The horizon

The horizon deceives it's chasers...
It wears bright colours each morning...
As the day grows old
The makeup fades
And clouds that create rainbows
Are lost in puffs of smoke.
The camouflage of colours
Melts away like a poet's dream
A barren skyline bathed in dust
All hues without identity...

But fools romancing the dawn
Follow the horizon to nowhere...
Never disillusioned they keep saying,
"Clouds when touched... disappear..."

Three Cups

How many cups of tea a morning
is enough for the day?
I had three...
one for the rising sun
a toast to my fears born afresh
one for the night that passed
and the fragments of me I left in its folds
and the third one...
Because they say
once is chance,
twice coincidence
but thrice...
A pattern.

Distraction

Distraction, oh sweet distraction,
Disguised as an angel
You wrap me in your pinions...
and I lose my vision
in the pleasure of your soft, fragrant feathers...

Distraction, my blissful distraction...
You are that insignificant flower
That takes me off my track
Just by its intangible fragrance
A memory which cannot be revisited...

Distraction, my ally and foe...
you take my mind off the distasteful realities...
transform my days into nights
and nights to a life...
once lived, forever cherished...

oh melodious distraction
you are the tune that plays
from a distant moment
and holds me in its embrace
boundaries of time erased....

Distraction, the lyric of love
you who make the drudge a poet
and erase the difference
between an elegy and a sonnet
Yet your words just mislead...

but distraction, abstract distraction...
you bring along a tiring bliss
and leave me too satisfied
to move that stone
that will earn me my bread for the day

my hostile distraction...
You drag me away
from all that is real
yet I come to you
dreary of the harsh roads
and on the merciless desert tracks...

My beloved distraction,
you are the illusion
the mirage
that gives the half dead traveler
that one last hope...

Poetry is poison

Poetry is poison

it makes me believe
there is a world
beyond the office chair
and the keyboard
that types at the max
800 words
for a picky reader
who prefers pictures....

poetry is poison
it pushes me
to put on earphones
and switch to jazz
cutting out the noise
of news breaking
and the world shattering
while no one cares...

turn off, dear world,
turn off
the reality button
lets switch to fiction

let the keyboard drum
to the melody of rain
that no more falls.
brew a cup of tea
jasmine, I'd like
let the words make no sense

Disclaimer: This poem has no facts
it is made of loosely spun dreams...
There are no names
or bolds, or italics...

No takers
for the humble imagination...
the poison of poetry
leaves nothing to fight for
but melancholy...
The gardens I nourish
with imagined clouds
bear flowers
that have no buyers...

Poetry is poison...
I still believe
the tree next to my balcony
that would yield neither wood
nor fruits, nor flowers
but is the home
to my little squirrel friend
can spin gold with sunlight
and is actually a chandelier
placed just for me...

Poetry is poison...
I weep and weep and weep
and weep without a tangible sorrow
then smile without fear
when I find myself just a guest
in this insipid, ruthless world...
For I believe,
that Eden exists...
Right there in my balcony...
Or maybe in that room
of my childhood
Where sunlight peeped in
from the ventilator
even when I closed all doors and windows...

Poetry is poison...
I drop my pen
and refuse to take
any more hurried notes
that make the pages
look like a morgue...
the dead bodies of words...

Teach me some calligraphy
let me find an ink pot...
I am drunk on romance
the truth has ceased to exist
the poison takes away the insanity,
and I have not learnt how to live sane!!
  

The Night

The crinkling sound of a candle burning,

Burst of a flame, with the lighter turned on high.

A chill that tickles my feet up my socks,

Those airplanes that roar on the foggy winter sky...

The click of the buttons on my keyboard like drums,

Whispers of the goosebumps on cold bare skin...

A dripping tap taps some lonely vessels,

Two pigeons cooing and fluttering as they sleep

Random whispers, and footsteps on the stairs

A concerned neighbour, trying to pass by...

The wind sneaks in from the window cracks

The sound of dust, unsettling as it flies....

On a distant plane, some cats settle a fight,

A rustling sound, from the dustbin outside...

Cold sheets that talk of a lover missed,

In a constant struggle with sleep two eyes...

Those acts that breaks my melancholic dreams...

As the inanimate changes forms and smile;

I count them on my fingers in the dying light,

These sounds of life that come alive in the night...

Poison

Those little cups of poison you offer

Every time I talk about a dream

I raise a toast to life 

And take it down in a gulp.

The bitter-sweet potion 

Is nothing but love

You call it a medicine, 

And yes, it helps... 

Though it does not kill the dream 

That you call perversion

It sets on fire 

The veil of calmness that I wore

For you... 

The pungent aftertaste 

Seeps into my soul… 

As the pain intoxicates, 

I throw away the goblet
Your world melts into a drop,
My world in flames glows scarlet.

And yet the bridges are not burnt

I will return for another cup some day... 

When the days and nights meet not to part 

An eternal twilight descends 

When the roaring tempests die

And our disagreements 

Become insignificant...

When my dreams, 

Drunk on your poison

Take that enchanting flight 

You watch from a distance 

In a quiet meditation, 

On your lips, a playful smile…

When the venom in my veins 

Turns back to blood

And anger is consumed by forgiveness

I will come back to you

For another cup

For it's the poison that keeps me living... 

~Saba

Cigarettes

I don't count
my cigarettes any more
just empty the ashtray
when its full to the brim
filed ash trays are a mess...
of agony they stink.

the burnt out butts a residue
of a night poorly spent
sleepless, sans dreams or stars
fragments of lament

no breeze travels from heaven to earth
nor sweet memories sought
the night like ash of burnt dreams
A disillusioned Nótt.

I bring flowers to fill the emptiness
but the fragrance lost in smoke.
an addict? or an abandoned lover
of dreams that change their course...

there was a time I counted
the rolled poison puffs
and named each before lighting
love, longing, lust...

I wondered if I would
just count them so I sleep
lighting my own pyre
would gods my act forbid?

Hooked to a slow poison
I find that sadists' bliss...
the space between my fingers
now tanned like my lips.

but I no more count my fags
I just measure the what is left...
And on the smoke I scatter dreams
To night some dew I gift.

*In Norse mythology, Nótt (Old Norse "night") is night personified.