ALTERNATIVE...

Draping the truth to adorn a lie,
A smile to easily utter a sigh,

Loneliness be woven within the fabric,
Love bleeds fast the color of a dye,

Unit conversion, best understood,
When a step away you see distance multiply,

Desires and longing and yearning arrive at,
A presumed past that pricks every try,

Crouching and crawling in the shadowy corners,
With words that subsume the urge to cry,

How long shall we sit and stare up above,
Lets hang “Mirage”, earth over the sky.

Artificial.

Tow along,
Unfinished the task, for yet its day,
Its not yet dark, the light will stay,
The cosmos awake, the dusk away,
Just a passing shadow, its month of May,
No snow, no storm to bar your way,
The fall shall never fall from today.

binaries

I lay listening to my world mourn,
Celebrations flamboyant while the sun shone.

Dark my color, darkness my name,
From Dreary hopes have I overgrown,

My silence makes each listen and lament
Every pain I hear cry out and moan.

For you the varied noises shall purge,
Let dawn be queen, let me be a drone.

Surrendering to a mild dementia,
You seek for me unknowing, unknown.

Your eyes tight shut in my presence
I simmer “Mirage” within, forlorn.

UFF...

उफ़… कितना शोर है यहाँ, सन्नाटे की आवाज़ में,
बेसब्र दौड़ती मंजिलें, पनाह की तलाश में.

इसे आँख का सुरमा कहिये, ये खौफ जो है आँख में,
ये अँधेरा ही तो है छुपा जो रौशनी के लिबास में.

कुछ खो गया था रात दिन जिसे ढूँढा हमने ख्वाब में,
कुछ आरजू में गिन लिया कुछ चाहत के हिसाब में,

जो कल गया वो आज था, जो आज कल के साथ है,
गुजारिश गुलिस्तान की है जो खिल उठे इस ख़ाक में.




An attempt at the translation...(bad though)


Clamour encompassed in silence here,
Destinations are seeking refuge here,

Call my fear the kohl of my eyes,
Night comes draped in light here,

I searched my dreams for things I lost,
Few put in longings, few in desires here,

Yesterday what went was today, my now is lost in yesterday,
I hope for Eden to revive itself, from this debris lying here.

VANITY...

Lo behold! Let’s go and vend,
Threads that took me eons to rend.

I must, share myself with the world,
On and off it has been my friend.

The skin takes time before falling off,
Every incision, someone comes to mend.

Yet somehow, the scars stand apart,
An archive of each, curve and bend.

The journey to purgation still unfinished,
The destination a delusion a dead dead end.

Scribbling on sheet, surfeited tales,
And these vain verses “Mirage” shall rend.

OPIUM...

Burnt earth bereft of sky,
Eagles swoop to stay behind,
Vultures rule the mangled heaps,
Caskets unveiled by shadows blind.

Owls sing in the praise of hawks,
Bats blinking in endless gaze,
Unknown noise screams within,
As night descends to skulk on preys,

And we all stay silent.

benumbed

Satin slashed, swell and sway,
Shredded, sweltering on the way.

Mangled bodies burning the furnace,
Minds indulging in mindless play.

The state solves the jigsaw puzzle,
My city back, beautiful and gay.

The idol of god is lit of course,
In the graveyards all night and day.

Let’s paint our faces to hide the tears,
Fears are for weak as they say.

“Mirage” you too, shall chatter and babble,
To hold the terrible silence at bay.