Neelakurinji
The blue mountains are purple again
as though estranged lovers have
washed up ashore
and poured paint stolen from the
Gods over the Nilgiri. Did you hear
the news rumored
in mists? The Neelakurunji,
Strobilanthes kunthiana, fireflies
of blue hue, bloomed
at last. Twelve years have gone by
since the purple blue comets last
swallowed the gardens.
Twelve years since the moon’s white
sheets fell upon the blossoms like
milk over a child’s lips.
Even the breeze has brought its
promised pages and lit the air on fire
like a prayer.
So what if the wind blowing over
the blossoms has brought with it
the scent of blood
and the sky is witness to the prisons
that keep stars captive for the crime
of simply shining?
Let the guards stand watch tonight
while the captives write their history
with blood upon
prison walls like a poet once did.
And what if we can’t be together
in this life?
Ask the hills and they’ll tell you of
the pain of longing. Twelve years
they’ve waited
for those beloved flowers to bloom.
This fleeting reunion shall soon wither
into separation
and twelve more years they shall wait.
But if the Neelakurunji can bloom despite
autumn’s desolation,
tell me, what isn’t possible in this world?
A Villanelle
We’ve lived like ghosts since you erased our history.
But the angels (weeping) have witnessed everything.
They’ve promised to keep it safe in their memory—
blood, death, your colonial greed and our lost country.
Where are you now? What flowers will you bring
to embellish when all will be erased? Our history
is nothing but a thread in the night’s tapestry
only to be lost at the first light of morning.
Regardless, we shall keep it safe in our memory.
You took everything— our Gods, our prayers, our poetry.
Only ruins remain now. My beloved waits for spring
to return to our land and then erase from history
your scent from upon our tarmac. Your savagery
made even the devil, his wings flailing— no, burning—
shed a tear. We’ll keep it all safe in our memory.
My beloved, despite her grief, despite our misery
sings to me about love and hope. You are nothing.
We’ve lived like ghosts since you erased our history.
But we shall keep it all safe in our memory.
Drunk Friday Musings
I’m stuck in a loop— oscillating between
wanting to love you and having to lose you.
My friend said she loves jasmines and women.
I sleep keeping the door to my room open.
Maybe you’ll walk in one night like morning
walks in through my windows and eases me
into another day without you.
Bob Dylan sounds better if you’re drunk.
My therapist says I should sleep early.
“I’m not sleepy and there is no place
I’m going to,” I tell her.
I spilled some whiskey over my shirt.
It felt cold and cruel, like your breath
tattooed onto my lips from the last time we kissed.
My washing machine is glaring at me from
across the room. I wonder what detergent
will help wash away my shame.
I met a priest crying in the rain today.
Did God adorn the night sky with the moon
and stars because he felt lonely in the dark?
Maybe we shall meet again, like the rain
meets the lone jasmine shrub someone
planted in my garden (I wonder who it was).
Once, I and my friend hid our dreams
in a jar of cinnamons. Is that why
my kitchen smells of you and death?
I’ll return home soon and sink into
my mother’s bosom and recite a poem
into her ears.
My friend who killed herself didn’t
leave behind a note. Maybe the syllables swallowed
her whole before the noose broke her neck.
Everything is always in a state of decay-
our skin, the corpse of my friend,
your name on my lips, cinnamons,
and you.
In The Ghazal (A Ghazal)
There’s a familiar cry of despair in the ghazal.
The heart’s longing is clear, like a prayer, in the ghazal.
Are you the breeze that escaped from Ghalib’s garden?
Why did you not like your high chair in the ghazal?
“There are other sorrows in this world, comforts other than love.”
But only you, Faiz, could write of your affair in the ghazal.
You left my bleeding abode for an exile of solitude.
But I’ll keep your memory alive with care in the ghazal
Why do you blame the moon for stealing the sun’s light?
Even the Seraphs sing fondly of it. Where? In the ghazal.
On The Day of Judgement, to whom all must I explain?
I have no dreams left but the ones I’ll declare in the ghazal.
When you left, you took with you everything I ever had.
Now I have only the pain you left unaware in the ghazal.
When the beggar asked me for alms, I could spare no penny.
Would these couplets suffice that I prepare in the ghazal?
Forgive me God for my minaret prays not to you but
to death. This is a burden I can only bear in the ghazal.
Sometimes at dawn, I hear the wind bring your fragrance.
Come springtime and I’ll write about it there in the ghazal.
Of Inquilab
Black death inhabits the sight of inquilab.
The children run to get a bite of inquilab.
When the moon cries blood and darkness blankets the Earth
the cauldron of dawn shall succeed the night of inquilab
Let them paint the streets with the blood of our brothers.
We’ll wash it clean with our tears and write of inquilab.
”Rot away, bastard, in the darkness of this prison”
But no shackles can help your fright of inquilab
Darwish; the exiled son of Palestine, writes of his homeland,
”But homelands are taken away” and so is the right of inquilab
Where the Jhelum flows and olives grow, run blinded
children with a playful voice despite of inquilab
Take my homeland, burn my children, kill my woman.
But my heart shall scream forever the delight of inquilab
Here lies my comrade. Before his eyes turn to amethyst,
Remember him forever now as the knight of inquilab
The sky is stunned and Iblis has fallen.
Even in the commotion, flies the kite of inquilab.
Qais, you still wander this land in search of your Laila.
In your prayers still lingers the light of inquilab.
Whose bosom feeds the hunger of her child,
her beating heart itself is a fight of inquilab.
Spring awaits in my garden for your return.
Come, and together we shall recite of inquilab.
Majnoon’s Grief (A Pantoum)
Majnoon was again sighted
in the streets, intoxicated
as before, surpassing the rapture
of every mad lover.
-Agha Shahid Ali
Cries Majnoon, “Beloved you are not here.”
The silver moon falls upon the desert sands.
He picks it up— his hands trembling with fear,
and buries it in the Earth where he stands.
As the silver moon falls upon the desert sands,
the forgotten Gods return with dead Jasmines
and bury it in the Earth where he stands.
He weeps for his beloved Laila, kisses the skins
of the forgotten Gods, returns with dead Jasmines
to the ruins of grief and digs his own grave.
He weeps for his beloved Laila, kisses the skins
of memory’s lost pages. Now a slave
to the ruins of grief, he digs his own grave.
In his heart, there is nothing but disdain
For memory’s lost pages. Now a slave,
his tormented heart weeps even in the rain.
In his heart, there is nothing but disdain
for love’s madness. Listen and you’ll hear
his tormented heart weeping. And even in the rain,
cries Majnoon, “Beloved you are not here.”
Adarsh Sathyan is an engineering graduate currently based in India. His poems often have political undertones to them while, at the same time, exploring grief, loss and love. He also delves into the intricacies of formal poetry. His poems have been published in Poems India (an online poetry magazine) and two anthologies.
