Such a terrible flu it is

Such a terrible flu it is, she said,

the cat lay on the floor outstretched,

paw, jaw and tambourine entwined,

as the foggy morning crept up behind.

Feline had snarled at the gray,

alas seeing as it was, much of what he did,

had not struck her as odd, until she felt a sudden itch,

and with hand on neck, and his claws in check ,

felt a lump as thick as a parakeet's head.

Mr. Parrot sat meanwhile, observing the goings on,

chiming in with cliches and generally,

conforming to type the world had set him up for.

And he lay inebriated, in a dizzy fueled,

by candle snuff, for she loved Yoga and Tantric sex,

all of which required the aromatic stuff.

And Mr. Parrot, in the haze he viewed

what he reckoned a mate,

sat atop Lily's grotesquely rotund nape.

A flaming red she was,

he thought that is what I like about her!

as he occupied himself merrily

with thoughts of making love,

until a few parroty clicks, and none a lended ear;

he nestled back to type, begrudgingly clear.

The contagion meanwhile had done Lily in,
the morning breeze was left
somewhere over the bend.
The fog had engulfed, but only her place,
as it sat atop garden greens grown brown in waste.
And the fog had since brought with it night,
without a glimpse of hue,
letting only the faint shimmer,
of moonlight through.

So as time flowed, it hurt more and more.
She let cry in choppy screech,
and tears flowed, sullying her tweed.
And when fever bit
it hurt her in her bones so deep,
like a memory who's warm breath hath crawled,
up your sleeve,
and on your lips, and worn you sore. 

Cackle-meow-click, the animal cabaret

kept approaching alarmingly,
marching on towards Lily's bulbous base.

And the numbing inanity of all of this,

drove the room into an incontrovertible third place,
away from ho-hum of life on earth,
and any place among stars,
no, it was a drunken multiverse it had to be,
Piqued with somber notes,
where juxtapositions of cacophony and cries
made time tick and muffled your sighs. 

But the fever had to end, of course it did,
The fog that had shrouded them, the next morning it slid,
into the abyss, or whence it bred.
leaving behind a Lily, blathered in sweat.
Mr. Parrot meanwhile, noting the neck mate's demise,
had had another wank,
on a carpet stain he was particularly fond,
after which he went for a stroll, as he usually did
and thinking Lily dead, and being what he was,
Mr. Feline had had, Mr. Parrot's throat slit.

But with no one else around,
Mr. Feline conveniently pled the fifth.
And per judicial norm,
Lily put the purrer away,
with milk, no less.

Many lives

I want to live, as a ponderous child
slept inside
crumpled hands on the Mongolian Steppes,
watching the morning sun graze
his grandmothers eyes,
and yellow the grassy mounds
on which sheep spread out
like dots on a Seurat,
and be lullabied by whistling winter winds,
carrying messages of war
the Khans would once sing.

I want to know,

that Georgia, where land was free
but people slaves,
the brutality that wilted lives,
know the men who thought this okay,
and then those that suffered---their tales,
their yearnings,
and that moment of elation, in her eyes,
when she first smeared a velvety red
on her luscious black lips,
and felt utterly gorgeous.

And if only I could live
atop girders held by cranes,
many hundreds of stories high,
peeking dizzyingly straight below
into an Indian megalopolis,
hidden under fog,
punctured like needles,
by megaliths of ambition,
a mirage over the misery,
if only I could cherish the moment
whence I knew my child was destined,
a different fate,
and the comfort it gave
my own dying dreams.

I wish I had more lives to live,
and some of them,
as an urban dweller in New York city ,
one window among many,
spilling yellow light onto bricks of red,
ensconced in the human menagerie,
foisted forward by coffee and time,
and lonely nights spent gazing
at TVs telling tales of storied lives,
living anonymously.   

Kartiek Agarwal. 

Lake Carnegie

Snowed in and a little too mush,

dank for a run,

I sat by your steps instead,

listening to your sweet heart whisper

in a way I hadn't done,

and I realized I'd fallen in love with you.

Many minds have met,
haven't they?

on your snowy cheeks,
and many curious investigations of life,
borne fruit,
and others wilted and died,
trees have rustled in gentle winds
on your shore, and many suns set.

So timelessly drawn are you,
I realized I've fallen in love with you. 

But it's many hearts, not just mine, 

isn't it?
On the bench I sit it reads,
"installed 1942."
"for Daddy, who would have loved,
to have sat here".
Yes, many hearts strewn on your banks,
burning woody fires,
lit like rooms with glowing yellow filaments

and it's all by you. 

You'll be here forever, won't you?

I realized I've fallen in love with you. 

Little birdie

Little yellow birdie,
whachu thinking?

Perched atop a sun-kissed shrub,
you crane your neck and gaze ahead,
with a frenzied, manic intensity,
well whachu thinking, little birdie? :)
Underneath that feathered head,
are you the general, of this warbling fleet,
set on orchestrating the next great siege,
from bush to shrub, and sometimes fern,
down in the trenches where it all begun?

Or are you, in fact, seeking out,
your philandering husband, on his return route,
from, and you'd bet your mortgage on it,
the pudgy blue-tailed wench,

to whose home curiously all roads tend, 

especially for that son of a bitch, 

who cohabits your bush,
in ways more than one, you shall admit.
You've even seen him size her up,
much like the other cockfolk too eager to coo,
which makes you think,
"fuck this shit, I gots better things to do."

Or maybe you're just thinking?
Contemplating the subtle mechanisms,
by which time flows, and chaos grows,
and space-travel may not be so far,
birds may colonize Mars,
thusly expected,
but before that, it would be nice, wouldn't it?
if you had your morning coffee,
a nice shower, a bagel,
topped with the most dewy worm,
the Grasslands could serve,
so you can go back to beaking the shit
out of whichever tree that grinds your nerves!

Little yellow birdie,
whachu thinking? :)

बोलिए

बंद करें इंटरनेट को, बहुत हुआ,

और पढ़ कर भी क्या करना?

ख़बरों में भी कितनी रूचि रखना?

सब फ़िज़ूल की चर्चा जो है

कुछ मन-गड़ित रचना भी है 

और फिर, मन को कितना दहलना 

रेप-ओ-फ़रेब का ज़माना जो है।   

और यह जान, जिस निहत्थे ने 

अपने विकलांग बच्चों के समक्ष, 

जो ना-पैदाइश, फ़रमाइश से हैं अपाहिज, 

अपनी जान खोयी थी, क्या बदला है?

आज भी उन्ही, बेनाम दलों की

आपसी मुठभेड़ की टीवी पर चर्चा है

कुछ मीडिया की टीआरपी से, 

कुछ आपके खून के उबाल से, 

संशोधित यह सारी समस्या है।

कानूनी इदारों का अस्तित्व अभी भी 

न्याय का मुखौटा बनाये रखना है। 

हर किसी के जानिब से सुनने में आया है

यही सब चलता था और चलते रहना है। 

जुर्म-ए-गुज़िश्ता का 

जन्म-जन्मान्तर दोहराया जाना है। 

अपनी बेवकूफ़ी का परिचय

हर शख़्सियत को हक़ से जताना है।

पर सच्च बताएं, कब तक यही चलते आना है?

जब सब सुर-संगीत बे-राग हो जाए?

दिलों की नज़ाकत मसल-कुचल दिया जाए?

नदियों-नहरों को अमिट सियाही पा जाए?

और नफ़रत-ओ-खून बस लाज़मी हो जाएँ?

बोलिए, कब तक यही सब सहना है?

कार्तिक अग्रवाल 

The worried mind.

In the solitude of this night,
my love, in the flicker of the fire.
In the misery that is our circumstance,
there is a gentle romance.

We have but one another,
amongst this, the smoldering ember.
and in this lonesome nadir my heart yearns,
for your mellow whisper.

The softness of your touch,
your resting glance---how it rested,
the world out wide had felt, in that moment,
all yours and all mine.

Your sweet blessed scent,
that had traveled past the seems,
of your tresses; my world has not known
the joy, in forever since.

And the time we curled up,
I had lain over your timid frame,
your world must have seemed, so certain,
but I had felt the same.

In the great span of the stars,
that dot the desert of the night sky,
uncertainties, that haunt our simple minds,
are drawn plain, I'm sure.

The night may yet deepen,
but the darkness will soon surrender,
a new dawn will come arisen, as it must,
and our hearts left tender.

Kartiek Agarwal


UPDATE: I had written this poem because the worry of searching for post-doctoral positions had become too burdensome. After coming close, but not getting a postdoctoral fellowship in many top places, I became extremely dismayed. All this was exacerbated by the fact that when I was traveling around all these places, some at the last minute, I did not have my wife physically present to comfort me. Such is life. But as the poem says, troubled times always wade over. I'm more than excited now to be going to Princeton for my post-doc---and this was anyway my top pick to begin with! :)

Sit by the window, if you have to.

Someone's broken heart? 

Sit by the window, if you have to,
yearn for the stars to swim, if you need to,
watch the weather change and when,
if it doesn't, let your thoughts engulf you.

Your thoughts cannot but take you,
they make you who you are, after all, and
in them rests the sunrise, and the hay,
and the tulips; also the deadening dismay.

If those tulips lay in your hands,
and not there; and letters never written,
for letters are never written
amongst those meant to together lay.

Hush you say, and end the silliness,
the darkness deepens, the clock ticks away,
a gentle voice of longing begs you,
to come pour those thoughts; into her sleep.

The breeze is intoxicating, and in its breast
the magnolias sway, so sensuously; you're smitten
by the way the colors of lamp light mix
with the grim sky, motherly earth and the pink.

Pleasantries exchanged, the clouds
bid adieu, to the hills they rested gently upon,
and atop them rises, somewhere,
a faint glimmer of the beckoning dawn.

If that dawn had lit up in your heart,
and not here, in the sky, where it is but lost,
if you had dreamt the stars swimming,
and not still, as they are today, who knows.

You smile, acknowledging the world,
beyond the moorings that tug at you, and then,
the dawn really does break, and it glints
as she awakens, in her eyes; they consume you.

Kartiek Agarwal.

'Faiz' thi raah, sar-basar manzil.

PhD can be hard. And it has been hard for me. Lots of musing and pondering about the prospect of utter failure. But recently things have looked up. Studying disordered systems has really re-ignited, in a sense, my love for physics, and it seems I'm somehow naturally tuned to study such problems (possibly because yeh dil hai hindustani). My recent work has attracted a bit of attention and my advisor has egged me to on to meet and discuss my ideas with many people. In this hour of possibly very ephemeral triumph, I was reminded of Faiz's mukhtasir nazm (short poem) "Aae kuchch abr aaye, kuchch sharaab aaye" (Let the clouds come, and let the wine flow). And how perfect it is, for I've remembered Faiz at different moments many many times throughout my PhD.

(Painting of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, by an unknown artist)

So here's a rough translation (sort of literal) by me -- 

Aae kuchch abr kuchch sharaab aaye, 

Uske baad aaye jo azaab aaye!

Let the wine flow and the clouds pass me by, 

Then whatever pain should come I will comply.

Baam-e-miina se mehtaab utre, 

dast-e-saaqi mein aftaab aaye, 

Let the sunshine inundate my glass of wine, 

And moonshine spill from the hands of my lover. 

har rag-e-khuun mein chiraaghaan ho, 

saamne phir vo be-naqaab aaye, 

And let her then come before me unveiled, 

and every vein of my blood be rekindled...

Umr ke har varq pe dil kii nazar, 

teri mehr-o-vafaa ke baab aaye.

At every turn in life, let my heart be witness

to the stories of your kindness, your faith...

Kar rahaa thaa gham-e-jahaan kaa hisaab, 

Aaj tum yaad be-hisaab aaye. 

But as I sat down to count moments of misery, 

I only remembered you, infinitely many times. 

Na gayi tere gham ki sardaari, 

dil mein yun roz inqalab aaye. 

Your sorrows still come to haunt me, 

And set my heart in flames of revolt. 

jal uthe bazm-e-ghair ke dar-o-baam

jab bhi hum khaanumaan-kharaab aaye. 

Fires lit up at doors of enemies, 

every time I came home dissipated, inebriated. 

Is tarah se apni khaamoshi goonji, 

goyaa har simt se javaab aaye.

So deafeningly loud were the cries of my silence, 

that echoes reverberated, from every direction, with the answer

'Faiz' thi raah, sar-basar manzil

hum jahaan pahunche, kamyaab aaye. 

'Faiz' was every road of mine, and it's entirety, my destination, 

that wherever we went, we arrived triumphant.  

..............

ہر ایک درد کی دوا : فیض احمد فیض

پھر کوئی آیا ، دل زار ؛ نہیں ، کوئی نہیں
راہ رو ہوگا ، کہیں اور چلا جاےگا
ڈھل  چکی رات، بکھرنے لگا تاروں کا غبار ،
لڑکھڑانے لگے ایوانوں میں خوابیدہ چراغ ،
سو گیی راستہ تک تک کے ہر ایک راہ گزار
اجنبی خاک نے دھندھلا دے قدموں کے سراغ ،
گل کرو شمعیں ، بڑھا دو می و مینا و ایاغ ،
اپنے بے خواب کواڈون کو مقفل کر لو
اب یہاں کوئی نہیں ، کوئی نہیں، اے گا

- تنہائی میں ، فیض احمد فیض

फिर कोई आया दिल-ए -ज़ार , नहीं कोई नहीं
राह-राउ होगा, कहीं और चला जाएगा
ढल चुकी रात, बिखरने लगा तारों का ग़ुबार
लरखड़ाने लगे एवानों में ख्वाबीदा चिराग
सो गयी रास्ता तक तक के हर एक राह गुज़ार
अजनबी ख़ाक ने धुंधला दिए क़दमों के सुराग़
गुल करो शमाएँ, बढ़ा दो माय-ओ-मीना-ओ-अयाग़
अपने बेख्वाब किवाड़ों को मुक़फ़्फ़ल  कर लो
अब यहां कोई नहीं, कोई नहीं, आयेगा ।

तन्हाई में, फैज़ अहमद फैज़

Suggested Translation : (By Agha Shahid Ali)

Someone, finally, is here! No, unhappy heart, no one -
just a passerby on his way.
The night has surrendered
to clouds of scattered stars.
The lamps in the hall waver.
Having listened with longing for steps,
the roads too are fast asleep.

A strange dust has buried every footprint.
Blow out the lamps, break the glasses, erase
all memory of wine. Heart,
bolt forever your sleepless doors,
tell every dream that knocks to go away.
No one, now no one will ever come here.

Note : I wish our school curriculum had more poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz - there is really no one quite like him. I read somewhere that Nehru was a big fan of Faiz and personally requested him as much to stay back in India during the partition. Apparently, Faiz replied that he would've loved to live in Delhi but his wife's heart was set in Lahore.

Note : It is a grave injustice to Hindi itself that it must be restricted within the confines of words of Sanskrit origin. This is never how Hindustani was spoken, and the post-partition Sankritisation of Hindustani is remorseful. There can be no good reason to cull the richness of a language by rejecting a huge part of it's vocabulary, especially one that is closer to the spoken language. Second, the prudish nature of Indian society has permeated into the school system in such a way, that there is no room for poetry that talks about grief, wine, or women - but really, what is poetry without them?

मैंने दिल से पूछा

मैंने दिल से पूछा ...

मैंने दिल से पूछा की क्या है ये तपन
क्या है ये खुमार के इंसान को चैन नहीं
क्या है ये बेताबी के मन को रुखसान नहीं
क्या ज़मीन है जो फिसल जाए पर धड़कन को लगाम नहीं
क्या मतलब है इन शौकों का की इंसान हैवान है कभी
कभी नीरस सी शांत तपन है चुभती
कभी क्रोध है उमड़ता के काबू नहीं
दूर दिन ढलते हैं, आँख नीर से नमी
अध् सोयी अध् रोयी अध् जीवन के संघर्षों से थकी
सपने हैं फूके तुझमे किसने ये बहार के ?
ग्हुलाब के खिलने के और मुरझाये बिन मिट जाने के
के देखें सराब तक जाते हैं नाजाने कितने साहिल-ऐ-ग्हुबार
मंज़िल की तालाश में, चैन-ए-अमन की आस में ...

पर पूछे हैं दिल से कोई?, दिल तू क्यों रोता है?
आख़िर ये दिल ही तो नीरस तन ढोता है
हर ग़मी का ग़म भी तो हमें तूने ही समझाया है
हर आशा में मग्न भी तो तू ने ही ठहराया है
ये बंदिशें भी तो तेरी ही हैं
ये तपिश की मांग भी तो तेरी ही है ...
तन नीरस तो क्या, तन दुख्लाता तो नहीं है!
ऐ मन मेरे, ये कैसे बंधन तू सिखलाता ही क्यों है।

कार्तिक अग्रवाल।

Silence

The windows opened their arms out wide,
as the soft lulling winds sang, soothingly,
the squirrels, they ran, in undulating bounds,
and the rain, it poured, as if in testimonial harmony.

And the mind, it sat, waiting to be stirred alive,
and while without protest, thoughts danced away,
embroidering the imaginations of an escapist tide,
to no avail, for the silence had yet the will to prevail,
and uncertainty and uneasiness, marauded earnestly,
shrouded, by a veil of hope, fulsomely mislaid,
on the irresistible prospect of silencing the silence,
and in rhythmic progressions it climaxed, hurtfully.

I looked outside, as the pondering began to hurt,
the men, snatching up little good talks,
the tide of time, the girls playing by the riverside,
disharmonious was I, for even the rain fell not silently

Queer uncertainties of silence and of time,
uneventfully they pass by, mitigating expectations,
taming desires, strangling the hope, left yet if any,
dangling on optimism and lies, self-placatory ,
dousing hurtfully, the soul of my mind, ruing lost passions,
ruing the time, lost in time, like the ruing Sibyl
eternally awaiting the end, to no end, and knowing not,
which is which and why is why, this end of silence.

The sun then shone, out amidst the pouring rain, 

the burgeoning clouds, and their thunderous refrain, 

The sun is sweet, it is commanding, it bathes you in a light, 

that you yearn for, from the people around you. 

But there is pleasure in misery I felt, as it straggled my brain, 

a peep into the mire of my conscious existence, repudiating the pain, 

suddenly, as if advocated, justified by the absurdity, of it all, 

and insignificance of it all in the transitory lives of a fungae culture,

residing on some chemical scum spewed across the heavens. 

But no, I couldn't stray, for there was something special, 

about the silence that pervaded, something more than denial, 

something more than sadness, something that felt like hope.

And there is a certain solace I can feel, I realised, 

sitting on this bench, alone with time, 

in a moment in time, that the vagrant hippie, 

who has travelled much, knows not of. 

A song for campers

I still can remember,
from the rosy bottomless well,
the colors of the rainbow,
how in the rain they swelled.

And the mellow yellow marshmallows,
tempering away,
in the forest fire we made, 

burning hay.

And the light of the skyline,
against the cloudy moon,
the breeze of the time line,
it took us all the way past June.

And the fireflies, they scintillated,
in the evening that they created,
and the petals poured out,
of the night flower as it sung,
smug in its bed,
comfortably numb.

And the morning dew that wet the soil, 

the worms we squashed, 

counting the miles,

The songs she sang,  

and the love that smelt, 

of fresh air and grassy reserves. 

Futile

.

























The forests are never unyielding,
light falls, rebuked by their feathers,
and some rays caress gently enough,
to be allowed passage undiminished.

Little green and white buds,
of fresh olive green turn darkened green,
bloom into the sunshine wide eyed,
pressing gently on the rays.

light is a sinful perpetrator ,
it impregnates lifelessness,
with life and, harmlessly it seems,
sobbing in ecstasy, spraying its pollen.

April is the cruelest month,
the fireflies maraud aimlessly,
earnest it seems is their endeavour,
their thoughts are never scuppered.

but time wilts all, age masks ignorance,
the tempest too plays it tide,
in the east where the sun shines,
nakedly flooding the earth with its pride.

The fire then, is burning, of unspoken,
resentment,and pervading solitude,
in the shade of the sun,
the leaves whither away in time.

Wilting in the sunlight,
bathing quietly, in agony they shine,
condemned to shine,
condemned to be desirous to shine.

Thoughtlessness is wished,
weren't only the virtue of the dead,
in yards strolled by wishfully in time,
answering questions unanswered.

Oh, the futility of it all,
as if it wasn't ever so obvious,
reminds of a little game we played,
looking at black stars in the sunlight.

Kartiek Agarwal

.

The Keeper of Time

.
























She is the keeper of time,
yielding to the ignorance of life
she sits up, her eyes lined,
sooty like the ashes,
of withered lives,
or fires burnt by,
masquerading crusaders, or,
apologetic forests,
whose canopies yield,
in the sunlight that floods in,
to survive a generation lost,
lost in time, reviving,
all that cried in its own fire.
and died, and left no trace.

Here, she betrays,
that she is the keeper of time,
in that she quietly shines,
her hair flashing all the while,
with oil from the rosemary,
whose seeds refused but burst,
to aimless desires,
and the smell of lavender,
flooded in prescriptive harmony,
she let down her hair,
and embraced her nails,
shapely and curved, pink with health,
quietly convincing,
of a wonderful day ahead.

Holding the clock, of gold,
encrusted with gems carbuncular red,
round it was, a little roundabout,
clasped in her hands,
the gold chain on which,
the clock, it hung freely,
or so it seems,
for she is the keeper of time,
and time was a manifestation,
that flowed and caressed,
her every curve, embraced,
by the velvety robe,
that straddled the floor,
and little did it hide,
shapely, pedicured nails of the feet.

And from her lips,
she could sing, her saintly hymns,
or so, it seemed to her,
or was it, but I couldn't care,
as much as she could, no, not the least.
For she is the keeper of time,
I am a passer by, uneventful,
with no rhyme, and no desire,
taciturn, timid and numb,
quietly ticking like the clockwork ,
slowing down, when those eyes tickle,
with titillation I perceive,
then hastening in stride, when in her misery,
faster than the clock can tick.
For I am, time and she is the keeper of time.


Kartiek Agarwal

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Purple Haze

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Eyes, suggestively innocent, yet stunningly wide,
the darkness and depth of another world inside,
Forming and turning, unaware of any peril,
A plethora of emotions unraveling at will.

Let your hair flow, wherever it wishes to go,
Leading me all over the silk route and back,
Imaginations of the wildest strongest sort,
Temptation all too strong for now to evade.

Passionate is your touch, I can imagine,
All through your fingers let your love slip,
Don't hold it too tight, or your bosom may burst,
Let me love every bit of you that you deserve.

Over drinks one too many, I saw you sitting nearby,
sipping quietly, staring at me maybe?
Freudian projection or blissful imagination,
whatever it is that tempts, I want to give in.

And I cannot believe, as you come sit next to me,
and all the emotions of never before,
come unfurling in convulsive stupor,
rattling my senses, shards of words escape.

And you smile, ever so gently as if all is fine,
and you sip your sip and look back at me,
expectantly maybe, and I stammer,
and you chuckle inexplicably and so do I.

And how I sway absorbed,
by every little gesture that your eyes conjure up,
A sea of change lies before me,
and I want to drown myself into the waiting hands you extend.

And the agony now of the every inch afar,
is now piling on the listlessness that pervades,
But the music alas broke the listlessness of the night,
as purple haze drifted inexorably into sight.

Purple haze, like the breastwork that separates,
a plunge into oblivion from the life I live,
like the plunge into your mind but where are you ?
the purple haze is whirlpooling me away from you.

Where are you? I gather myself, to look around,
the bartender knows you not, nor the man who sat alongside,
where are you, my love of the night?
Have you just disappeared into the purple haze that clouds my life?

Are you like every other, or is every other just the same?
Is there no other like some other or was love never mine?
The purple haze that surrounds my life,
maybe its this purple haze that I fear.

Kartiek Agarwal

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Waves...

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Them waves,
they crash into the shore,
in the sunshine, softly churning,
and gurgling, and quietly whining;
oh, the pleasure untold,
like that in the symphony,
of the leaves, rustling aloof,
in the breezy drizzle,
and the pitter-patter of the rain,
on the mahogany painted roof.
And they crash,
into the shore,
and a million smiles,
break into ubiquitous uproar,
in remembrance of the days,
from my heart.
And they crash,
into the rocky sub-terrain,
that houses weeds and snails,
in sparkling iridescent green.
And then they recede,
like a child,
rebuked by her mother,
and all is quiet, for once it seems,
and the sea shells gleam,
in sunlight masked
by a cloudy sheen,
and reverberate in them the tales,
of lost souls
in existentialist ways.
And there is a loneliness,
creeping into my heart,
as I wish for her to come back.
I wish for her to stay,
this time, I wish to be foolish,
doting at her wonderful ways.
I am sad.
and my life, it seems to pass,
with hurtful impasse;
reflecting in the undulated fashion,
of the pianist's portrayal,
of melancholy and indisposition,
and in her subtle betrayal.
And the waves, at the sea shore,
they crash into the sea,
And your essence, it drives me,
everyday to this bed of sand;
the chance, and the hope to see,
you mimicking, making fun of me,
your love, teasing, grappling, slipping,
maybe even coming back to me,
your wonderful ways,
from the wonderful days of yore
all in the rhythmic ways of these waves,
that I wish,
were to crash into me,
and with a swift blow to the chest,
take my breath away,
like you so often did to me.

Kartiek Agarwal.

Inspiration: I intend this poem to be a tribute to the most enchanting symphonies of Beethoven and Claude Debussy. It's amazing what emotions these symphonies can evoke in you. I started writing this poem listening to alot of Debussy, and I was compelled to write about the beauty of nature, because I inevitably listen to his music mentally picutring picturesque scenes of nature portraying its grace and serenity and all about the little emotions on the faces of little animals. Also, I meant for this poem to be as unstructured as most of Debussy's work, that tend to flirt with notes and timings outside the domains of traditional rhythmic progressions. Somewhere in the middle of the poem, you can see a sudden change in emotion. This is when I started listening to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata". I don't think I could have written anything else while listening to that symphony, it just begs you to enter its melancholy little world. I think, you may want to listen to the "Moonlight Sonata" while reading this poem.

Ofcourse, this refers to a man searching for his lost soul, his lost friend, his lost lover in the waves.

In This River...

This is inspired by Zakk Wylde's tribute to Dimebag Darrell called "In The River". Nothing as passionate as a great man paying tribute to another great man. Also, it made me realise how much a river is like life itself, and more so, how it is a reflection of all that is happening in the whole universe. R.I.P. Dimebag, and all the people who died trying to save him that unfortunate day.

Can you hear it?
Its crying,
its laughing,
its sneezing,
its coughing,
its whirling,
and warbling,
and chirping,
and gnarling,
its dying,
its living,
its being born,
all the beauty,
that it has,
is holding time,
and every possible moment,
in a single moment
of life.

Russia, On Ice

My eyes closed, and I couldn't see so far,
as a fading lamp's blaze burnt out like a dead cigar,
insinuating its presence in dampened sparks of imagination,
leaking through crevices in the door left ajar.

<Party music fading in the background>

And the breath felt very warm, and soft, as they walked
and, I swayed on her shoulder and looked into the night, and talked,
as they bade farewell to the merry chatter in an uneasy calm ,
And the door of the car opened, and jammed shut with a rusty thud,
and I slept, like a child in the backseat of a car snow covered.

<And the poor old Lada choked but finally roared on>

For I was, but a child of 5, in the backseat of my car, wondering,
why the vipers of the my Lada, weren't big like the Volvo's ,
or why an antenna on my car, wasn't there after all,
or why Deepti Mohta was so beautiful, in her princess-like frock
with her one arm wrapped in ceramic, hidden under soft cloth?

<And the poor old Lada chugged and crept on>

And as it turned and glided, on the salted Moscow streets,
And the curfew sirens waled from speakers somewhere afar,
and they were my lullaby and the winter my mother, and I slept.
like a child in the backseat of his car.

<And the sirens kept resounding and lullabying me to sleep>

And the next thing I heard, were voices extremely sharp,
a woman, pleading, almost crying in amidst some commotion,
to a man in finest Russian leather, it was my mother I could see,
and from out the window, I saw a man, and he looked back at me.
"Igor, niet, leave them, leave them, look at the child, how could we ?"

<And it seemed Igor obeyed, for he lowered his Kalash, looked at me once, and left us safe>

Kartiek Agarwal

P.S. true story! :) The above is a nested photo (photo of a photo!), hence the lack of clarity.

Love, Death, Beauty, and Poetry.

My words are all but lies,
released into the bewildering wild,
in opiate nights under
the sun-bathed moon with crimson wine
all that set to conspire,
setting my imagination on fire,
imploring me to oblige,
to ponder and to settle down, to retire.
To retire into the arms
of the chair besides my desk and write.

And I write about love,
and death and all in which I find beauty,
And I make a mockery of it all,
every night when I retire,
all that set to conspire,
setting my imagination on fire,
didn't ever realize my ineptness
to set alight the mind, the pyre,
that is in a way only a true lover
could ever aspire .. to.

And so I set to write nonetheless,
of the tempest, that is her soul,
that blows on the lands of evermore,
burning ever bright
like the christening jewel
of a crown in clear daylight,
But again I realize my ineptness
to set alight the mind, the pyre,
that is in a way only a true lover
could ever aspire .. to.

And so I surmise,
from the evident lack of device,
love, I have never realized.
I have never felt it, I could never write.
But yet again I set my ineptness aside,
and continue to scribble and write,
And I find poetry in the death of a flower,
caught in a tumultuous monsoon shower,
That pleads to the skies, and dies,
amongst remorseful eyes.

Eyes, that were never mine,
and it is beyond evident and I realize,
how fickle and unwise,
my words will seem to those eyes,
that belong to the mother of a lost son,
and an orphan of a lost mother,
a lover, his blessed soul,
that bloomed today with new found love, and further
I realize, these words, never writ better
than those on the lips of a bereaved lover.

Kartiek Agarwal

The Visit

He was sat in his bucolic leather-back chair
shrouded by a haze of obliging, benignant air
not by virtue but possibly by the smoke,
that lingered with an aroma of pleasant hope.

As I entered the room, I remember, he shot a quick look,
Sizing me up from head onto the foot,
He couldn't make note of much so he started right away,
A seemingly harmless question, how was your day?

Reasonably well, I recall muttering out loud,
Not very interested in his persistent spout,
And as I continued to recline away to merriment,
It was not before long, the dialog wasn't reminiscent.

I now continued on a path of beleaguered ferns,
trudging along the trail of the redolent soil,
fresh from a showery spell of nature's love,
lit with the sunlight underlining the canopy above.

And I continued onwards, lured by a sense of nostalgia,
By, an inexplicable desire of seeking long lost love,
Until I reached a tree that separated from the rest,
In that it was home to two bluebirds warbling in their nest.

The father then came, a beautiful father he was,
a ring of green around the neck and hood of satin white.
As he continued feeding, his young his prized catch,
they kept chirping and warbling in their colloquial delight.

And the forest , like a utopia of uninterrupted bliss,
Sat back to admire this little relationship blooming amidst.
And then, rather serendipitously my eye wandered to a pond,
murky and shallow, it begged me to respond.

As I leaned over onto my reflection, it leaned back at me,
a gasp escaped my lips unconsoled by the sudden frenzy,
that surrounded me unrelentingly, getting ever frenetic,
It was my face alright, but the eyes were of a heretic.

And the forest was now its primordial self,
under a setting sun, with clouds bulging and giving away at will,
tormenting showers that muted the benevolent trill,
of the bluebirds that flew in search of cover, away from peril.

Throbbing guilt suddenly pounded in my veins,
delirious thoughts scrambled and reveled in my pain,
And I still didn't know why this dream of such promise,
Was now turning into an abject nightmare, an undeniable abyss.

And then, played a requiem that flooded into ubiquity,
And right before I realised, my father's body, I saw paralyzed,
lying in a crystalline coffin with red roses and orchid wines,
Just the way he wished to die, I could never realise, such a heretic was I.

And then, as I began to plead for mercy, begging freedom,
from this ethereal nightmare, this bestial prison,
A sudden impulse of energy ran through my forehead, like a concussion,
and every little nerve rejoiced in almost sudden gratification.

And I found myself now, suddenly very wide awake,
hugging my chair, behaving childishly innate,
Dr. Freud purposefully smiled , and sat me up straight,
"Well, you know my son, it's almost never too late ... ".


Kartiek Agarwal