The Nocturnal Gab Fest
Why was my larynx so tight, so dry?
Dizziness clawed,
grabbing me with all its might. Sigh!
The night lorded over me, gabbing- gabbing-gabbing-
The garrulity of the night, heightened.
Poking
Jabbing.
Nabbing,
Stabbing me
With scary tentacles malevolently.
I tried to slither away -crab-like.
But failed. The night wailed.
I was jailed.
Perennially Incarcerated,
I slouched, as night crouched.
In hushed whispers, berating me for my cowardice.
“Have you lost your tongue? Can’t you speak?
Come on, burst your lungs. No point being meek.
The gabfest continued.
I clung on, passing the test,
imbued with the notes of a new, loquacity-
lilting and befitting.
I gaped as I saw the dark night slinking away,
afraid of my newfound confidence.
The dawn was just an hour away.
I had decided no longer to be silent.
Crisp, hard-hitting words hovered on my lips,
and with the dawn of the morn,
I lisped out a new song, no longer inchoate.
Red Tape
The morning was overcast, the sky grey.
We hopped and skipped, singing songs.
Some off-key too.
Many off-key ones, in fact.
Then you stopped near that majestic pine,
a naughty twinkle in your eyes.
I watched, amused,
as you pulled a penknife from your pocket.
Penknives were in vogue then.
So was love. Till it was not.
So was the sight of love-besotted couples
engraving their names on tree barks.
I am told, it still is.
Ah, that blast from the past!
I peered closer, my eyes marbles of curiosity.
Here and there, driftwood marked the memory
of many storms.
Just two letters you etched on the bark.
You were a mischievous one!
Then you put a red tape over it.
Tell me, is bureaucracy treating you well?
Let me confess, in many a vulnerable moment,
I have often rued the brevity of that dream.
Just a few weeks back, I again had a dream.
I found myself standing outside a cottage,
flaunting a fresh paint of green.
Two silhouettes standing close together,
eyes riveted on the westering sun.
The scene blended into the luxuriant green.
If you ever go to Gulmarg, do go on that narrow road,
[It was a goat trail then], you will find a pine tree
next to a green cottage.
Please tell me are those letters still engraved there?
Or maybe they now lie buried
under the palimpsest of time.
A cruel rhyme.
The Broken Cup
The night was a frisky colt.
Unimaginably so,
as though drunk on rum or may be whiskey,
behaving in a pretty absurd manner.
In a comatose stupor,
it cocked a languorous eye at the earth
and shook as though in self-congratulatory mirth.
I bet, there was a pattern in the absurdity.
A sliver of sanity in the surreality.
I got up with a nightmarish jolt.
Was that machine gun fire?
What a blurred, impossible dream -A nightmare actually.
I saw myself drinking
freshly - brewed coffee from a broken cup.
Why was it broken?
Who broke it?
I choked on the last sip.
The night looked at me with a brutal, deadpan expression.
Little knowing that I had mastered the art of deception.
Excellent poems.
ReplyDeleteThanks a ton. Anonymous.
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