The fog outside has veiled
the summer of love
of you and me
and the sunshine still
peeps through the spaces
between the branches and trees
and falls on my face you once knew
on my hands that waved goodbye
and I know, it isn’t because of you
it isn’t because the sun still shines,
it’s the unconsciousness
weaving poems, word after a word
poems that are soporific, not lullabies
poems, without a meaning
without a purpose,
and they don’t matter,
not even the sieved sunshine,
nothing does…
I struggled throughout the nights,
Pulled out all the stops during the days,
Fatigued eyes did not stop painting.
The echoes did not cease for a moment,
In the deafness of bleeding ears .
The head exploded with each verse.
The heart paused for longer than usual
and heavier than heretofore, after your name.
I crawled inside the creased sheets,
With the song still playing inside me.
The silhouette darkened more in chorus,
The beaming sun, all clouds wailed in chorus.
When later the moon howled
In silence and in pervasive pain,
The words of the song echoed louder
Inside the empty bones,
While the beats slip into the skin,
In spite of many denials.
Looking at the blank canvas of our love
In a room reflecting the faded memories
I wondered in desolation,
How you continue to be the song?
I broke down more and more,
Convincing myself that
I have finally jumped off the cliff, and
I don’t wish to love you anymore.
With the lightning in the sky
my words echo, as you say
breaking down all your
walls like a loud thunder.
While you still try to silence
the wind of endearment,
the words from the mouth
I once had put my heart
into screams at me;
“Like those murky clouds
quilting the entire sky, you
crowd me with gloominess.”
But what do you know
about the clouds, darling?
Before you murder them with
your false promises and pride,
in your painful game of love,
you must know that over
all these years of insanity
they have been charged with
so much unrequited love that
today they finally burst aloud
and they rain all that they
have held for so long,
for a sky that wasn’t theirs.
Look up and gulp the truth
down your burning throat
that all clouds have faded away
and they are never coming your way.
Looked for you through the unbending walls
Searched for your shadow between the sheets
While the broken pieces of our love on the floor
From the last night perforated my twisted feet.
Jotting your traces on the mantle wrapped around
I found myself lying knackered on the horizon line
While in the ocean of woe all memories drowned
Yet somehow the scent of yours inside me did survive.
You told me I was like a dense green forest,
even though there were some deciduous trees.
You said that the smell of the soil lifted your soul,
that you felt relaxed embracing the zestful air while
I let you leave your deep imprints on the soft soil.
But as the season changed from sunshine to rain,
the roughness of your love defoliated my leaves.
You started counting the trees that were still green,
finding none; you left the forest, in search of another.
The Starry Night is an oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June, 1889.
You are sitting by the window
staring at the moon that,
sometimes appears as a drunken man with sorrows,
and sometimes as a sober thinker with drunken thoughts.
The lights in the room are off,
and the only light that embraces everything
inside you and inside the room is the moonlight.
The moonlight enters through the windowpane,
that has been broken for a reason,
that you no longer remember.
The light falls on the floor, filling the gaps
between the two tiles, caused by
weariness of your footsteps and time.
You make circles with your left foot,
and it feels like you are dipping your jiggered foot
in the water, healing you as it slowly enters through cracks
in the water, that has been kissed by the moonlight.
You focus back on the moon and you observe that,
some portion of it is veiled by the clouds,
and you wonder if clouds are jealous of how
you stare at the moon with longing and with love.
Your eyes are set on the sight as the clouds continue to
swirl around the moon and later leaving it all alone.
You no longer hear the tick-tick of the clock,
as you listen to the song of the starry night in its silence,
and even though they say that nights are meant to sleep,
you only want to behold the moon,
for you believe that, this night isn’t the one that
brings you the thoughts of your fiddly life and worries,
but helps you to break your skin into a smile.
You stretch your right arm and make a U
with your thumb and forefinger to hold the moon,
and it fits perfectly in the space even from a distance,
but you realize that you cannot hold it forever and,
you break the U, knowing that,
you can still feel its warmth even if you cannot hold.
The writer in you tells you to pick up your pen and diary,
to write down a poem on how beautiful the moon is,
on how painful it is to know that,
you can have it only from a distance;
But you continue to be enamoured of
the moon and the starry night thinking,
that sometimes some poetries should
not penned down on a paper, but they must be
written in the reflection of the sight in your eyes,
for they stay there forever; untouched and undestroyed.
As the loudness of silence increases,
the night gets more still,
and in that stillness you are awake,
and all your fears sleep.
You feel at peace and this night
you do not wish to dream,
as you aren’t sure if your dream could be as
beautiful as the night sky and,
as calming as the moon.
While your eyes are fixed on the moon,
the lullaby by the moon puts you to sleep.
Your eyes closed, and your mouth half opened,
and the lover in you enters your dream, this night too,
telling you that the moon you have been taking a shine to
was familiar to the one you love.
The moon continued to shine in the darkness,
and the stars pinned to its beauty,
while another night sings in your dream, where
the lover in you reads the poetry,
the one that was written in your eyes,
with soft pauses and hard truths etched into it.
-Kritika Vashist
(Now think of the moon as the one someone loves, read the poem again; a story of a lost love and that someone.)
That late evening in the silence of slithering hues,
your goodbye echoed loud enough that the
gloomy clouds pulled their tears back.
I tried to control my quivering lips,
and the words inside convulsed one by one.
I wish I could tell you that the pain of separation
doesn’t disappear like a smoke in the air.
That it is like the air you push into your lungs
and the next second you puff some out.
I knew that you would understand only when
you’ll find yourself picking the pieces of me in your bedroom,
removing them from everything that I ever touched,
and then you would realize that it is hard to peel off
my imprints on you and to pull off the pieces of me in you;
when you’ll be watching some movie or reading a book
and thought of me would cloud the sight and
then you would try to shake them off your head;
when the air would rush into your ear and whisper my name
and you would cover your ears or act deaf;
for whirling in eddies of my thoughts wasn’t what you wanted;
when you’ll pour yourself a drink and with watery eyes
you’ll laugh remembering our weird stories that we once made,
and then you would wipe away your tears telling yourself that
reaching the shore of my memories wasn’t the reason for your drinking;
And finally when you’ll come home late at night
to lie down on the bed and to comfort yourself,
you’ll feel distress, your body will ache and you’ll feel the chill
in the air as the window would allow the eerie feeling to enter,
and you would fear that your dreams would turn into nightmares;
for you would realize that under your bed is my grave,
the one that do not hold my bones, and yet they hold everything of me,
in all those letters that I wrote to you, in all the painting and poetries,
all that you buried under the mattress, and all that dance every night,
everything of me and us that you couldn’t throw away or burn down
because somewhere between sorrow and felicity you still loved me.
Echoes of the thunder silenced
the love ditty I sang for you.
Unabating force of the rainstorm
dented the soil of delicate love.
The lightning flash cracked
the only hope I had from you.
The limpid blood of a wounded love spilled under my feet.
The faith that had kept us together
slid down the skin along the raindrops.
The gravity of your wrath and doubts
pushed down the lightest drop of hope.
The love of acceptance that had kept its
head above water drowned in potholes.
The treasured dream
of being with you crushed under my feet.
(The footwear in the picture isKolhapuri Chappal. Kolhapuri chappals are Indian hand-crafted leather slippers. I bought this from Maharasthra, India.)
From the Soul to the nib of the Pen 