Half a promise

There we were
hurt like lovers
when words sudden and swift
strike its blades
penetrating ribs
cutting open hearts
into equal shuddering palpitating halves
There we were
hurt like lovers
for we were

A sudden
morning of overtures
coloured the day
with cauldron of dreams
minefield of hopes
and
shimmering in the distance
were half of our hearts
pulled apart
by baggage of loyalties

I dreamt anguish
in your joy
I find my triumph
when I see
your wrist
a band of steel
once bought by me

I promised
you'll never die
You had
but killed me
I knew you would
I lay dead
under your family photograph
all smiles
with a dimpled child
Me-only a fleeting shadow
on the transparent glass
hinging frantically upon
the opaque frame
and Love I did love
without hopes
of roses and laces


http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Ode to the natal home!

My room
filled to the brim,
in expectation
of a grand farewell
They want me away,
I should be away,
never come
in sight, sound, sense

I am told
I am lucky
to receive
the carved furniture,
the carved pain,
the carved agony of un-belonging

Like chaff from grain,
They’d
throw away the husk of men
and give me the finest

Thereafter
they’ll grudge
my every visit.
Count
the phases of the moon

On the ninth day
after the new moon;
I’ll weep familial demises
at the door
unable to cross
the threshold
of my natal lunar calendar.

Love they said it was
that sent me away.
Ah! love,
that castrated me
from my childhood
into unequal parts

He too said it was love
that took me to him,
seven circumambulations
and I bowed each time.
He kept count.

I sucked on
a lozenge of hate
and counted all their love.
I will leave
with the hate stuck in my molars.
I’ll blot from life
and become a worm
still nibbling
on the hate of so many loves.

Amritsar
15-01-2012

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

A lemon of hurt

He stammered
on a thought
In the lonely winter
of his head
Much had escaped
in a vaporous steam
one February night
A lemon of citric hurt
on the chapped lips
of continuous wounds
I applied a stinging salve
He, rested in my rancour and love
In my embrace of swords and skin
each night, I fed him
spoonful of spite and kisses


http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

For him

1


His nectared name
will colour my lips,
till another mouth
will hold it
between her rubied lips.

2

There, we were,
without any need
for exaggeration of held hands,
just aloof in love without promises.

There, when he offered me
to explicate
the delicate matter of the heart,
amidst the cutlery
and blunt knife
and bored diners,
My ‘No’ stuck in my throat
unable to tumble and collide
with his expectant eyes.

How terrible were partings then,
when we kept meeting
after we bade our ‘goodbyes’.


3

Shards of glasses
broken long ago
in a corner
untouched by the tapering wisp
of the aged broom
suddenly pricked my fingertips today
Untouched
not even
the moist edge of the mop
could cajole it out
And now it was
beneath my skin –
A glittering of pain
A slight warm blood


http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Asti*

Beyond the courtyard
moss grown
where the cement had lost
to the repeated lashings of annual rains
I picked her bone
with the last withering steel-gray of ash
Around my neck
I offered it to her
delicately
wrapped in hues of saffron
She, given to fluffy pillows
and softness of downy bedcovers
Now a wooden clasp for pillows
Bedcovers she had none
Just a parasol of palm leaves
to tide over the dark world of mud, water and stars



asti- A Vaishnav Hindu funeral ceremony observed usually on the 6th day

Funeral for the living

The blades
of the sickle moon
Shone upon her gray tresses
chopped after four decades
What remained
of the tapering gray
ponytailed wisp
was akin to amputated
leftover stumps


Slow, wheelchaired
when the plastic chair
broke under her weight
and much fidgeting around
She turned to each sound
With her hyperglycaemic gaze
Sisters came to conspire
Gave her sweetened tea
Behind my back
To cheer her bored sore afternoons


She died expected
And un- sudden
After tolerating
The foreign tube
in her balloonous tummy
for six long years

Cruel
As a family
The crowd gathered
For the ritual mourning
It was tragedy
and a joke
and oh! Why didn’t he come?
The food was judged,
And so were the ritual songs
The singers
bend with age
braved the dusk
with a bared torso


Aunt, garlanded
and young
beyond the vagaries
of diabetes
smiled
from the gold gilded frame

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

Release

The night
awashed
with phairen’s sudden showers
clears up
Outshined by the moon
freckles of stars
remained obscured
in its usual pattern
The freshly cleansed breeze
Brought news
of his release
from a once dreamt dream
But like me
he was caged
His heart beneath his ribs
mine beneath my bosom
Yet from within
his prison of bones
one day
he will summon
love’s tender weakness
I will dream
of charting out
in the abject vastness of the sky
with a stars studded map
I will embrace
the season of nuptials
with fear of exile
with hope of a genesis
with another heart
clasped
in another chest
one rib less
than mine

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©