Desolation, Vai B. Charm [bts book recommendations TXT] 📗

The day I learn how to write a poem

The day I learn how to write a poem

I will go stand on the rooftop

and shout your secrets to the universe

hoping to get back some of mine.

 

The day I learn how to tell a Manet from a Monet

I will dance around in my room

to the tunes of Chopin and Bach.

I will dance to whatever rhythm I like.

 

The day my lines turn out to be artistic

I will call upon Pollock's spirit and

learn how to throw paint around,

I wish to draw you on the sky.

 

The day I learn the art of forgetting

I will remember you for the last time,

feeling your presence in whiffs of a perfume

and (the) weight of your lips on mine.

 

The day I learn to sing

I will regret all the times

you had to listen to my off-beat tunes

and remember the way you smiled.

 

The day I learn to master the art of dying

I will stop myself from remembering you,

jump off the ninth cloud

and reach the Earth flying.

 

I wake up

I wake up

to find a face staring at me

in the mirror.

 

I don't recognise him and we make love

till breath lasts and my body,

restless, comes to a halt.

 

My heart races to find him again.

 

Hands on my face, looking for something

like a thirsty man in a desert lingers on his stomach looking for water.

 

My love, I know you are waiting at the other side

but I am unable to reach

my legs twined in thorny bushes,

my eyes stuck on the fingernail of his thumb,

the slant of his chest heaving with desire.

 

My heart, beat slow, don't let this pass.

 

Longing stays, I lose the boy in the mirror

water clears my vision

I find my eyes staring into themselves

looking hard in the brown hollows,

beauty disperses as I see

hatred floating at the corners.

 

Oh heart, run fast and stop soon

let this go away,

existence is pain, so set me free.

 

A poet accuses sorrow of being slow

A poet accuses sorrow of being slow

slow but radioactive, always decaying yet staying

I accuse you of leaving, while I walk backwards

tomorrow will be same as yesterday, today is a new day

today I remember you with all the flaws

today is the day we will meet again, part again

love again, say it all again

you want to do it all again?

no, leave again, go, run again

my hands are branches cut off trees

with dried leaves still intact

rose bushes come with thorns

no beauty is without it's hazards

there hangs a sign on your collarbone, Highly Perishable

I am an installation in a corner of an art gallery

nobody stops to look at me

there a scratch on me, chipped off while being shipped from Paris

a handling defect

I am not the valuable kind

some other artwork is the centrepiece

I am the dust gatherer, one that completes the count

nobody stops to caress me

I am not a Rothko, I am not a masterpiece by Michelangelo

I am me, a superficial speck of dust on your reading glasses,

the bookmark in your unfinished novel

I am that handkerchief you forgot in a metro coach somewhere

today was the day, now tomorrow will be today in a few hours

and we are/will be strangers again, almost (at least). 

 

stories in my head

I don't want to speak of the stories in my head,

so I will tell you other things.

 

A boy goes to the museum and weeps, 

standing in front of the Nighthawks.

 

A girl cuts her long hair and 

afloats them in the river.

 

A mother prays for somebody's father.

 

//Silence prevails after I have screamed,

it's still an open cage with stainless steel bars.//

 

(Again and again i fly back to square one,

and once again i regret my decision)

 

To grieve is to waste salt,

and i live on ration with an almost empty jar.

 

(My lungs oppose to breathe the shards of pain in)

 

Grief changes colours in my sleep,

and it's sunlight yellow when i wake up.

 

(Sun enters my house once it starts setting)

 

On nights sleepless i spin sheets of silk,

in the mornings I dig graves to bury dreams with the silk shroud.

 

(metaphors are lost on this situation,

my home is a home,

can't call it a battlefield,

nor it is the war sung of by bards)

 

My love is a foriegn invader

and you are a soldier in the defending army.

 

(My truth is the greatest threat to this sand castle,

and i am still in love with the illusion of happiness).

 

a dark one

Today it's a dark one, moon has eloped with half the stars

 

somewhere a bird calls in the middle of the night

 

moths and lizards sing melodies to keep the world awake

 

in the day when it is silent the forests fall asleep

 

a fire burns inside a bird and it bursts to ruin the woods

 

roaming around i find pieces of glass faces i used to put on

i sigh and nobody replies

the birds keep chirping

 

to see this world i need colour-blind eyes

 

this poem is slowly growing and trying to accept itself

 

to my brain all languages sound same, gibberish beautifully said

 

only that makes sense for us, which we are familiar with.

 

two tulips can't kiss because bees don't like it

 

i can be wrong but to prove it you have to understand me

 

it's hard though but try it you must

 

sometimes i am not Interesting enough

 

and my friend cried again because i need you to survive

 

to her seeking help is a sign of wrong life

 

i see you have the courage to counter me, but you won't come out

 

my depression is like the unwanted weeds in your garden of roses

 

pluck it out, chuck me off, it's not hard to lose me

 

i am the change you got after this transaction

 

you can easily throw me down the alley

 

there are many in need and I still am useful, practically.

 

i don't know what i am trying to say, but i am sure there was a message i wanted to convey

 

i lost it while digging in for the words, i shouldn't bury secrets so deep

 

the remaining stars play hide and seek with white clouds. 

 

 

leaving the city

You can always leave the city

 

pack only those memories which make you smile

 

don't carry the cracked tumblers with you

 

old newspapers are only to be left behind

 

next year you would have new places

 

new faces, new hands and new laughter too

 

new grudges, new memories and new gifts

 

but the nightmares will be the same, rotten and old

 

you can always leave the spots behind

 

avoid passing by the places you loved with a zeal so wild

 

and again move on to new haunts to hang out at

 

but the air is the same, you breathe it in and out

 

the perfume, wherever you smell it, will bring back a touch like a sliver

 

it will pierce so sharply, you will end up hurting your insides

 

you can always do away with the remnants of past

 

all letters can be burnt, get rid of the names too

 

soon you will have voids big enough, to hide yourself into

 

soon you will have the new places to avoid

 

hurt isn't something you leave behind

 

hurt is something you carry with you

 

pain is preserved like grandmother's pickles

 

and it never rots, because of all the salt it gets from your eyes

 

too many jars of grief I seal

 

never am I short of it, no matter what I leave behind

 

you can always leave the city, but you can never run away from your mind.

 

Distance

Distance grows

like weeds in pots without plants

manifests the spaces we create between us

spaces where stars don't turn into constellations

but plutos are discarded now and then as per need

 

Loneliness creeps on you

from toe to head

like vines on trees rotting from inside

leafy stalks eating everything in their wake

loneliness eats upon you

 

I stretch