Another Body/Another Land

That Night

He came brimming as a Conspiracy.

Started loving me fanatically

Like a Dictator

In a state of emergency.

Obsessed with Power

He overthrew my body.

Observed my every move

As if devising a new plot.

He policed me keenly

Like a seditious statement.

His lips

That night

Resembled the Media

Loaded to seduce

With catchy phrases.

His rough skin

Scratched strange Maps

Altering the entire landscape in me.

He edited all my words out

Removed them altogether

With his diplomatic kisses.

He inserted all his madness

Revolution, Rage in me.

I shuddered:

An uninterrupted earthquake.

My Body

A profiteering Factory.

My Hair

An opaque smoke.

My Chest

A Nuclear Plant

In its nascent state.

By the End of the night

When the Wind blew like News

I could sense

His whole Army in my mind

Shooting Pain.

He was Satisfied

He declared.

And why should he not be?

He had dramatically conquered

Another Body/Another Land.

Nothingnesses

Of all the Nothingnesses

That come my way

And invade me

With a barrage of Emotions

Too difficult to express.

My Love -

Which one should I name after you?

Poem Postponed

In view of

The major crisis

Around the

Delicate regions of Heart

Following the disappearance of Love

The Poem

Scheduled for today

Entitled

You are the Skin I wear

Has been postponed

Until

Beloved’s safe return.

Inconvenience is

Poetically regretted.

In Memory of Agha Shahid Ali

Because you loved repeating, “What to Say?”

Unanswered everything perishes, what to say?

Permissible it remains to kiss the Death  

Ah! Your lips forbidden, what to say?

That Chinar tree still meditates about us

To the leaves of Memory, what to say?

Again, My History befriends nightmares

Again, we were sold cheap, what to say?

Cold smiles our love smuggles, casually

Blind it was always, Disinterested, what to say?

Homeostasis

Most of the times

Life seems

Like fitting a peg in the desert.

But

What balances

Rather disturbs

The Earth within me

Is the Dandelion of your Memory

Which sprouts frequently

 From the belly of my

Barren Skin.

Ghazal

Raastey Dhundhlay, Purkhaar Huwe Jaate Hai

Bin Tumhare Safar Dushwaar Huwe Jaate Hai

Zindagi Kay In Ghaney Andhaeroun Mein, Hardum

Diyey Teri Yaadoun Kay Darkaar Huwe Jaate Hai

Abke Thaan Lee Hai Tumhe Bhula Deney Ki

Hum Bhi Kya Ab Kirdaar Huwe Jaate Hai

Hijr Kay Iss Dard Mein Hum Aksar

Teri He Yadoun Say Sangsaar Huwe Jaate Hai

Suna Hai Seekh Chuke Ho Tum Waqt Guzaarna

Hum Bhi Ab Kuch Fankaar Huwe Jaate Hai

Separation

As the Oxford English Dictionary defines it

Separation is:

“the action or state of moving or being moved apart”

By the definition

It seems then:

We have separated

Long ago.

Exist separately in each other.

And now

Every moment

Keep knitting

A moving account of Separation

Into one another.  

My Dear,

Who will publish the Dictionary of Love? 

Your Literary Eyes

Having read

The fiction in your Eyes

Tricked with rich Imagery.

It seems

I can

With ease –

Write

A captivating

Autobiography of Love

Fraught with

Unloved moments

And Unbearable pain

Oh! The Literature that your Eyes possess.

Love is no News

They all pester me with their questions.

How did it happen?

Do you know her?

Is she the one?

And what not…..!!!

In a poetic frustration

I answer:

She created History

When she called

After decades of cold war

On my phone.

I picked up the call.

And it all started.

To cut it short:

It was a conspiracy through radio waves.

A well-planned coup

Against the dictatorship of facades.

First, Breath committed suicide.

Then, the entire technology of the Soul faltered.

I lost the beloved land of my skin.

My senses are still casualties.

So please 

leave me alone.

How did it happen?

It happened because of her one casual sentence:

They all get ready to script it.

“How are you?”

They look at each other in amazement.

And disappointingly say:

This won’t sell  

Let’s go.

Free Kashmir*

“I can free Kashmir”

She said temptingly.

“But on a condition”: ______

“Love me more than Freedom”

Since then

I am

A Slave

Naively

In Love with her.

tête-à-tête

“Death has a vagrant Soul”

I say.

“So has Sadness”

She replies curiously.

We glance

And Smile

At each other’s Sorrow.

Meanwhile

The spade of Lips

Plucks our Smiles

and buries them

Swiftly

In the graveyard of Cheeks.

“Death has a vagrant Soul”

I say.

“So has Sadness”

Death Foretold

She thought

Her vein

Was a Ribbon.

That

She would cut it

And inaugurate

Something quite new

For herself.

Probably

A Life full of Colors.

Everybody.

Almost everyone

Advised her against.

One Night

Like an adept Performer

She cut her vein

Like a Ribbon.

The color was later washed away
With colorless water

and some cheap towels.

Baran

It’s been raining hard

In my Head

Since you left

Like Monsoon

On the shores of my Neurons.

Since then

My Eyes are my water gates.

And

My Skull

My Sky

Where dark clouds rain Memories

As wet

As the tip of your Tongue.

Cheating Love

It turns

almost everyone

Into a plagiarist.

I too am a plagiarist in love.

“I Love You”

“I Love You too” 

Suicide Note

What’ll happen that day?

I tremble.

I Fear.

The Day

When intentionally

On your study table

I leave

All my poems

All of them

Just beside your published paper.

I Fear.

What’ll happen that day?

And

What if you catch hold of them?

And actually start reading them

Page by page

 One by one

While I am away

Busy,

Collecting metaphors in Jhelum.

I Fear

What’ll happen that day?

My love.

You: An Erudite Academician

Me: A Poor Versifier.

An Appetite for Love

Lately

I have developed

An appetite for love

In love

I want to turn

The whole valley

Into a paper clip

In love

I want to drink the stars

Eat the moonbeams

And lick the spicy roses

In love

I want to turn this starry night

Into your curled eyelashes

I want to churn all the Chinars

Into a refreshing Kehwah

In love

I want to wriggle your dyed scarf

To doves

In love

I want to sculpt you

Out of dense clouds

In love

I want to turn all truths

Into one simple joke

And give tongue

To all the silences

In love

I want to give memories

A sound mind

So that they don’t fade away

In love

I want to write you

As a Ghazal

Rhyming your breaths to mine

In love

I want to be your loved earrings

Dangling the universe

In love

I want to politicize myself as a rumour

In love

In want to be a character

From One Thousand and One Nights

Accustomed to magic

In love

I want to be a well decorated Tonga

Taking passengers from Dalgate to Nishat

In Old Srinagar

In love

I want to be the sole owner

Of Borges’ Book of Sand

In love

I want to bore you so much

That you fall asleep in my arms

In love

I want to be that rusty dustbin

Often seen

Smelling the garbage

Of torn letters

In love

I want to be a dead mother

Missed deeply by her children

In love

I want to feign sickness

Bedridden

In your castle of care

In love

I want to be a dervish

Lost completely in whirls

Or an Ustad skilled enough

To play with the surs

In love

I realize

Little can be attained through hate

Much lost in anger

In love

I want to pretend you love me

Love under Section 144 CrPC

"We

Shouldn’t

Meet

Now

…………."

My Digital Dreams

And thus were

My Digital Dreams

Electrocuted.

Because of the Signal of Trust

Being weak

I lost the sublime connection

To the channel of your Love.

I now miss

Almost

All the Programs of Hope

All the Soaps of Happiness

Every Sitcom of Tears

And yes

All your

Emotional Ads.

I failed

Utterly

As a Consumer of Passions.

My soul

Now

is

An old flickering TV

Beyond repair

Which they keep banging

With their fists of Intellect.

Meanwhile

I keep looking for you

In the white noise map

Of my rectangular being.

Life is a low TRP Serial.

Pain is a Poet from Kashmir

Well obviously

I snapped

That is because

As an artist

You can’t ignore them

They are all essential readings.

Sorrow

Pain

Death

Grief

Agony

Loneliness

They are all major poets from Kashmir

Their themes

Get in my way.

It’s too hard

For me

Not to allude to them.