Netty Thoughts of Tinseltoe Days

I was looking for beauty
In the rain
Slapping across my window pane.
In the flowers
Touching my face
While I walked 
to the tube station every morning.
In the songs 
Of many artistes – good and less good.
In the aerial act of a friendly spider 
Dancing a cobweb in my kitchen.
In photographs of my friends
Who seemed happy with their married lives.
In my mother’s voice
When she sang along Ghulam Ali
In our living room.
In the moon
Climbing the sky
From the window in my room.
Through the glass of Mulbec
at Queen’s Head.
In the dishes covered with
soporific bubbles.

Bit by Bit

Next time we meet

I will surely ask you

If there’s anything you miss

Apart from finding love 
in the corners of my body.

I am faced with

the challenge of being happy again,

In your happiness,

Of which neither I am the reason,

Nor a part.

You were right

About one thing

However delusional and unclear you were 

About the rest.

However much you lived in denial

And forced me to disbelieve

What I knew.

"You are my poison"

Eating me away,

And I keep offering myself to you

Unconditionally.

Maybe life is a journey

Towards death.

And if this journey has to be enjoyed

Then my poison is already at work.

I am smiling,

Every day.

Dying,

Every day.

The Hardest Part

To love you was never easy,

How could losing you be easy, then?

But the hardest part wasn’t to love you

or to lose you…

It was rather, to get used to seeing you happy

And not wish

I was the one behind the smile on your face,

I could have been the one smiling

with your smiling face.

Open the Door

Open the door,

I know you can hear me.

There was a long silence. 

I watched the falling snow.

I couldn't feel a thing.

and then you said,

Sorry, I can't.

My mother's at home.

I knew you were making excuses,

Of course you wanted to open the door

But feared what your mother would say.

It's cleared now, the snow.

But the door is still closed.

Your mother went to sleep ages ago.

But the door is still closed.

Some day you will come out

to get the milk.

You will have to see me then. 

Won't miss the Spring

When I looked outside the window,

I realised how long it had been since

the last leaf turned green.

My song had been too clouded

to see a thing

my tears too loud

to hear a thing

..But promise! this time, I won't miss the spring!

Feeling Tribal

From the bank of the river
where words get stuck between
the rocks
i come face to face with
my reality.

I am lifted by my hair,
my plan for a hair cut
long post-pone(y)d
and the people around me
laugh in my face.

Undoubtedly
sleep comes easily
to my pain induced body.

In my dream,
I laugh at them people
in their faces
who now have
nothing but
my hair
between their fingers.

Memorising Calcutta