Master! Your history gets

In the way of my memory;

I did not lie when I said─  

“You don’t own my lawn.”

There is a reason I am silent;

You did not let me speak

My version (s) of history.

Master! Your history gets

In the way of my memory;

I did not lie when I said ─

“You don’t own my body.”

Master! My heart is seditious;

And my mind can really think

How you rob me of my stones.

I did not lie when I said —

“You don’t own my tongue.”

Master! You came as a guest,

And took my cream-white skin;

You wanted a slave in my form.

I did not lie when I said —

“You don’t own my choice.”

Master! I will not tell anyone;

Neither will I write about it:

How day in and day out;

You engineer schemes to

Declare me — a migrant.

But Master! O, Master!

I did not lie when I said —

“You don’t own my roots.”

Master! I was here before

The crows learnt to caw;

And before the first icicles

Were formed on God’s shed.

Master! One day, father said,

“I came here before the first

Fire broke and spread life.”

I did not lie when I said —

“You don’t own my birth”

Master! Your history gets

In the way of my memory again.

I remember it as my first love;

You taught me to be silent;

But master! My heart is seditious;

And I cannot forget it so easily,

I did not lie when I said —

“You don’t own my memory.”

1. The title of this poem has been borrowed from Arundhati Roy’s collection of essays My Seditious Heart.

2. The line “Your history gets in the way of my memory” has been directly borrowed from Aga Shahid Ali’s poem Farewell.

These icicles of your memories

Hang on my tarnished soul,

And drop by drop trickle

The bygone tales of our love.

How, you remember, once I mounted

The distant mountains, all alone

Only for the mad pursuit of

My desires that never died.

This hollow shadow that clings

To time like bur rests nowhere.

A new desire bursts from the

Frost of my hoary heart.

Once again, I long to traverse

The same melodic mountains,

And drink the same poison of life

To reach your door only to say:

         “Nothing”

Tonight! I write your name

On the walls of my heart,

The scratching so familiar

Produces a sound so familiar.

I walk on the silence of life

And careful not to stir a Leaf

From the autumnal slumber.

I dream of a tree in a desert.

I sacrificed my whole life

For a promise you never kept:

“Is there nothing you can do?

Not even a sign of love for me?

I do not have miles to go            

My road ends exactly here.

This horse is decaying slowly

Say it has been worth the time.

Yes, I took a road less travelled,

I reached you to cover your

Loneliness.  Say at least

I did not flee for my life.

There is no other life left now

The boat has sailed and you

And I alone sit here for our life

To seek love for all the wounds.

Tonight! Do not peck

At the wounds of my heart.

Do not scare me to death,

Tonight, don’t stare me like that.

There is a mist in the air

I have grown weary — praising

Your steel body and sunken eyes,

Eyes that see nothing.

Yesterday, the snowman had come

In my dream with a revelation.

Tonight! Do not ask about how life

Fled like a dream before our eyes.

Tonight! Come to me as a guest

And inquire about my Memories —

The snowy nights I spent shoeless

And frostbitten at my funeral.

 

Tonight come to me as a kiss

Of a lover on his beloved and

Softly raise me from the debris

Of this wrinkled body.

Do you wish me to sleep calmly?

Come then tonight with a soft

Murmur of your age-old voice

And sing me of our desolation.

In the beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with God,

And the Word was God.  

Hush! Hush! How

                 Does

A word

                        Break

Its silence?

Does it behave like

An unruly boy at the last

Row of a crowded class?

Or a school teacher in hurry?

How does the word break its shell?

To unfurl its pock-marked heart.

Does it toss like a fish, caught

Fresh, in the hands of a fisherman?

Or the tail of a rounded eel?

What if the word were a

Woman?

A poor one,

Dreaming of a fine

Gold necklace from her lover.

Would you strangle her — in bed?

With your muscles,

Before dawn jumps in her shed.

Or would you be drowned

In her helpless breath?

Bark tonight! O heart! Bark!

With a spade, in memory’s field

Like a farmer, dig deep trenches

Only to unearth your memories

Like some fossils.

All day and night the word sings:

“I am neither the loosening of a song

Nor the close-drawn tent of music;

I’m the sound, simply,

Of my own breaking.” ¹