I miss Sunrise

As tall as ambition,
towards my left they
have erected a monument to people
living as strangers

The roseate of the dawn
my daily reminder that I'm reborn
as lost as a hiccup, hiccupped.

Now
my first glimpse of the star of day
is a blazing, angry noon-face.
So
I wait an extra hour and 27 minutes
to see the moonrise these days.

The Maker?

Your identity, like this leaf
floats in front of you
in your hand
within your control
does it, like this leaf,
come from a seed, a tree,
a season and a gale which
brought it to you?
Its in your hand but
you look like the keeper,
not the maker.

Self reflective Essay

It was with a lot of excitement that I took up this course since this was the first time that I was actually going to learn how to write poetry. Up till this point, my poems had developed from trying to get the lines to rhyme, to expressing inner angst and finally to spoken word poetry where the focus is the sound and eye-catchy metaphors above everything else. That was what I tried to do for the first submission, which was a love poem. Even though it had strong and interesting metaphors, it could not stand the scrutiny of the entire class, looking at me to explain why I put in a certain line or a certain word in a certain place. That is when I started to realize that a brilliant image or metaphor cannot sustain an entire poem, there has to be more finesse which has to go into it. It was the first time that I edited a poem and restructured it significantly to get a particular result. I tried to keep the first few poems as short as possible so that I could edit them properly. I also began to put more thought behind my poems since they were not intended for a one time consumption.

As the teacher had put it, “the poem has to be good for the stage but should also work on the page”, and that leads me to the second realization that I could play around with line breaks, punctuations ad spaces to create more meaning. This was something which I had never experimented with much and it was only after I had written a couple of poems that I gained the confidence to try it out myself. The villanelle was the poem where I tried to make extensive use of the punctuation marks and though it might not stand out among the other poems which were brought up during the weekly peer review, it was a personal milestone for me. It was the first time that I found a rhythm and repetition intoxicating since there was not much need for new fancy metaphors than creative and inventive manipulation of the existing lines. Due to health issues and family problems, I had to miss out on a lot of classes, which I deeply regret. One of these was the class where the ghazal was discussed and that was probably the reason why I messed up the rules to be kept in mind while writing one. However, as I realized during writing the villanelle and the second ghazal, poems which have a predetermined repetition need to be edited for much longer to find the perfect combination.

I have also realized over the course of writing these twelve poems that the initial thought in my mind about what the poem has to look like cannot and should not restrict me from changing its course while the writing and the editing is taking place. The ghazal for instance, grew from a thought where I wanted to express an absurd thought about whether the stars we see in the sky aren’t lights in a huge grid, set up by the governments as a ploy to make us believe that there are other worlds out there, the research of which needs to be funded. However, the poem turned out to be quite different, about a person struggling with mental health issues and drug abuse. The initial idea, as fascinating as it seemed to my mind, did not materialize when I began writing and the second idea made more sense but still left something lacking. The next morning I altered the narrative to that of a war veteran with PTSD symptoms. A particular set of words in the second sher still gnawed at me and I changed it after almost writing the second draft. This ever-changing relationship with my poem is something which is quite similar to a relationship with other people. Thus, in a way editing made the poem come alive for me.

If writing and editing forced me choose the words carefully, the class discussions and the background readings forced me to choose the topics on which I wrote very carefully. The poem is not just about expressing what I felt, it was also about leaving the reader with something which they could carry away from the poem. In every discussion, we were asked to pick a line or a set of lines which stayed with us and while writing, it was there at the back of my mind that would the reader actually have something which would stay with them after reading it. The trajectory which I see in my poems, from “The address” to “I am Not” and finally to “Razer way shun”, I can almost see myself trying to get accustomed to my own voice, my own identity.

The response to Nitoo Dass was another interesting exercise, which could have been more interesting had I been able to attend the discussions of her poems. But it was still a delightful experience since I decided to try something which I could never have thought of, had I not come across her. The glossary poem was born out of a curiosity to see whether I can make the glossary into an integral part of the poem, in a way that it does not explain so much so as completes and complements the meaning, as a response to Nitoo’s stance on the use of glossary in poems.

There is a vast number of little things I have gained over this course, and not all of them is about writing good poetry. As once said during the class, the expression itself is not the only thing which needs to be worked upon, in order to become a good poet. The quantum of knowledge has to be constantly increased in order to become a better poet. And I believe that my quantum of knowledge has certainly gone up a few notches along with gaining a few more techniques over this course.

And so it rained

Thunderbolts photographed my birth
and I descended like an answered prayer
made your dust smell
like heaven


but soon it became messy
like a kid's diaper
the pitter-patter and splashes
became like the conversation starters
of guests who had outstayed their welcome


Puddles peeped out like innocent eyes
of street urchins
inviting you out to play.
Now, two kids can provide
leisure social work
but too much is a gang.
Best stay        away

You ask for rain
but forget to specify how much.
Clouds are not omniscient vendors
and each drop is a ray.

The little streams,
frivolous babysitters
who won't let me seep through
but whirl me around
then drop me down
sewers.

A ghazal discharged

Did you go out to see the stars tonight?
My flashy bullet marks look like scars tonight.

Let us roll the ribbons and smoke them up!
These decorations looks like a farce tonight.

Give me a shot of Billboard Happiness
I wanna be free from these bars tonight.

Hook me up with the wildest one you got
I don't want to revisit the wars tonight.

Sometimes somewhere in here I can be found
But my sword with yours isn't on par tonight.

Glossary

Mukhatib(1) hone ki nahi hai chah
zara (2) door hi reh, na paas aa
teri nazar bhar(3) hi hai kaafi
bhatkaane ko mujhko meri(4) raah

1. I don't want to feel your breath
congealing at the back of my throat,
back off

a
2. little
things sometimes
actually mean 'a lot',
like this word

is
3. full
but not overflowing
like the screams
of your past lovers

could have been
4. mine
like this poem
is art for you
but not the truth.

Razor way shun

like grass their lives
were thrown around
a complain
and they were gagged and bound
like fodder.
they endured each storm by bowing down
till their foreheads touched the ground.

a hundred years later 

their names started dying
for the bearers of the legacy
of pain have started lying
and why wouldn't they
when at every step
you tell them that
they had it easy.

dalit literally means oppressed
but we all know
it actually means
"the lucky people with quota".
by the fifth visit to his friend's house
he was familiar with each little crack
on the cup reserved for him.
i wonder who is more obsessed with reservation. 

Our reservation of hate
exceeds their reservation of jobs
but that's alright.
Our arguments, like daggers
returning to stab the sheaths home
in on the quota problem in india.
slums will never be tall enough
to be a part of a City Skyline
so let us conveniently forget
that 93% of the people
below poverty line are dalits.
let Us forget that the arrogant seeming IITian
was once forced by his teacher
to clean the entire school.
not because he was throwing around garbage
but he was considered garbage.
Cows our are mothers
but they can have the privilege
of conducting her last rites,
while we collectively pretend that
the man entering the sewer to clean it
does not know
that along with the
poisonous chemicals, his body
is also being exposed
to our toxic gaze
which can't imagine him in clean clothes
let's hope that like their history,
the people vanish as well.
its not genocide
if the people stab their own
culture to death
with blades of shame.

Look to the hills

Look to the hills, tell me what you see.
Gravity's held hostage the earth,
the sky tonight looks like destiny.

The breeze, like time, has been set free.
Once gone, it won't return to your hearth.
Look, to the hills. Tell me what you see,

has the rogue breeze been caught on a fir tree,
like a kite, midway to rebirth?
The sky tonight, looks like destiny.

The clouds are just an aerial sea
Each peak's a beach, So henceforth,
look to the hills. Tell me what you see.

The land is just not the place to be,
too certain of its own worth.
The sky tonight, looks like my destiny.

Each window, a vulgarity,
careful, do not breathe in the dearth.
Look to the hills, tell me what you see?
The sky tonight looks just like destiny.

Lend me your pixels

The best of their camera phones
Couldn't record the soul leaving
My broken body

The lighting was good
In my car I lie alone
But my mother will get to see
my final moments in HD

Along with a few more hundred people
Who need motivation
to be thankful for their lives

I smile at you
on my way to the mortuary.
I used to be you,
Until I wasn't.

The time of the madmen

Madmen don't dance,
they appear to go berserk in silence.

The reason?
We carry the music inside.

Original is bizarre,
for you second-hand intellectuals
with borrowed opinions 

and mixed cigarette ashes

When each moment is called
a second,
We'll ignore your time
and live it like our first

I don't want to know
that according to the average lifespan
I have 41 years of life left
You see,
we madmen are immortal

we don't accept that we're dead.

I am not

My friends are surprised
that I've never played Holi

Carelessly I used to tell them,
I'm not a Hindu.

Its an Indian festival

they say,
(Do you celebrate your ex's birthday?)

Sometimes I've wanted to
but I'm told that
the white man's religion
must not be tainted 

by any native stains

So I hide my curiosity 

like expired disinfectant
careful of boundaries
I'm supposed to be what they are not.

The Address

The shopkeeper calls me Jain sahab.
I'm a Christian.
The only thing I know
about my neighbors
is the TV serials they watch.
Sunlight doesn't reach my doorstep
I need exhaust fans in winters.
My house shouldn't smell
like me.
The garbage truck jingle wakes me up on lazy days
A sleepy scramble
Like running late
for a psychologist's appointment
I have to pay
to be heard in this city.
This is not where I return to,
I only travel to and from this place.

I love you like thunderclap loves lightning

When I look at you, I feel as useless as hope after victory

Like a Revolution performing revolutions

I feel like things which are like other things

Similes are silly 

and metaphors just don't alliterate

I feel illiterate, 

dedicating words to you

And yet I document faithfully my failings

I love you like a tangent loves contact

Even if we never meet again,

I'm willing to define my existence

by that one moment

I love you like knots love wasting time

Our fingers do end up intertwined for hours

I love you more than I love inappropriate metaphors and abrupt 

endings.

and that is why we won't. 

I just know it.