– Deepjyoti Sharma
नया बिस्मिल हूँ मैं वाक़िफ़ नहीं रस्म-ए-शहादत से
बता दे तू ही ऐ ज़ालिम तड़पने की अदा क्या है
– चकबस्त बृज नारायण
I am a novice bismil, unversed in martyrdom rite
Tell me, O tyrant, what is the art of suffering
– Chakbast Brij Narayan
2+2 =4, Tautology
In whatever universe
Is love same in every possible world
Out there?
In my observable universe
David Wallace said: All this inside me
To you, it’s just words
That’s why Bukowski said:
Love is a dog from hell
Or what
Rilke said like a princess waiting for us to show courage.
Why did you give up so easily?
Because, oh shit
Anaïs Nin told me, “Do not seek the because—in love, there is no because.”
Then what about
Those people who get lost in a foreign land
How do they know they are lost?
Maybe from a droplet of rain
settling on the skin of a cat
Like Jorge Borges in The Library of Babel
Remember, delusions are the hallmark of love.
The wind came as a howl of lexicons,
Its touch is marked by the spectre of
a language my father did not speak,
every puff and breeze,
a cipher from a fugitive province
and in the translation :
I became a stranger to my motherland.
Clouds meeting silently,
Kissing the courtyard in the rain
that had no regional anchoring-
while my blood, like a Himalayan river,
stuttered in the language of lost ages.
Mirrors turned to labyrinths:
Each reflection is a palimpsest of selves,
wherein my eyes,
infinitely many other eyes, as Krishna says
refuse and erase each other;
every face,
Ingrained in silent dialogism.
How many invisible hands made me?
Like many planets, in cosmic uncertainty
each turning with unseen moons
along secret latitudes- colluding to stage
The illusion of sky.
If wind came as a howl of lexicons
Clouds whispered silently
Mirrors turned to labyrinths
Planets and their moons start colluding
You need a map
You are lost, you found love.
Last night, Morpheus told me
Great art mimics poetry
How desperate you have to be
Urdu ghazals cannot save your life
Tell that to your friend, you already lost
Ask yourself, does the soul find greatness in love?
Robert Bly said, “Greatness has defender, and even in death, you’re safe.”
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Article 19 