The canvas is grand..the crowd is huge
Libraries and their almirahs..full of books

The poets..the places &the colours of every shade
Let's hold down that greed of reaching every nook

Let's sit with the handful of that crowd..and know them
in their bits & shards,
for all their quirks..for all their flaws,
in their moments of vulnerability..in the moments of grandiose

Choose a few books,
let every neuron wonder at their subtleties & their gross,
read between the lines, flow along the paragraphs

Pick a few poets,
read their best...and their worst,
the verses where the soul reflects through
and the lines which were scribbled just to appease a mob

Visit numbered places, and let their beauty
touch the rock-bottom of your heart,
witness the soberness of early morning,
their aura at the sunset,
and the serenity, wrapped across the layers of dark
.
Let the infinities of the finites unfold
In all their glory, with all their charms

-

I want to write about the melody hummed at the nook of boughs
Want to write how soft morning rays caress my distraught soul
and about the agility with which early hours carry themselves

I want to write about the scorching heat of the day
and how it dictates me to cover my face
and about the seamless placidity of long afternoons

About the crimson red sun..how its setting saddens each pore in my skin
and how the flock of birds rushing back to their shelters gives an strange sense of fulfillment

I want to write how at night the camouflages sprinkled across the walls nudge a keen child in me
and how chirping crickets alleviate the voidness within
and how the jigsaws of light seem to whisper secrets of the dark hymns

I want to write..I want to live
I want the birdie of hope spread its wing
.
and breathe its colours into my paling dreams

-

Those chunks of insanity embedded deep in the layers of sanity

When you're not pushed to the verge of losing the rationality by someone
but you're propelled towards it by very own will
..

Those chunks of insanity embedded deep in the layers of sanity

When you are conscious of the depravity of the path you chose
but you can't offer any tidbit of resistance against trudging up that track
..

Those chunks of insanity embedded deep in the layers of sanity

When it is an unambiguous reality that the life would take its own course
but the resolve to sit back is not any less robust & unwavering
..

Those chunks of insanity...
may be are the reason that the layers of sanity are still intact

-

Jab roi thi wo raaton ko ummid ki aakhir manzil par
Jab khaamoshi thi ghere hue aur maayusi thi chahre par

Kya dhhaaras dene koi aaya tha?

Jab tanhaai ke saaye tale wo sahmi thi har junbish par
Jab badan ki thandak badhti thi unhone se andeshe par

Kya kaandha dene koi aaya tha?

Jab yaqeeň ki saari kirneň bhi mad-ham si ho jaati thiň
aur khud se hi jab bezaari nafrat bann ke chhā jaati thi

Kya shamme jalaane koi aaya tha?

Har aaho-museebat ke pal mein khud hi ka mann bahlaya hai
Hai kai dafa wo bikhri bhi aur bikhra wajood utthāya hai

Haan koi humraahi na aaya tha!

Kamzor se kaandhoň ne yunhi bojh utthaana seekha hai
Kaanpte girte kadmon ne yunhi sangoň par chalna seekha hai

Koi raahe-bar na aaya tha
Koi humraah safar na aaya tha.

-

A fistful of memories
gleaming intermittently
through fingers grip
amidst a dark room

Smiles, jubilance & few words
beaming through..spreading across
dreary walls and the door knob

And

An arid consciousness
that
the fist is losing grip

A frail realization that
the intermittent glimmer is
growing
ever more flickery

-

What if the words we said and things we did
were bound within miniscules of moments

What if our words and those bundles of moments
had no weight & absolute nil value
beyond certain space and time

What if we lived in little bundles of moments
..
What if we lived for little moments
..
Not metaphorically...quite literally

-

Not all nights are melancholic
Some are soothing
.
Not every layer of darkness is about despair
Some are about hopes too
.
Not all indulgences in the realm of imagination ensue anxiety
Few such rides are nothing but serene
.
Some moments are all about clarity..
those moments which seem to give meaning to all the 'Whys'

-

In my universe you are mine
May the universes never collide if they are different

-

I stare at the night-sky
and the half-lit moon
My despair..my solitude
vaporize
into words
and fill up the
infinite distances
stretched between us
I ask them
if they have been
witness to my loss

Right under their canopy
as the nights wrap
and the days unfold
I lose people
Sometimes in bits and pieces
Sometimes at once
Sometimes the realization doesn't dawn
until their absence create a void
Sometimes there is a denial
till the reality infringes upon the fringes of mind
.
Right under them
I bear the plight of
losing..

I ask the night-sky
and the half-lit moon
if they have been the witness
..and they seem as bewildered as me
.
they seem as lost as me

-

I thought when I would be on the doorsill..ready to leave
You would rush
mustering up all the courage you have
and would say things you never could
on account of myriad of fears and insecurities

I thought you would stand on the way-out
and convey those emotions out loud
you were hiding somewhere deep within

I thought you would
remind me of all the little chatters we had,
and all the eerie comforts we perceived

You would ask that after me
who will read your poems with the love I did,
You would ask that after me
who will fathom your deeper
observations and shallow anxieties

I thought you would say
We still had a lot to share,
from dainty vocabs to magnificent stories,
from small pleasures to larger worries

But I had also thought,
You love me
And that love would
conquer over all the uncertainties
the day I stand on the doorsill..ready to leave

Little did I know,
hurdles were not holding you back
but the scarcity of the very love I relied on so heavily
(~Sumaiya Ikram)

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