Volume 1 : Issue 2
ISSN: 2454-9495
GHAZALS
Objects
How do I keep alive these dying, dead objects?
The needle is inside me but the thread objects?
Now, only now your fragrance was in these sheets
Sleepless nights, I twist and turn but the bed objects
A lip-balm, a pencil, a toothbrush, some trinkets
I return daily blank-eyed to these sacred objects
Without blinking, two mirrors look at each other
Now my poor heart weeps, now brain-dead objects
My heart is turned bourgeoisie, oh wretched love
What is this sterile passion that to bloodshed objects
The borrowed horse of reason had no chance at all
In love our meaningless passion, thoroughbred, objects
At last in the hills, the thick-skinned snow withered
Now the water entering the thirsty riverbed objects
You wrote our names on a fresh tissue-paper once
In its wrinkles years later, my eyes still read objects
These nodding crowds obey everything you say,
Isn’t there even one person who instead objects?
Munnawar Ali’s Marwa is not for the weak-hearted
It kills you very slowly like those burning red objects
Purposelessness meaninglessness, let’s leave this aside
Else, I might remind you too of some blockhead objects
Remember that perfume you got me? It’s all finished.
Objects have always inside them more embedded objects
Kanav, sing the heart’s street into a mighty revolution
Forget already, its only citizen, who instead objects
Send out a search party, there were two of him
Kanav buries Kanav, sinking ships shed objects
Yasmeen
Seeds of love and fruits of war, inverted the trees incline Yasmeen
Aroma of thy white flower, should the garden redesign Yasmeen
Night traces its steps back, invades secretly my blinded shack
Before the dawn may ever crack, shall I not see thy sign, Yasmeen?
Trepidation in my restrained veins, in vain but their pathetic strains
When you saw not your own domains, how shall i say "mine", Yasmeen?
Highways no longer lonely are, everything is near that was far...
So deep though my soul's scar, it's never in your line, Yasmeen
Night and morn forever meet, dead flowers in books will ever greet
And my eyes unto you entreat, now let us entwine Yasmeen...
Fire makes less light more smoke.. clear waters, replaced by coke!
How must one nature invoke? I retreat to your mezzanine Yasmeen
Flowing curls like pouring scents, having smelled them my soul repents
Stars today several crescents, the Crescent your eyes illumine Yasmeen
Do I dream or do I rise? I feel the pinch of numb surprise
The sole sensation I surmise, your breaths strong as wine Yasmeen
Crooked paths or I un-upright, or do I sit perplexed, contrite??
I fall into this abyss so bright, thy body serpentine Yasmeen
I know they charge me conservative, but am I not their own native?
No escape in political, if captive. Oh! the release in being thine Yasmeen
But when the war is at our door, with much hatred, much much more
Helplessly we shall lie on the floor, westwards our feet align Yasmeen
Temples today their battlegrounds, behind folded hands, a pack of hounds
We reduce these noises to simple sounds, such is love's shrine Yasmeen
"Urban culture" oxymoron.. where are the towns where life lives on?
At dusk, bazaar peaceful as a lawn, and then noiseless we dine Yasmeen...
Malleable makes me your glory's power, I was brittle like a glass jar
Is there stone in you where hearts are, a bud of malamine Yasmeen?
Rhyming gives my love pity, rhythms of each nitty gritty
Working in my soul's smithy, is Kanav - love's Einstein Yasmeen!
(Inspired from the musicality of James Elroy Flecker's ghazal Yasmeen in a play called Hassan)