Mumbai

Mumbai. Shifting skylines & shifting memories. The old and the new. Dreams and dust. Noises of crowds silenced by roars of the sea. Warm nostalgia inbreeding with cold concrete. Shining glass shattered by the smoky fog. Familiar places where innocence was pawned for many loves lost. Where many dreams were woven in silent whispers with the rain.

Mumbai. Now, when I meet you, you come back to me like an old lover with the same sense of history, of conflicted emotions, of unfinished endings. You are a part of me that I cannot shake off. You hold a mirror to me that I do not want to see. You embrace me with your expansive horizons and provide a sense of peace I do not want to feel. Your smell, your touch at once remind me, in an instant, of who I am. And then, in the cold alleys behind your many train stations, we trade our difficult relationship in the dark - you and your shifting skylines, me and my shifting memories.

Promise me, there will be more

What is this marriage, this union of souls
Where even your silences aren’t your own
What is this togetherness, these facades these faces
When darkness is all that you have sown

I used to be your sunshine, your shadow, your soul mate
Pointing to lofty goals
Today I stand, a ghoul, a monster
A mirror to all your holes

I see you, lost, lonely and listless
Afraid, of what oceans lie
Terrified, i see you, fight, take flight
Broken wings, still trying to fly.

You said we would build something new, something wild
We would stack it high up to the clouds
But here we are flung now across the streets
Collecting our promises run into the ground

You said we would ride free, flying, cavorting
The magic of all that is life
But now here we are cringing, Twisting
As a noose holds us together at night

You said we are the dreamers, the enchanters
The magicians, the mavericks, the mad
But now we lie despondent wondering
At what other misfortunes lie

I hold onto you my darling, my love
Looking for our magic inside your soul
Hold me close and take me home,
And promise me, there will be more.

- Inkk

Voices in the dark

The crickets trill
A night-owl hoots,
And in the darkness
Frogs rejoice by Monsoon pools.
To the rhythm of your heart…
In the quiet mist of your breath
I wonder how unbearably quiet
This Night would be without
These sounds I take so for granted…
A desolate world where
Only my deepest fears would
Resonate in the emptiness
Like a fog-horn’s unending dirge…
So I drink in the sounds of the night,
And draw you closer to me…

Yeh Khamoshi

tum bhi toh abhi khamosh ho aur hum bhi

aur na jaane kya kehti hai yeh khamoshi...

uss din jab tum mile the humse yeh nahi pata tha ki

yeh mulaquaat hogi humari aakhri...

aur mehsoos hua tha tab ek dard dil mein jab tut gaya

humara woh benaam sa rishta aur phir ban gaya ek naya rista

lekin yeh nahi pata tha ki, yeh naya rista hoga yeh khamoshi...

haan kuch lamhe ki thi yeh galatfehmi ki awaaz

lekin jab tut kar giri yeh awaaz kaanch ki tarah ,

toh bikar gayi aur ban gayi yeh khamoshi...

kuch sawal the tumhare jiske jawab tab nahi the paas humare,

aur jo the sawal humare woh kahin dab gaye aur bankar rahi gayi yeh khamoshi...

kabhi agar phir se mann main aaye yeh sawal tumhare

toh padh lena meri yeh khamoshi...

aur jawab phir bhi na mile toh padh lena

humari inn aankon main ,jahan boonde bankar behti hai yeh khamoshi....

nahi thi galti tumhari jo tum hume samajh nahi paye...

naa hi thi galti humari jo tumhe hum samjha bhi na paaye ,

phir waqt beeth ta sa chala gaya aur reh gayi yeh khamoshi...

ab toh subah se shyaam aur shyaam se raat beet jati hai,

waqt bewaqt dil main dard ke toofan sa uth ta hai ,

phir bhi chup rehti hai tumhari aur meri yeh khamoshi...

kehna hai toh bahut kuch tumse magar kahun bhi toh kaise

jab humare vich hai yeh khamoshi...

jaane anjaane jo dard maine diya hai tumhe aaj phir

woh dard batati hai tumhari yeh aankhein aur tumhari yeh khamoshi...

ab itne tut gaye hain hum bhi ki bas

yehi khwahish reh gayi ki tut jaye yeh sab doori aur bol uthe yeh khamoshi...

Rojalin Rose

Rojalin Rose.

Read more at: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/yeh_khamoshi_584979

In A Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see, 
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; 
I hear my echo in the echoing wood-- 
A lord of nature weeping to a tree. 
I live between the heron and the wren, 
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. 
What's madness but nobility of soul 
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! 
I know the purity of pure despair, 
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall. 
That place among the rocks--is it a cave, 
Or a winding path? The edge is what I have. 

A steady storm of correspondences! 
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, 
And in broad day the midnight come again! 
A man goes far to find out what he is-- 
Death of the self in a long, tearless night, 
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light. 

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. 
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, 
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? 
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. 
The mind enters itself, and God the mind, 
And one is One, free in the tearing wind. 

- Theodore Rothke

The Quiet World

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

- Jeffrey MCDaniel

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye