Somewhere ElseI don't need alcohol to want you And you needn't be sober to refuse. You could just move your fingers Around the rim of the glass.. Again and again Like the earth around the sun. I'd still be at the table Plucking the stars from inside your clothes. I'd still be at the table Working on the order of words To adorn that letter of parting I've been wanting to write. Isn't death another way Of being accepted somewhere else? TimbreFor long now, I have been searching For a voice with a particular timbre, Carrying with it, the threat of a suicide bomber. I'm out on the streets Where men have their desires, Nailed on glass doors Revolving faster than Jupiter. The stars are now Forever red traffic lights. The streets, never ending female bodies, With cigarette burns And paper cuts Are all straight lines That go everywhere That go nowehere. And I am out still, Looking for that voice, With that particular timbre That can talk a restless river Into sharing afternoon tea with it. MasksWhen I write in Urdu The words drag themselves from the right Like children taken to school Against their will. The letters set up camp Lighting a fire With the remains of their discarded brothers. In the evening, they sit by a stream The surface of which is polished mercury. And whisper sad songs to each other. Halfway through the poem, An unruly couplet wanders off To a nearby village And returns smelling of, Grandmothers' shawls. The others, having already reached the end Exchange their masks And prepare to walk again. OVERCOATLast Friday,
Everyone I knew Living inside me Walked out of my room Like disciplined and industrious Summer ants. The bridges that needed to be burnt Surrendered meekly to my Letter writing skills. And my visit to the laundry Only revealed that I had forgotten to collect the overcoats In whose folds I'd hide as a child. The afternoon wore My worn out pyjamas And walked the neighborhood Ghosts, too old to scare children. When evening came I sat with a bottle of longing That I've been brewing Since I was 17. I sat there, Waiting for morning The way the abandoners pets Wait for their masters to return.
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