Desolation - Vai B. Charm (big ebook reader TXT) 📗

a shaking hand to reach out to you

but between us are 20,000 universes of silences

Silences we gave each other, because you don't like books

and I don't know how to buy something more long lasting than silences

 

Distance is a star dying

white and bright,

beautiful death

Distance is the beautiful suicide

of which Ms. Evelyn died

 

Hundreds of sighs I sent your way

no post offices carry sighs

so I sent them via the distance

 

here I sigh,

your heart beats in coordination

with sighs escaping my mouth

one by one

escaping

leaving me behind

extinguishing like matchsticks

into the distance

while nothing reaches you

but cold air

 

Distances are mean

they pull stars apart

but then

distances are the only reason

how so many galaxies

stay in harmony together

 

/a poem about loneliness turns to a poem about science, if given enough space/

 

O' God, Lord of Mercy

From streets narrow run streaks of water

to emerge holy on the banks of the revered

 

heart loosens to see children on streets

forsaken by the saviour of all

 

your body is given by the almighty

but not your neighbour's

 

hundreds of lamps alighted in nights

moths die of your burning religion

 

smoke reaches up till heaven or not?

I know not

but coins don't materialise at God's feet,

I can tell.

 

faces shriveled like raisins

are raised outside your abode

 

you who sit revered by humans of privilege

 

my lord, alight this world

if you can't take care of this all

 

beauty threatened by fragile ugly counterparts

 

and tongues held to turn truths to lies

 

bounties offered to make you look the best

 

while milk is wrenched off from toothless mouths

 

frail examples are never taken in account

while talking about those who are loyal to you

 

while those born in homes, get blessings in yours

hundreds of street bound, settle outside for a coin or two.

 

Caged

The day I started to call the cage a house

 

my wings withered and fell off me

 

I flapped my arms against the bars

 

and broke my wrists in futile attempts of leaving

 

your being becomes a prison

 

you can never get out of the box

 

the cassette never stops playing

 

my memories are stored in a vinyl record

 

I play it everyday, like a ritual

 

there's bloodshed in my thoughts

 

my war is longer than the one in Troy

 

a blind man sings of colours of the world

 

two young boys hold hands and smile

 

thrice I fell while I was walking to you

 

you looked up from the ground twice

 

I know you too well

 

I can hear screams in your silence

 

cut me off, throw me away

 

I am too friendly for your solitary life

 

there's this musical note stuck on my palm

 

the same place you pressed your finger at

 

boundless seas float into my boat

 

and in dark whirlpools I drown

 

this lark laments lyrics from an old song

 

and melodies of my head never make it to the outside

 

reading out poems I look at you

 

you make faces and sigh

 

but then you sit silent for minutes too long

 

and every night a musician dies

 

unheard symphonies are the most melodious

 

what you get to know becomes ugly after a time

 

grief sits by my side and strokes my cheek

 

while my mother thinks that I don't like to smile

 

people wish me happiness in hollow words

 

and empty envelopes come my way

 

words have long left my tongue

 

my mouth only makes indecipherable sounds.

 

Staying as long as we can.

 i) I sit by his side for hours, saying nothing

just being in the presence of each other.

Staying as long as we can.

 

ii) Sometimes I feel a little betrayed by words,

words of my own making

and words of others

they fail to tell what I want to say.

 

iii) It's hard to sit on the rooftops

and not talk of galaxies

while staring at the evening moon,

we still try to be silent as long as possible

existing in harmony with the universe as long as we can.

 

iv) long trails of salt, leave my eyes

and culminate their journey in my mouth

they taste like sunlight,

they taste like air,

they taste like you,

they taste like nothing.

(of the five above, I know none of the flavours)

 

v) When winds carry fallen leaves

and bring forest fires to burn the town,

I hide in you, in your memories,

in the silences.

(the silences can't be burned down)

 

vi) I will leave soon,

you will stay,

I will stop soon

and you will keep moving,

moving on and on and on.

 

(I will remember, always, the smell of burning leaves underneath which I had put my letters.)

 

vii) Instead of staying put,

we like to move,

like seeds of dandelions

adrift with the air

to new places and to new people,

to become their way of fulfilling a wish.

 

(when you can't be your own deity,

be somebody else's,

when you have let your own desires down,

borrow somebody else's)

 

//many of us live this way,

just existing in the void

as long as we can.//

 

Desolation

 Walls are falling everywhere

 

The lands once divided are merging together

 

This is the evening of losses

 

My feet hurry to meet those who are running

 

The concept of time is a vague one

 

Notions of love are so unfamiliar

 

I crave for the warmth of small baby hands, tiny fingers curling around mine.

 

Beautiful faces melt away

 

My conscience loses interest in your talks, I run away

 

The magic of sound loses its charm

 

For twenty days I wept

 

A harp ruins the silence, only music saves the day.

 

I throw letters in the open fire

paper pieces fly away, poetry on wind.

 

Running behind me are dreams that we saw, now the carcasses reek of grief.

 

Body positivity is a figurative device

 

I might as well be a terror to world peace

 

Three petals remain when I realise,

she loves me not.

 

There are no speed breakers,

when you start to drive on the road to depression.

 

My pain is a magician hiding objects in his sleeve.

 

You clap at the magic tricks,

my arms hurt

the hidden stuff is heavy.

 

Yesterday I broke a finger

while pointing in the direction of my sorrow's origin.

 

There aren't enough words to describe this

and I have run out of metaphors. 

 

Stay for the music

On days when beautiful murals speak up

and air is full of silences between us

I want to hold your hand which occasionally trembles

and tell you that , 'Stay, it's safe here.'

 

To you I have been sending songs

which he once sent me as a long playlist

titled 'Of disorders and nights',

and your taste in music so characteristically matches hers

that I can't help but worry

that we will end up the way we did in the past.

 

(you are, were and will be my love,

whether in this body or another)

 

Am I wrong when I say,

I fall for the same person

again and again?

the only difference is the body,

the eyes and the name.

 

I know people from their arms,

the pressure which they exert on my body.

 

(the love they posses is proportional

to the warmth they have for me.)

 

Being so close

yet so far

I learnt how

stars live together

never meeting

still in love

glowing and sending

love signals.

 

Where I built my world/

it was your territory

and you let me in there/

as long as I leave you free/in your

circle of

solitude/ you never once came close

enough/ for me to touch those feelings,

feelings you wear on your forearm

as the wraps of the strings she gave you once...

 

(I know people by their forearms,

and by their gate....

once they change the latter, the former loses significance for me)

 

/Once you sent me a song different from hers, and I knew I love you

when I devoured whole of the suggested playlist/

 

Aftertaste

An aftertaste of candy in my mouth,

lost to you, my fingernails, my hair, my feet 

tangled in yours, hands holding, a mess

awkwardly askew. Two naked bodies pressed against each other,

 

looking for what? knows not the other.

While mine can be a search for adherence,

yours can as well be just a need;

a simple human need of having someone to touch.

 

Call You Mine, I must on some days

but not always. ' We should not meet,' you say

'Oranges on weighing scale, bound to roll off.'

I smile. ' Stupid ' I whisper, a peck here and there.

 

I hate your stupid analogies

but I love you

and I don't know many languages

but only a half and two.

 

so