Roshan - a new beginning/ an incomplete poem

This is an interesting development - where will it lead you, Roshan?

Sitting,

Shirt dull with dirt,

Watching the whipping by,

of barren lands- with budding life,

underneath the brown dirt.

Watching,

Convergence and practise,

Rails intertwining to form the thread,

the path which we so automatically tread.

Bright eyed and cavalrous young,

and one who lies there with silent eyes,

in the darker corner,

where the harsh light of a still dead land,

cannot reach with it it's twining fingers.

I cannot see.

Chugging along the metal lines of exploratory man.

I have tried to see the stones-

the subtly exposed skin beneath the neck,

so white and untouched,

under the carefully crafted bulge of an adolescent breast.

Careful, calculated smiles that hide their arithmetics.

I cannot see the origin- the heap of it all.

I have heard many times,

standing in the musty bookshelf,

the sound of silent footsteps that scatter around,

before finding each other in the middle.

I have heard many times, the cajoling voice of God's best creations,

urging the young to sit down- and when they are gone and the dust gets heavy,

and they cannot keep inside their explosive selves- they ask softly,

to the things around them- why do they speak as-if he speaks to them?

for if there was one who Watches and is Wise,

the purest would be the things that cannot think.

Samia - for my granddad/ finding one's own voice - it's such a mature one

I fly

I fly to you

I fly straight

in a calm line.

Little beauties

change my line.

This big cloud-

this soft-hard cloud,

I touch

its boundaries

its edge

I touch.

My only curve

in this straight

journey to you I fly.

The meandering silver

glistens below,

moves so slow.

The meandering lights

on those

clover shaped cement strings

the lights

they move so slow.

The stars above look at these stars below.

I fly to you

I am here now

Your love by my side

She looks at you

and tinkling years

in her tears

pass by.

Your kids

look at you

and their thoughts

about you-

float in sad clouds;

to you they fly.

Your friends touch you,

they talk of you-

when you were young

my age

they talk of your spirit

of gentleness

and humour

of love

and communism.

The red flags fly.

They talk of your bravado-

of will and grounding.

Your poems,

your seekings-

my dispirited heart flies.

I touch you,

ice cold

eyes half open.

I talk to you

my words to you

Yes, they fly.

They take you

with tears,

they set alight

these years

of memories

their last physical

contact with History.

Fireflies,

Ashes fly.

Up and up these

mountains which you so adore

adored

adore

We touch the ice cold water

flowers and ash

ash and water

ashes to ashes

dust to dust

you ethereal

you fly.

Samia - a kind of mediatation on cows and sheep that makes a lot of sense

Who am I to you?

Who

are we to you?


I see you everyday-

you walk the path I walk.

Turn away.


I wonder what you think of us

and I wonder how you think.


Your walk is steady

slow and

somber

We were like you once…

I don’t know if im correct in saying that

for you seem much more content

and graced.

I honour you,

for you walk amidst us

on this barren grey earth

that we have destructed,

yet you maintain

yourself

as you always have.

Roshan Ali - memories

How do memories come back?

They travel more than us, through lands lit only by a moon.

Through tunes that ride them till they reach one's tears.

Do we even see what they mean?

Are they only ours?

I can tear through my heart, combing out the ones that mean tears,

And ones that mean nothing.

Thoughts of long stretches of sand where the footprints follow no human pattern.

These long stretches follow no particular pattern.

They stretch across my forehead.

The morning that I fled was colour-coded,

With the bright being home, behind me, and the dark in front, being dark.

Fleeing the bright orange of home, into the dark.

Feet flowing like the sand, scalding the surface upon which they stood.

Home- with the bright orange and the scalding memories of intense times.

Times that have been branded into my life, only to be brought out, to be exposed,

To be shown at the time of judgement.

At times where I stand to be judged- but there are no judges, only I.

And to look at myself in the reflections in the sand, seeing no face,

Or recognizable form.

Only to see a little product of failed efforts.

They come back clear, branded into thought,

the smell and the talk and the

the shapes that mean so much, that define the shapes of your life.

They fly back, into the very air that you breathe, and swallow

like life-giving food.

You are your memories.

You are what we call thoughts from a distant past.

Prerna too still writes poetry - here's her latest - yay!

Dressed as a fairy

He stood on the pedestal

Composing another of his fairy-tales,


Ate alphabets from the air

Making words disappear

Melting the minds

Cementing the layers

With tunes of human despair.


Each soul sang the song, frozen in his throat,

This was my song.

The milk from his udders flowed through me

Trickling down, vertically

from my eyes to my knees.


Mimicking mirror, showed me a coward,

bedazzled in his prism of cries.

he asked me for some direction, saying he lacks conviction.


Haunted by Certainty, his beloved mistress.

He wondered why he always found Curiosity, her sister,

In his bed.