Maritime Scenes

Flotsam

(goods that float on the surface of the water as the result of a wreck or accident)

Like oil spill,

my crude Love

affecting the marine life

of your indifference.

Jetsam

(goods thrown overboard to lighten the load of the ship if it is in danger of sinking)

Like this material body,

discarded

to tide along

your moonlit face.

Lagan

(goods cast overboard and heavy enough to sink to the ocean floor, but linked to a floating marker so that they can be found again)

Like soulmates,

struggling separately to float

over the sea of people,

but One, deep inside.

Derelict

(goods that have sunk to the ocean floor, relinquished willingly or forcefully)

Like Truth,

drooling fom the pile 

of dead bodies

under well-planned institutions.

21st Century

(I)

Truth is weak sartorially and lost in thought.

 

Lies multiply,

argue with precision

and steal the thunder.

 

(II)

In this tiny

Matchbox of History,

 

Living in the

matchsticks of nationalities,

 

we wait to be burned

and burn –

 

the polluted air is on our side. 

The Game

 When I was a child,

my grandmother owned

a brace of ducks.

I used to make the tiny creatures run

as fast as I wanted them to and

at times

turn them into birds,

coerce them into flying,

if only momentarily,

as high as they could.

 

Meanwhile,

I laughed, screamed, giggled

until tired of the game.

 

Now,

paddling in the watery

world of ambition

struggling even to walk

exhausted, beaten

injured –

cornered in the high walls of deceit and trickery –

witness the world’s boisterous laugh

at the run-over puppy of my being.

Gaggle

(for Mary Oliver)

Caught in a gridlock

beside the highway –

like Venn diagrams

overlying each other

in a passenger car

rationing our breaths and

then suddenly a gaggle,

in all their obliviousness,

emerge from the dirty water

waddling across the road

honking, probably, in exultation

thinking themselves to be unsoiled.

 

Meanwhile,

we smirk –

                together

in a cage.

What is Grief?

Of what age is grief?

Does it have parents and siblings?

Does it celebrate its birthdays?

Or is it a bore?

Can it be found lying

between a therapist and a patient?

Or between a voter and a politician?

Does it ramble to God?

Is it religious, dogmatic or follows a cult?

Does it cry along with the fragile?

Or go looking for another client?

Does it shred

Or completely annihilates one?

Is it satisfied with its achievements?

Does it reside in eyes, dark circles

Or the whole body?

 

Or,

Is it also,

Like us,

Looking for answers

Everywhere?

Origami

That’s why,

probably,

the poet declared

the world to be full of paper.

 

He understood to well

how origami(esque)

we all are.

 

How,

for example,

at each moment

we are shaped, moulded

Even writ upon.

Running gag

There are days

and nights

so lonely

that something

as weird as coughing

seems like laughing.

A sort

of some stand-up comedy

of the organs

with certain internal jokes

doing rounds.

Jokes one can’t resist

but guffaw – or retch

at times.

 

Rest of the days,

one feels lost, dazed

in the maze

of offices, people, things –

waiting for people . . .

No …

 

One wishes for the jokes to continue.

Nimbus

 Lying in the corner of

your tiny decrepit balcony

catatonic to flutter

in a coarse mud pot

with frail thorns –

like the weary cactus plant

that doesn’t even desire water –

let me wilt

wither away –

silently, overlooked

even forgotten

but near, adjacent –

close to you.

 

Because

out here,

in this fiendish world

beautiful and useful

adored and caressed –

I am a fucking Rose!

Being There

 Also published in Inverse Journal https://www.inversejournal.com/2022/01/27/being-there-a-poem-by-mubashir-karim/

As the year went by

hastily—

excited to reach

anywhere—

probably

the end of the year—

Somewhere.

I too—

with (almost) everything

within my reach

(except Time)

found the festive fair within me

but the child lost—

Lost—

within the maddening crowd—

weeping, talking, reading, texting,

teaching, watching, proving, arguing...

 

This year

I hope,

I could just

Stay.

Linger.

Just be.

 

Like a tree

Hung with a hoarding

Saying

Nothing of any use

But essential

Nonetheless.

What You were born to do

I imagine you – picking

one-after-one-after-one

the scattered matchsticks

from the greasy floor,

crying over your luck

in a suburb

in some tiny apartment.

For this

was not meant to be your fate.

These were

not the activities

you thought you were born to do.

You were

meant for something colossal.

Something mighty.

 

Something like,

Lighting a matchstick

when everything else has dissipated

and endeavouring to light

somebody’s pitch-dark ignorance and

keeping up the rhythm of lightning

one more and more and more

whilst your fingers begin to singe.

 

Look around!

There’s light

(even if only a speck).

Death Foretold

Lightning,

in those days, was

God’s unmetered stanzas about rain –

rebirth, fruition, fertility –

with some of us

delicately holding out

the parched hands to

touch the poems,

wherein,

metaphors sailed like similes.

 

These days,

there’s

an over-abundance of poetry

(if it is so)

the images inundate us.

We fail to decipher anything

at all –

the way things held too close

seel blurred.

We struggle to hold

the sewerage under our noses.

 

Lightning in the sky is death foretold.

Some (un)poetic Contiguities

 

Also published in The Bombay Literary Magazine https://bombaylitmag.com/?p=1192

The tea cup has broken

in the shape of your lip –

the way people break

when nudged by grief.

 

The ink has spilled near the pocket

in the shape of a territory –

the stain stays –

the way an occupier does.

 

The paperback has dog eared

around the edges –

the way Time arrives

as a wave.

 

The mirror has splintered

into fragments –

the way autumnal leaves crunch

when stepped over.

 

The door has been smeared

around the handle –

the way dark circles encamp

under the eyes.

 

The face has cultivated

pimples overnight –

the way poems arrive

in the midst of a crowd –

unrhymed.