solitaire seventies sane-love
this small poem
that i write here sitting from office in Delhi, reading these words rising out like embers from a near-dead fire
what do i say to you,
i a checker of facts
and you, a sufferer of life
what words do i soothe you with
what patina of love should i shadow you with
when you have known my love
and my being like a vessel
i became you, in those days
the warmth of your petulant knuckles in the red cafe
i wear a red sweater that maa knit for me
all of life, an intertwined glorious cobweb
where do i even go if i run away
you're everywhere
in the sullen nights of half drunk beers
of fully remembered memories
and partially watered down lives
of living completely
of leaving halfly
strung from a hamster, a forgottten windchime
your memories never settle
always twisting and turning inside me, rustling the correct feathers
i plan on writing to you a poem of 365 words or was it 365 lines
like a string minutel plucked on an iktara
in the oblong Kanpur afternoon
i remember you, i collect you
like i collect childhood
a writer on my famebook timeline said,
"we underestimate our childhood"
and to that i add
"we underestimate whatever we have"
always
the profundity of what he had hit me like the sharp winter winds
on an obnoxiously hot late december afternoon
it has been 365+five days that we saw each other in person
370 days of promises lived & unlived
of faces not seen and seen
of dreams seen together and alone
of public sighs and secret cries
of empty houses and full cupboards
of vacancies on the right side of the bed and of fullness in memories
of songs and books
the stuff literature is made of
of living in the smog and wanting to know
pulsatingly about the other side of the world
of songs, of patti smith, of wishes, of oblique shadows from the pasts and presents
missings and findings
of livings and leavings
'where have you gone to'
questions and musings like these do not bother me now
laced with the pernicious memories of our aloft togetherness
we, scour through the pruned present
i know we are together in memoriam,
and at large you stay with me the way i do with you
even if i dont,
i request you, love, precious precious love,
do not rob me off of the faint knowhow of these things
your kind eyes and loving grip smothers me till date
on nights alone or even when with people
i have found comfort in the awareness of your existence,
of our existence
we were in love
we are in love
shall i say that
we, shall, forever be in love?
i think a 68 line poem should do just fine
for i barely know if this email will be checked
let me let you in on another small secret?
i want to buy you a greeting card and three flowers,
tulips or whichever ones you like,
and then i shall make you a cup of my fabled chai
the chai we had long talks over
and we shall have them with oranges
that i will buy and then peel for you, love
the lives will not stop
the livings might so
the happinesses might cease too
the leavings will not
with a scurry and a hurried hushed note
i shall leave you
i a footnote in your life
or is it the other way round?
my black painted fingernails
your skin anew in the new country
my grown wild curly hair
your handwritten letters to me that you never sent
my molusk notebook scribbles to you
your new sweaters
all these
and so much more
unseen, waiting to be seen
we shall find each other
maybe in another brethren?
https://youtu.be/VMUz2TNMvL0