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.