about my endless chores,
Struggling for life;
Struggling against life;
Apparitions suddenly coming to life;
In faces I meet on way to work,
Lines that ooze lives in my ears,
Over the endless phone calls;
When I close my eyes and sit back,
To let the mind untangle a bit,
A question whirls around,
Who is not a protagonist?

the third world

comma full stop exclamation question mark
visible blank spaces invisible dark places
the alphabet collapses the lines don’t meet
the word blurs on the wet canvas sheet
the lines break off and fall apart
the song is stopped as soon as it starts
they write and sing and they know it not
the Muse is dead the melody lost
no prayers or lamentations heard
no one waits anymore for Noah’s bird