A Doomed Love

The sun hides behind
a cloud
and sheds its tears,
which fall over the powdery ash
like a shower of golden kisses.

Restored to life,
the ashes leap into the air
in a colourful symmetry of feathers.
Defying death and reason,
the phoenix soars skyward
to meet the sun
in another destructive embrace.

Then, as the cinders of its lover's
burnt wings
fall back to earth,
the sun again draws a cloud over its face
and sheds a shower of golden kisses.

Someday...

Someday
I wish you would lie on my pillow
and listen to it repeat everything that I have wanted to say to you,
but never did.

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Last night
I dreamed that you and I
spread our wings
and flew across the expanse
of the night sky.

We washed our bodies
in the Milky Way,
we plucked the stars that littered our path.
And our laughter filled the
echoing vacuum
where time and space
are of no relevance.

When I awoke,
the scent of travel filled the musty
bedroom air.
And a few downy feathers
lay scattered
by my bedside.

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The breeze whispering in the trees,
the wind sighing down the valley,
the brook murmuring over the soft pebbles.

I find stories of our love being told everywhere these days.

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Words scamper over the page
two at a time,
sometimes three,
falling over one another to get to the end of
the sentence.

Line after line,
paragraph after paragraph,
in page after page,
they jostle and shove
till they reach the last full stop.
There they collide against one another
and fall in a jumbled heap.

Confused,
they dust themselves
and look around,
wondering what the rush was all about.
After all, it was just another story.
One that they anyway
didn't entirely comprehend.
And never would.

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By day I amble through
the tomb of
dead dreams,
running my hands idly over
old whispers
frozen in cold stone.

And in the evenings
I sit in my darkening drawing room,
waiting for the ghosts
to return the courtesy.

Tonight
it is your turn to walk in with the
moonlit fog,
the damp earth still clinging
to your jasmine-scented body.
Your smooth brow is at peace,
the way it was when I buried you
deep
into eternal memory.

You stand shyly by the door,
shimmering through the moonlight
and my tears.
We exchange sad smiles.
We know this is how we were destined to meet,
over and over again,
every day
and every evening,
for all time to come.

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कूचा-कूचा, गली-गली, शहर-शहर वीराना हुआ
आज-कल तन्हाइयों से बेशुमार याराना हुआ।

उनके जाने से सारा आलम कुछ खफा-खफा सा है
सुना है बेवफाई का सर-ए-आम अफसाना हुआ।

Dust to dust...

Sifting through the cold ash of
memories,
letting the grey dust
run through the cracks between my fingers,
I caress a past
more imagined
then real.

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सोचता हूँ, तेरी महफ़िल से जाऊं तोह कहाँ जाऊं
अच्छा है तुम्हारे किसी साज़ के सीने में समा जाऊं।

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आज फिर दो अलफ़ाज़ लिक्खे, कुछ रुसवा हुए, कुछ सांसें ली
ज़िन्दगी यूँ ही किश्तों में अदा कर गए।

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दिल की सिलवटों में छुपी बातों के कुछ अलफ़ाज़ निकले

खामोश थे हम, पर कमबख्त आंसू दगाबाज़ निकले।