Gold Hatted Lovers*

I wore the gold hat

And couldn’t move

But sat there trying

Like a fool

And speaking,

Since the others spoke:

“Lovers! Gold—hatted, high-bouncing lovers!

I must have you!”

They wore the gold hats

And bounced high too

Perfectly nimble

And able to move

So I bought the dresses

The sequins

The shoes

But couldn’t move.

I tore the gold hat

From my empty head

From my pointless being

And waited, instead

For a voice to fill me

That has not yet come

And may never come

But firmly, I said:

“Lovers!

Gold-hatted, high-bouncing lovers!

I don’t want you!”

* Inspired by, 'This Side of Paradise', F. Scott Fitzgerald:

'Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her,
If you can bounce high, then bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover! Gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”'

I’ll wear the gold hat, I’ll bounce high too,
I’ll do anything, love, if it’s for you,
I’ll steal you a sack of satin stars,
I must have you!

Will you see me glorious, exciting, divine?
Picturesque as postcards, will you be mine?
And so we shall love forever and a day,
Amongst my gains.

Amongst my gains, amongst your pains,
Shackled in richest, dooming chains,
But the tides of attentive affection are waning,
My love, from me.

I’ll wear the gold hat, I’ll bounce high too,
I’ll sing your praises until I’m blue,
Till you cry “Lover! Dim-witted, fast-falling lover,
I can’t have you!” 

How hard is it,

Really?

To hush our words

Our calculations

Speculations

God damned valuable

Opinions

For just a moment

Just one little

Moment.

Me?

 I wanted to hear

Our giant sphere

Groan as it turns

Day now, night here

Overtaking Mars

Venus runs ahead

Glinting red in the distance.

I want to hear

The trees

Take long, rustling breaths

Swaying back

Swinging forth.

I want to listen

To the magma

At the core of the earth.

I am astounded

That our words

Could have silenced

Such a force.

Hush, little heart
I know you can't look
At the rivers anymore
But you must.
And you must
Tell yourself
That there is beauty
In this never-ending pain
Picturesque as literary postcards.

Let me see

The broken part

Of your soul

Just so I

Can ghost my fingers

Wonder--

If it feels familiar.

I won't fix it

So don't even ask

I will hold
All your pieces together

While curiosity lasts.

Just so I

Can pry open

Every niche of your being

Let me see

With wandering eyes

What lies beneath

Your pretty skin.

Visual Editing

I will not, some days
Type the words
In the middle of the page
And italicize them.
It feels like i'm pretending
To write poems
Like i'm crafting
What ought to just be.

Writer's Block.

Some days, I just sit there, still as ever. The PC hums a favourite tune, the writer I’m reading says something astounding but only half-understood. The violin sways—sober and melodious—in the background. Something inside me stirs, writhing to get out. But something is off with the universe. Not enough of the right elements in the right place. Everything inside me hums. I’m snappy and picky—very picky about what I listen to, what I read. I can feel myself trying to set the cosmos right. Trying to push planets into place, balancing the stars, whisking the clouds to and fro. I know as I sit there, favourite pen in hand, tapping the page incessantly... I know that when two days or two months later something will click, and I’ll go thrashing through my room for a pencil and notebook—the result will be much better. But the feeling is still uncomfortable. It’s like hiking as the air gets thinner. It’s like chewing your lip, staring down a question you knew but don’t remember. It’s also called...

Violent Delights

Violent delights, I am told, have violent ends. That’s all right though. We live for the sentiment, not the prize. The sensation, not the fulmination. We live for the threshold feeling*. Which is to say, we like the feeling of the plane taking off better than the feeling of it being in the air. Among the words that teem like fire ants in the present world, we’re a breath of fresh air. We can be defended in books, when literature students prefer the foolhardy but passionate Michal Henchard over the smart, savvy but robotic Donald Farfrae. In real life, however, we are more likely to crash and burn. Because we are embodiments of base emotions, unchecked sentiments. Only romantic in books I assure you. We can burn a hole through you if you let us out.

But we stick to our guns, I’ll tell you that. Out of reach, distorted, clueless with too much fire under our skin to be rational, even to the extent that’s good for us, and good for others. But we stick to our guns. We feel there is something to be explored in the dark crevices of the human, in that full, unhindered power of him. We like living those tiny windows in which we are something else, something greater than what our own skin can contain.

Violent delights, I am sure, have violent ends. But it’s better I think, than using outside entities to release your inside self. I like it better, that we can find that fulmination of...us...inside our own selves. That we can find the universe in our own selves, and can travel inward to learn everything that lies outside walls we can’t yet cross.

*This phrase, the threshold feeling, is courtesy of Ms. Ayesha Barque and, admittedly, Sujata Bhatt.

Dear Mother,

I have inherited your eyes. Yours are a light sort of brown, the colour of the sun on the rock of a young mountain, and clear.  Mine are a very dark brown, the Lindtt 75% Dark Chocolate brown, and slightly smoky. But I have inherited your eyes. My eyes, like yours, don’t reveal much. But sometimes, when you’re watching an advertisement, or when I’m rambling about the Booker, or when we’re arguing about the future, I think I see dreams in your eyes. And curious questions about your life as it is. I bet that wasn’t what you imagined it would be like. But despite of everything, you’re weaving...all these dreams. Despite of having lived life in all its realities, you still weave a web of content for me in your imagination. And we’ll get there, I promise. Maybe not as smoothly as you think, or want maybe, but we’ll get there.

Sometimes I get angry when you want me to make your back or your legs or your head or your feet stop hurting. Because I don’t want to see you get tired, get old. But generally, I like the feeling of making your muscles relax. I feel like a part of you, and only you, in those moments. I feel like my arms are an extension of your muscles, they’re in sync, and I love the feeling. And while I’m truly grateful that you’re understanding, and open, and all those other (true) words that I use to brag about you to my friends. What I really love, is when I’m yelling at you at the top of my voice, completely out of line as you keep telling me, and in the middle you break down and say just because you’re not strong enough, doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be. That I ought to fight for my ridiculously far off dreams not just despite of what people say, but despite of what you say. ‘Don’t you forget what’s divine in the Russian soul,’ said Joseph Conrad, ‘and that’s resignation.’ It goes without saying you’re no Russian. But you are divine in your resignation.

And what I really, really love, is shutting my eyes and lying in some ridiculously contorted position in your feet—not at, literally with my head stuck somewhere near your feet. They smell like mildly sweaty socks and your trademark closed-toe heels after a long day’s work.

Moment

Moments are called Moments for a very wise reason. They are momentary, and momentous. They happen at their own will, in tiny little windows in the space-time continuum. Brief glances into one of the truths of one of the many truths that walk the earth. And then they are gone. The sun rises, blinding us with its clear, yellow light. We can not create moments. We must not create moments. One does not carve out a volcano with his own hands, no matter how majestic the explosion of red, orange and grey. One leaves such momentous tasks to the iron will of Mother Nature. Momentous.

And momentary. They slip from existence as seamlessly as they came. And then we’re back, you and I. Back to ourselves. Ourselves... Our...Selves. Hmm...

I’ve had moments. Too many to count. With many a people, and many a things, and myself. But someday we’ll have a moment, you and I. And it will stretch, of its own accord. It will permeate our lives like the night does the day. Until banality will have to find those tiny little windows and slither in through them. And the night will end, and the blinding light will begin to spread, and other moments will begin to end. But that day... we? We’ll watch the sunrise.

Dear Soul,

I’ve been following your life as it was in the year 2009, via your words, and other’s words to your words. Denial, Infatuation and Heartbreak catch my eye.  It’s all quite healthy, positivism and sense and all. Eschewing the marshes and glaring a flashlight into the heart of the mist.

I’m sure we’ve wondered, you and I: ‘Do we mean love, when we say love?’ (Samuel Beckett). How does so simple an emotion, so plain an exchange, taper at the ends like ancient, blue paint when confronted by what we were and what we have done and what we will do? What did we do to the sun of our universe? You know the answer: ‘So many stories, some apologies’.

Let sense and sensibility stand where it may. I will stand with you. In your marshes and your mist, in your implosions and fulminations, in your stories and your apologies. I think people ought not to mind our train wrecks. We live for the sentiment, not the prize. When we sit and talk to people as the sun changes direction, something inside us unfurls; unravels its wings until we swell and unbecome into everything. Until we expand throughout the universe in the full throes of our emotion. Because we can.

And if anyone is to understand that life moves on, that we continue to perform at our best despite of anything, it would be you and I. Because in all our hours we are only ever ourselves for small hours in the night. In those tiny windows the sun we never had may haunt us, the mistakes we made may torture us, and the truth of our feelings may be revealed to us in all its truth and sense. It is because of those moments that we continue to write words that spark concern for our good sense of practicality, or cause wonder at the depth of our intended emotion, since they seem to be the antithesis of our daylight selves.

But you know, and I know that ‘Death is the only great conclusion to a great passion’. And we live with that. You know and I know, that love is wanting, and wanting is not having. Hence by the a = b= c so a = c theorem, since love is wanting and wanting is not having then love is not having.

As for questioning our sense:

We've got ninety-nine per cent the same genes as any other person. We've got ninety per cent the same as a chimpanzee. We've got thirty percent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong.

Caryl Churchill

Dear people. Let us feel like we belong.

Love always,

Your big sister.

The Whole is Greater...

I am prone to not making sense. Too much so for my own good, or for other people’s for that matter. Among all the matter that is cryptic, there is also matter which is not meant to be cryptic. It’s simply meant to be true, to encompass the whole. Some days I realize that it's quite a mistake these days: Truth. Still, I am stubborn. In the moments when I am formulating an answer, I am lost. Lost in some undefined blackness. Pulling and picking at the infinite grey threads that weave to and fro in said blackness. I knot them together, extricate them, whichever I find appropriate. I sit there for days unmoving, just me and the push and pull of the threads.


The whole is greater than the sum of its parts...

By the time I have the answer, you’ll be gone. And I’ll still be playing threads. I can’t seem to help it. They’re so thin and silky and numerous. They must find pores in my skin and sink in, go snaking around my head, whispering all their logic simultaneously. I can’t seem to help waiting for the answer instead of chasing it, and still keeping it tentative. I can’t seem to help hanging like a puppet from all the threads, all the voices, all of them convincing as they say, ‘follow me, and I will take you to the untangling of the universe. Follow me, and I will take you...’

Base Emotions

Faith, is no mean feat. For its sake one must blind oneself to the flickering ghost of the future. Faith is, by definition, not wanting to know the end and still continuing the journey. Which is rather paradoxical, since one sticks to the journey, keeping faith that it ends in the wanted or predicted destination.
Faith is--may be-- less of a trust in the resolution of circumstances, and more of a belief in a base emotion, tenet or entity, in which hope is enshrined, and out of which an outcome is wanted or expected or hoped for. Faith is loyalty to the process. Faith is trusting the process.


Faith is, again, no mean feat. Faith and patience, they say, have worked miracles for the steadfast. But what if we're holding on the wrong tenet? Doubt is quite the germ, yet one can not really live without it. Faith may end in a long awaited success, a giving up, or a settling or any number of curious circumstances life may conjure. What really needs to be applauded, i feel, is the loyalty that seats itself on the foundations of faith.
There is a dearth of such simple emotions in the world nowadays. Ergo, i give much credit to Tolkien and Rowling. We all had worlds when we were young. But it is a hard and grueling task to maintain those worlds through the bigger numbers of one's age. It is hard to have faith in base emotions, and at the same time, important.

There is nothing to be said

Of lone figures

Reading books on benches

Anymore.

There are too many words

Too many words for sale

Out there

For there to be

A revolution without

Or a change within.

The Punjab Public Library

Dust and cobwebs

Moth eaten pages

Paper tears at a touch

Good enough.

I like it better

Than a whole society

Bent on talking books

Before feeling them.

Than an insurmountable number

Of educated citizens

Bent on bending words.

Sitting Area in the Shadow of the Lahore Museum

Seven wooden benches

Wood and iron

Nicely faded

Nicely notched

For wary travellers

Secret lovers

Lonely souls

Silent writers

Avid readers

Childhood friends

School children

Surrounded by potted plants

By a black Buddha

By European crests

And smack in the middle

A green waste bin

Overflowing with garbage.

I am sorely against barring

The crumbling towers and terraces and

Minarets

Of old buildings.

There is something about a young girl

Hanging out a high tower

Looking at the world

That must not be denied her

In any age of man

The Logic of the Winter Sun

Today,
I don't need to learn any lessons
Or take time out
Or devote it--as appropriate
Today,
The pen, the paper, the thoughts
Find me of their own accord
Instead of the other way around
Today,
The winter sun
Stretches my spine with golden
Warm, persuasive hands
Folds my arms under my head
And kneads out my logic.


It feel it struggle--my logic
Tiny, fleshy knots
Just under my skin
But the sun--the winter sun
Presses all the knots
Into a gentle,
Thoughtless, release.

Mar Not My Death with TV Time

The speculations start even before the news is complete. Haven’t you made lists yet? Haven’t you identified the killer yet? Was it a remote controlled bomb? It seems to have been a remote controlled bomb ladies and gentlemen. Haven’t you caught anyone? What’s that, a head? It was a kamikaze, ladies and gentlemen.

Increasingly there are more Haven’t You’s than Have You’s?

It doesn’t end there. Grandparents cling to the screen. It went off near the first blockade. Yes didn’t make it to the procession. That’s good isn’t it? Less loss this way. Yes the first blockade. Blew right up. Kamikaze. Seven dead. The other channel said eight. Switch to the other channel, they said eight. In the background the news room and reporter have an intelligent debate about the tumultuous proceedings. Breath by breath by breath. It’s even more lively when there are guests. The gentle hiss of the auntie with the tea cup in her hand, the tisk, tisk of the husband who obviously has political opinions. And he launches right into them. The Americans, the Pakistanis, the Indians, The Taliban. Foreign Propaganda and National Mismanagement. World War. Afghanistan. Remember the Russians? That’s where it all began. Yes, I know. But God, do we all have to know it? Do we all have to say it? Every time?

But we do the tango, we do. Every time. From the news room to the auntie with the cup. With an ease that becomes increasingly more practiced. All sharp curves and lovely legs. It’s such a sad thing, no? So many people dying every day. Can’t send my kids out without having a heart attack. What, this? Yes got it from the market down two blocks. Splendid sale there, nice warm stuff, lasting. What’s one to do you know? How do you stop a man not afraid to die?

I feel like mourning death. Someone killed a man. Someone stole my country’s money. Power has made someone selfish. Among all the intelligence I want to mourn the loss of mourning simple things. Death, selfishness, lies, hypocrisy. I don’t want to remember the Russians. Someone died, and you won’t be following their lives, their misery, their poverty. Not for more than the slot allocated to them among the news items and advertisements. No I don’t know how your dress looks, mother. Can’t you see I’m in mourning?