tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40645179153284642362024-03-06T00:24:37.505+05:30Irrational RationalitiesDheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-18915116222945053622018-05-13T17:14:00.000+05:302018-05-13T17:14:30.158+05:30Epiphany<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You were my Ithaca<br />
but alas, my love,<br />
I was never your Odysseus.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-31690457322530025932018-03-06T05:12:00.000+05:302018-03-06T05:12:16.985+05:30Note to Self (circa 2011)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Forget the sinuousness<br />
of this odyssey of life,<br />
just remember this,<br />
<br />
this moment<br />
you were twenty six,<br />
in love,<br />
and in Paris.<br />
<br />
All else shall fade.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-91171951470553910782018-02-08T02:21:00.000+05:302018-06-04T16:11:14.959+05:30Origin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Eyes like dark, deep forests.<br />
Fingers like furious rivers.<br />
Tongues like roving doves.<br />
Lips like spinning echoes.<br />
<br />
In chorus<br />
they float, flame and flounder<br />
through the mad night<br />
<br />
arriving,<br />
again, again and again,<br />
at the tangled pathways of passion<br />
<br />
at the ravenous hunger<br />
that is the origin<br />
of all origins.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-90074242167544561752018-01-11T13:04:00.002+05:302018-06-04T16:13:03.957+05:30Dreaming of Rainy Barcelona<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Estoy aquí, dije, con los perros románticos </i></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">y aquí me voy a quedar."</i></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I'm here, I said, with the romantic dogs</i><br />
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">and here I'm going to stay."</i><br />
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></i>
<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- <span style="text-align: left;">Roberto Bolaño</span></i></i></div>
</div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The sun has disappeared </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">down his carafe of daily forgetfulness</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">and I wander</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">like a vagrant in a lost myth.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Barcelona,<br />that womb of boundless freedom,<br />embraces me whole</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">like an ancient oath.</span><br />
<br />
The dreamer becomes the dream<br />
in the music of her unrepeatable geometry<br />
as strings of pearls leap from the skies<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">rain drops,</span></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">the unfinished verses of poets.</span></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />Rapture descending,<br />each drop a revolution,</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">the beginning of a childhood.</span></div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-30283577887086670622018-01-09T10:56:00.002+05:302018-01-09T10:56:56.862+05:30The Curiosity of Strangers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
An evening<br />
talking to a morning,<br />
adrift between the tenses.<br />
<br />
Words ferried across silences<br />
by the curiosity of the other.<br />
<br />
The library of memory<br />
ajar<br />
to knowing, unknowing<br />
and all the trifles in between.<br />
<br />
Vulnerable mazes and bitter seas<br />
from the restricted sections of adulthood.<br />
<br />
Pointless passages no one ever read<br />
in the storied clay of childhood.<br />
<br />
Delirious earth and symmetric roses<br />
from the periodicals of dreams.<br />
<br />
Each dusty page a discovery<br />
in the echoing intimacy of chance.<br />
<br />
Now and then, a loud chuckle.<br />
The sound of the universe<br />
indulging itself.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-80539010011695698442017-12-20T14:15:00.000+05:302017-12-20T14:42:27.923+05:30The Call<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Slow, soft words<br />
like a voice from childhood<br />
prying open my morning.<br />
<br />
A hovering dream<br />
like the eternity that comes before<br />
and after.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-41048320840153598302017-07-26T09:32:00.000+05:302018-06-04T16:10:59.471+05:30Flutter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The window is aflutter<br />
with the day's newborn rays,<br />
envoys from the heavens<br />
thrust<br />
<div>
at the immensity of our existence.<br />
<br />
The room fills up<br />
in unhurried moments,<br />
like a schoolboy's watercolour.<br />
<br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">The cosmos surges</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">in fractions of coffee cups and childhoods</span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">as eternity pounds away like a machined heart.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are surrounded by movement</span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">but we,</span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">we do not move.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-703642159410204582017-07-09T15:45:00.000+05:302017-07-09T15:45:00.821+05:30The Feast<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
They can't remember<br />
where the evening began,<br />
the boy<br />
and the girl with the Russian name,<br />
<br />
but they remember<br />
where it ended up.<br />
<br />
In poetry, as always.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Neruda offered his odes,<br />
songs of blood, skin, earth<br />
and the fire of youth.<br />
<br />
Brodsky brought his friend Baryshnikov<br />
who recreated<br />
a dance for the ages.<br />
<br />
Bukowski made an appearance,<br />
doodles, half-burnt cigarettes,<br />
typewriter and all.<br />
<br />
Szymborska stood in the corner<br />
gifting rhymes, nonchalant.<br />
<br />
Armitage charmed his way in<br />
with the nostalgia of childhood<br />
and his butter-fingered verse.<br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Cavafy took them on an odyssey<br />
on the ocean of life<br />
with gods, monsters and wisdom.<br />
<br />
Bolaño made an entrance in furious lyric,<br />
strumming on the savagery of the heart.<br />
<br />
Borges snuck in his doppelgänger,<br />
mirrors, swords, hourglasses<br />
and the infinite library of chance.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Through the pages they strolled the night,<br />
under the high ceiling<br />
that mimicked a constellation.<br />
<br />
She closed her eyes,<br />
the girl with the Russian name,<br />
and let his voice fall on her<br />
<br />
like rain.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-35578057098144155362017-01-25T12:27:00.002+05:302017-01-25T12:27:33.534+05:30The Makers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Men born with humility<br />
instead of a face<br />
their fingers reach out across the ages<br />
to craft miracles,<br />
the slow song of human ingenuity.<br />
<br />
In the quiet corridors of oblivion<br />
they chisel, they weave, they carve<br />
<br />
daily<br />
arriving at the truth<br />
that no one can own<br />
but belongs to everyone.<br />
<br /></div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-73210173016557108752017-01-02T14:20:00.000+05:302017-01-02T14:23:28.857+05:30Epilogue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>[For S. N. R.]</i><br />
<br />
That was how he<br />
rested his argument with the world.<br />
<br />
At the first sunrise of a new year<br />
as the rest of the world burst with optimism<br />
and confetti still wafted on the streets<br />
<br />
he succumbed to silence.<br />
<br />
Time went on without him<br />
as he slipped into the cradle of the past.<br />
In an instant, he <i>was</i>.<br />
<br />
Relinquishing his breath,<br />
he embraced the air's stillness<br />
and left his song behind for others to sing.<br />
<br />
He didn't run out of music,<br />
he ran out of time.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-29962324441693834842016-11-12T22:00:00.000+05:302016-11-12T22:00:45.662+05:30The Surrender<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We knew so little of each other<br />
yet I did it.<br />
<br />
But<br />
who said love was anything more than<br />
a stone thrown at the stars.<br />
<br />
The drive on the dark highway,<br />
your playlist,<br />
and the endless promise of that evening...<br />
<br />
When I die,<br />
I hope they take me back there.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-71168459274824044772016-08-12T07:47:00.000+05:302016-08-12T07:47:45.911+05:30The Murder of Actaeon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
She stands there, her silver bow drawn taut,<br />
back arched in furious grace.<br />
Her nakedness gleams under the sun,<br />
beauty so savage it echoes<br />
through the quietude of the woods.<br />
The flimsy human must pay.<br />
<br />
He stands there, fear rippling through his veins,<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">ensnared </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">in the pitiless stare of the eternal virgin.</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The cavernous howl of divine arrogance<br />pierces through the wind's innocence</span><br />
as his skin quivers,</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
that feeble garment of mortality.</div>
<br />
Ferocious death is at hand,<br />
shadows of its sprinting hooves<br />
screaming through the moist earth like wildfire.<br />
Nostrils flared, fangs bared,<br />
the beasts are coming.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-48398243062780887412016-08-11T09:31:00.000+05:302016-08-11T09:31:05.053+05:30The awkward hug<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Seat-belt firmly in place,<br />
unmade conversations populating his thoughts<br />
with a traffic policeman bearing down<br />
on his windshield in a no-parking space<br />
<br />
clusters of words jostling for attention<br />
on the tongue’s inadequacy,<br />
the lingering sadness of a goodbye<br />
stealthily clambering up his back<br />
<br />
halfway through the hug,<br />
the lad froze<br />
<br />
like a piece of parchment<br />
choked by the weight of its own words.<br />
<br />
[5:49 pm | 16th August, 2009]</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-43761624953849248102016-02-24T09:55:00.001+05:302016-02-24T09:55:15.657+05:30The Poem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It was written<br />
<div>
in another poem's margins</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">by a riverside </span>one midsummer evening<br />
<div>
<div>
after a long day's work.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It contained love</div>
<div>
like a carafe filled to the brim,</div>
<div>
too meagre for its destiny.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There it lay</div>
<div>
until this morning</div>
<div>
I stumbled upon it again.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After all these years</div>
<div>
it still is inadequate.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-38347621011351367642015-11-09T16:03:00.000+05:302015-11-09T17:03:33.418+05:30The blue stretches on.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>[For Natalia Molchanova]</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The blue stretches on<br />
like air, only heavier.<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The blue stretches on</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
like language, the soul's anchorage.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />The blue stretches on<br />like home, a vast starless womb.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The blue stretches on</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">in silence, bellowing through the veins.</span></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The blue stretches on</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
into the awakening, pearly <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">bubbles</span> ascending<br />
<br />
into the beyond.</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-62358579085490298542015-11-03T11:22:00.000+05:302015-11-03T11:22:41.224+05:30Cergy Pontoise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A March evening.<br />
Sunlight uncoils in the horizon,<br />
darkness delicately devouring the day's wall of light.<br />
<br />
Leaps of blue by the riverside<br />
green tree tops, foamy white clouds<br />
brown contemplative earth<br />
and an enormous silence<br />
<br />
pierced by a distant seagull's cry<br />
as if from memory,<br />
from a different evening, a different time.<br />
<br />
One of those moments<br />
life accumulates<br />
like the bellows of an accordion<br />
and the music rises up in your throat<br />
like an ancestral song.<br />
<br />
Others have dreamt this before you.<br />
You are but a page<br />
in a library of infinite pages.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-62462025699996191762015-09-09T12:44:00.000+05:302015-09-09T12:44:20.546+05:30The Cassette<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There was no embrace at the end,<br />
no gawky display of brotherly affection<br />
<br />
just a turn of your head at the bend,<br />
a brief glance before you disappeared<br />
into the vast machinery of adulthood.<br />
<br />
On my way home in the cab<br />
I watched your departure streak through the sky<br />
like a shooting star.<br />
<br />
Back in the shade of my living room,<br />
I muted the lights, shut the blinds<br />
and gave in to the plain charity of sleep.<br />
<br />
I dreamt of the time you cried as a little boy<br />
when your favourite movie tape got tangled up<br />
and stopped playing.<br />
<br />
Nine years old, I was the only adult in the room<br />
and your grief flew at me<br />
like a flock of frightened birds.<br />
I did not know what to do.<br />
<br />
I snap awake.<br />
This is a different room, a different time<br />
and I am no longer the only adult between us<br />
<br />
but<br />
if I could gather that tangled tape,<br />
somehow piece it all back together<br />
and play that movie for you one more time,<br />
I would. </div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-36467554290794354512015-08-27T13:31:00.000+05:302015-08-27T13:32:53.128+05:30Whimsy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>[For Mark Strand]</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Reading early this morning<br />
I stumbled upon your death in the pages<br />
like an old bill I'd forgotten to pay.<br />
<br />
<i>April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014.</i><br />
It has been nine months.<br />
(<i>"Enough time for a new life",</i><br />
I can almost hear you say.)<br />
<br />
I confess I always felt<br />
I would meet you someday.<br />
No reason, just a whimsy<br />
but I believed in it all the same.<br />
Clearly, I underestimated death.<br />
(Don't we all?)<br />
<br />
You are gone now,<br />
and we are separated<br />
by this great dark ocean called life.<br />
<br />
[27th August 2015 | New Delhi]</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-88885377708189261362015-06-08T10:28:00.000+05:302015-06-08T10:28:10.397+05:30Cuddapah, 1995<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The long corridor of life<br />
is still at its beginning.<br />
The darkness at the back looms large<br />
but life, like time,<br />
only knows linearity.<br />
<br />
The road is paved with choices,<br />
curious coincidences<br />
and the distant sweetness of youth<br />
but he can't see it yet.<br />
<br />
Life's sly deceits,<br />
the transparent burdens of adulthood,<br />
they are yet to come.<br />
<br />
No one has warned him<br />
what he does not do<br />
will matter<br />
as much as what he does do.<br />
<br />
Nor has he been advised<br />
what he is and what he wants to be<br />
will forever be opposite sides of a coin.<br />
<br />
Perhaps he will learn to tell apart<br />
dreams from memory,<br />
guilt from regret, patience from cowardice<br />
and pride from self-deception.<br />
<br />
Someday he may grow old<br />
and behold his fate in the intricacy of stars<br />
with the happiness that comes<br />
from having loved once.<br />
<br />
But not yet.<br />
<br />
Today<br />
the five year old<br />
has bigger things on his mind.<br />
Life's unwavering linearity<br />
is lost on him.<br />
<br />
Watched over by startled air<br />
as the fifty foot drop yawns below<br />
he stands at the edge of the roof<br />
grasping at the fluttering pigeon<br />
<br />
hand outstretched into an inchoate future<br />
unblinking glee on his face, naive as sunrise.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-498309488181702072014-10-28T12:59:00.000+05:302014-10-28T12:59:38.901+05:30Three short poems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
No matter how hard I try<br />
I can never recall<br />
the colour of your eyes.<br />
<br />
It's almost as if<br />
I want to see them for the first time<br />
every time.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
Remember that evening<br />
we spent walking in the Père Lachaise?<br />
Summer had just ended,<br />
but the birds didn't seem to know it yet.<br />
<br />
It was the first time<br />
I saw tears in your eyes.<br />
<br />
Night came down swiftly<br />
like a vast, mute protest.<br />
There were no stars to be seen.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
My favourite picture of you<br />
features only a part of your palm<br />
in the backseat on a highway.<br />
<br />
The evening falling<br />
slowly, sadly<br />
all over the windshield<br />
as the picture is being clicked.<br />
<br />
Every bit of it sublimely ordinary<br />
except for the hand<br />
caught at the edge of the frame<br />
<br />
unaware of its own grace<br />
like a poem about to take shape.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-91964930998614190472014-10-24T10:57:00.000+05:302014-10-24T11:02:49.361+05:30On reading Homer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tonight I got in a cab after work,<br />
went straight home<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
and read Homer at my desk.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The last flight out </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
was never taken.<br />
<div>
A window seat was not chosen.</div>
<div>
<br />
A <i>"just landed"</i> text<br />
was never sent.<br />
No smiles were involved.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
A cab outside an airport<br />
was never hailed.<br />
No addresses were given.<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
A late night doorbell </div>
<div>
was never rung.</div>
<div>
No hugs were shared.<br />
<br />
A midnight dinner<br />
was never cooked.<br />
No dishes were done.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Elsewhere</div>
<div>
Someone did not discover a star.</div>
<div>
Someone did not get groceries.</div>
<div>
Someone did not start a war.</div>
<div>
Someone did not visit the dentist.</div>
<div>
Someone did not light a fire.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Seven billion worlds never came to be.</div>
<div>
There's only one for us all,<br />
and that's all there ever will be.</div>
</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-35277343708363462632014-10-19T23:15:00.000+05:302014-10-19T23:15:03.536+05:30Tell Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tell me beginnings matter.<br />
Tell me hugs can be awkward.<br />
Tell me postmen will survive.<br />
Tell me great questions can have simple answers.<br />
Tell me childhood is a place we can go to.<br />
Tell me pride can forgive and be forgiven.<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tell me spontaneity is overrated.<br />
Tell me there are things even nightmares are afraid of.<br />
Tell me happiness is a language we can learn.<br />
Tell me there's more to love than just a young man's poetry.<br />
Tell me home is not what you leave behind, but what you bring back.<br />
Tell me silence is only a manner of speaking.<br />
Tell me highways have memories.<br />
Tell me a story with a happy ending.<br />
Tell me, tell me again.</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-88007017474362779992014-10-15T08:43:00.002+05:302014-10-15T08:43:37.710+05:30Anthem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="p1">
Morning.</div>
<div class="p1">
Sunlight sinks its fangs into glass.</div>
<div class="p1">
Thoughts bend to laws. Refraction, reflection.</div>
<div class="p1">
Distant presences intruding on an absence.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>You are not here.</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Noon.</div>
<div class="p1">
The shadow devours itself into a dot.</div>
<div class="p1">
The hot air screams into itself. Shattered silences.</div>
<div class="p1">
Dusty tears burning up a lonely countryside.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>You are not here.</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Evening.</div>
<div class="p1">
The wet Earth deepens into a chasm. </div>
<div class="p1">
Sky-high lines drip into circles. Drops dropping into drops.</div>
<div class="p1">
Miniscule worlds making themselves up, splitting apart.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>You are not here.</i></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Night.</div>
<div class="p1">
Darkness drips onto land, ink from the heavens.</div>
<div class="p1">
Bundles of black piled upon one another. Invisible walls.</div>
<div class="p1">
A wordless heart echoing a bursting anthem.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>You are not here.</i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>You are not here.</i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>You are not here.</i></div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-42240831109953342962014-10-13T09:57:00.000+05:302014-10-29T21:02:41.412+05:30WiFi History<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In my left pocket,<br />
protected by glass, silicone and passphrases,<br />
is a list, forever safe,<br />
<br />
of all those visits<br />
I made to the web of our collective consciousness,<br />
a history of somedays and somewheres.<br />
<br />
That friend's house where I spent thursdays listening to Greek piano.<br />
That surf shop in the Portuguese village which was once the end of the world.<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
That sunrise viewed over a bedecked window by the Ganga.<br />
That Parisian library I first discovered Brodsky in.<br />
That common room in Rome where I failed to console a tearful stranger.<br />
That yellow bistro by the North Sea on a winter afternoon.<br />
That Venetian streetlamp that bore a letter to a three year old.<br />
That stormy night spent in a four poster bed in Pondicherry.<br />
That Viennese apartment with old German books and fraying wallpaper.<br />
That sleepless night in Firenze spent in anticipation of the Uffizi.<br />
That room in Hyderabad that reeks of my tenacious youth.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
That Bruges hostel where a housekeeper slipped me a note on Szymborska.<br />
That breezy evening spent alone in a pool by the Vembanad lake.<br />
That long railway dream through an Andalusian landscape.<br />
That rainy day spent in London's streets dreaming of Turner's seascapes.<br />
That Bangalore house where my poetry breathes quietly in a shelf corner.<br />
That kind stranger in Coimbra who left her network open.<br />
That blissful night spent on the Aegean Sea in a floating room.<br />
That friendly old bookseller in Madrid who loved Tennyson.<br />
<br />
All those homes, momentary and sedentary,<br />
rains, chuckles, beginnings, cafés, chances,<br />
horizons, friendships, errors, names, airports,<br />
conversations, burdens, faces, absences, choices<br />
<br />
reduced to a list narrated in circuitry and code,<br />
a composition that can never comprehend its own beauty<br />
but will, by design, relentlessly pursue its own future,<br />
growing longer, longer and longer<br />
until it no longer can<br />
<br />
just like life<br />
just like life itself.</div>
</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4064517915328464236.post-85957125637643293732014-09-29T17:27:00.000+05:302017-12-19T10:10:46.231+05:30Sunday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is how the universe begins.<br />
<br />
Light bulbs in our hearts<br />
flickering to life<br />
<br />
circular waves of our light<br />
unfurling<br />
into cities, continents, hemispheres, orbits, galaxies.<br />
<br />
This day, love,<br />
we burn.<br />
We grow old<br />
between these sheets.</div>
Dheerajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03559663654756832104noreply@blogger.com0