What My Teachers Taught Me

My math teacher taught me that

The years of effort our teachers put in

are walls of whiteboards filled with workings

of cascading equations, deciphering the universe

and how the journey is just as important as the answer

My english teacher taught me that

The love our teachers have for us

cannot be contained in the libraries of the world

driving us to read and write and write and read,

we made friends out of books, and lived a thousand lives

My science teacher taught me that

The respect teachers deserve is tantamount to

the infinite space between atoms and

the earthshattering energy it would take to pry them apart

akin to a mother losing grip of her child

The lessons our teachers teach us

Are never for just the classroom

Never just for passing

They are the whetstone that sharpen us

The guided fingers that shape us

And the message, to pass along those lessons

That have made us


Performed at Dheere Bolo's Open Mic at AQS, Islamabad, 3/18/2016

My Answer to Everything

In the far-flung future, in a galaxy not too far away
I will be sitting in the space-garden of my space-house
enjoying a space-coffee
from Starbucks, obviously
when the reporter-droid who is chrono-logging my thrilling life-story
will ask me about my relationship with my one and only

I will gaze at my beloved and
huff the deepest of huffs
bust out my space-ukelele
and play a ballad which would mean something like this

I fell in love on her first word.

We met at a support group for neurotic writers
while a revolution we couldn't care less about brewed outside

i came in wielding fan-fictions from multiple universes
content to sit cross-legged, beaming at my own geekiness

she came in with a lightsabre

she sliced away my preconceived notions of
poetry only being for emo hipsters in poorly-lit rooms belting out cliched moroseness
she showed me raw, un-apologetic honesty
she force-choked my heart that day

the next time i saw her, i had my blue suede shoes on
dancing a merry jig, all hooked on a feeling
and through our infinitely interwined fingers
she called me her Star Lord,
she was already my Pryde

And i'll strum about all the saturday nights
we spent galavanting across all of time and space
no adventure too big, no life too small 
she is my brilliant TARDIS and i am her Doctor
especially when the clock strikes ten and noon

i would follow it up with a power-chord
of all the times fictional characters had us going
"Noooo" and "Whaaaat" in equal measure
and how she is the Holmes to my Watson
even though she is the real doctor
the Frodo to my Sam
and how the One Ring is a metaphor for like life or something
and how sparkly pretty elves are

and when my epic space-ballad of the ages is coming to an end after at least a 40 minute solo
i'll breathe deep
and look at the one who was with me through it all
and will be with me for countless more
i'll say that all of that means just one thing:
she is my 42.

Mumbles - my first slampoem

Sometimes, words get stuck in my mouth.
Like a sock caught in a washine's spin cycle.
Yes, I call washing machines washines because... duh?
And I'm filled with words
I make up, dig up, read, smell and see 

that my tongue doesn't want to be
But you see, I only have one meagre opening
And so many words struggling to rush out
And the custom officer my palate plays indulges in bureaucratic lethargy: never opening the gates to the masses
Only letting a select few; the worthy, the suitable, the appropriate, out at a time
But sometimes
The refugees waiting their turn to escape this mouth's wet confines, muster their numbers and swarm the gates
The fat officer can barely, luxuriously lift himself before he is inundated with words and letters rushing out through honesty's irrigation
But see
This mouth 

is still small
My words will get trapped
so when they come out
Sometimes half
Sometimes all at once, know that they are
All aching to make that journey
From one hole to the next.

Run, my babyboy

Ridged soles slap against cold cobblestone.

The pace builds.

Faster.

Faster.

Come on! Faster!

She flits away ahead of me, bounding from one lithe step to the next with effortless grace.

I chase after in her wake.

She, always a grasp away, laughs a cool breeze and sends it my way.

Beads of sweat, rivulets on my skin. Muscles moving in synch, body flowing in rhythm.

Feet pound the ground, launching me closer, and closer.

Ears pounding with cardiac crescendo.

Chest heaving, biting down precious morsels of oxygen.

I feel so alive.

Her hand encompasses my blurred tunnel vision.

One last contraction, one more expansion, legs propel me into her waiting fingers.

Her touch, lightning, firing every synapse, exciting every neuron.

Eyes emanating cold flame, spine excited for more.

"Hey, race you to the bottom."

Nights

Magic was supposed to be real
Only at 4a.ms
But you are Gallifreyan aren't you?
Time is your element

A frozen slice of tachyons
Eternal night blanketing us
We lay there
Facing one another
Your cool radiance
Zephyr on my skin

We've always known each other haven't we?
Spun together in the web of stories
Our threads intertwined
Each supporting the other
Making me, you strong

Unbreakable

Pretending our genesis
Slipping into our own skins
Of earlier days
In different worlds
It always leads to the same divine
Epiphany

We are meant to be
I am meant to be yours
As you are meant to be mine
It is fate, I call it
Purpose

We keep colliding
On slumbering shores
The foam of our reveries
Melting us
Making us one

As we are meant to be

We lie here in the warm dark
Lucid and not
Dreaming and awake
Together
We will make our infinity

Distance

The empty seat to the left 

a vacant reminder 

of shut calls and silent goodbyes

Its never supposed to end you know

one medium ends

the next springs up

hungry, keeping the silence

at bay

Teeming traffic, rash driving

flashing tail lights, blaring horns

epileptic metaphors:

its the same up here

Parents, focused on forward intent

no spare look for empty backseats

the buzzing din in their shadow 

it grows louder into silence

Our words are barren

desolate, Pompeii post ash

each vibration

a lurch, a boil, a swallow

Begging kids

with dry crying faces

plastered on the thin windows

the tiny divide between 

Filling the silence with your songs

a sonic apparition 

your static form

clinging to my neck and ears

its all static now

a shake in my palm 

your ghost reaches out

one word

one word changes everything

one word is enough

its a solid reminder

of the oath inscribed on our wrists

of our cardiac promise

You're beautiful

our amour

my ecstasy 

iloveyou

Nineteen with no tats

Nineteen with no tats
Through tinted specs
They don't see you like I do

The butterflies
A shoulder to hip cascade
Purple wings and blues

The fleeting ravens 
Soaring ephemeral on your arm 
Inky black

A leaf on the wind 
Caught in the breeze of your step
Paint stained tears

Le je ne sais (pas) quois
Dessous votre cœur
Notre stylo violette

The music notes
Dancing on reverb wrist
Twinkling copper dust

The robin 
Forever shoulder perched
Tittering a sea-green tune

The ring
Curled tight around your finger
Infinite shades of promise

I see you 
The platitudes of uninked skin
Let's write all our favourite songs




- Happy birthday Princess


 (Published in Pankhearst's Fresh November 2015 Issue.)

A poem for Roo

I sit here
Fingers poised over keypad
As I wait for heavenly inspiration to strike me asunder 
Too bad I'm a virtual atheist.

So I will dig deep
pull out my feelings
And splay them on chalky screen
A poor, yet honest, imitation.

What is a poem, love?
As told by a wise orthodontist
Your innermost thoughts made visible on paper
But that's not right is it?

A poem is to have structure and rhythm
It rises and falls
Its fluid, it flows from page to heart
My thoughts are anything but.

My grey-matter, fickle bitch that it is
Has no flow
No rhyme or reason
It erupts and slumbers

So tell me, dearest Roo
How would I write you a poem?

Would I start with how we met?
At a support group of troubled egoists
Emotionally barren souls
Looking for solace in art and their own kin?

How we fell in love?
That time stopped at night
And rang with the screams of our veritas
We confessed, truly, at 4am?

That you made me believe in soulmates?
We revelled in our mutual lactose sensitivity
Became telepaths, empaths
Teenage dirtbags?

Or how we first kissed?
The perfection that was our first date
Of elves, hobbits and cheesecake
The tiled, sanitised monument of our genesis?

How about starships and losers?
Mingling fingers and buttered corn
Backseats and hurt backs
Of peace, contentment, and home?

Would I mention beds?
Warmth, dissipating distances
Scent, sound, touch; pure synesthesia
Of lingering kisses and perpetual hugs?

Addiction?
Withdrawal, narcolepsy and zombies
The blurring of days
The torturous weekend?

Redemption?!
We filled each other, lucidity incarnate
When we held each other
How all was right with the world?

And everything in between?
Of shared passions and loves?
Of oceans of peace and home?
How you, love, are my everything and all?

Of whispered and screamed iloveyous?
Words before sleep and exclamations of awakening?
Dreams and pillows?
Of the futures we design?

I cannot put this on paper
It would result in ecological disaster
The Frenchness of my mind would not be sated
And I would not do you, us justice.

Roo
My Roo
My dearest love
I am no poet

So I will just show you

I will just be.

This title will never be long enough.

Two months! 
They'll give way to twenty, to two hundred, to two infinites!
And this lucky jay gets to spend it with the phoenix of his lucid dreams and pipe awakenings.

Funny, how release of a few chemicals in my noggin make me want to dance and jump and scream for joy.
Make me want to sleep and ride and draw and colour and make me feel alive.

I swear I was going to fill this with our exploits through time and space, past and future, but when I think of you ... There is no time.

There is only now.

There is only the ever lasting horizon of you, of us. They say horizons like they are the ending, the limit of what you see, what you think. Expand your horizons, they say. Never to look over, to imagine.

The horizon, to me, isn't an ending. Its the floodgate to EVERYTHING. A beginning, really.

Why am I talking of horizons? That was impromptu. 
I like being spontaneous.
In the here and now.
Fluid thoughts rushing and tumbling in my mind.
Past not weighing me down, future not pulling me forward.

I can skip fullstops, substitute them for commas and just keep rolling out words and phrases and don't care if they get too long.

I am rambling, dancing in my mind, humming along

This is what being in love with you is like.

Bad poems and pretentious prose.

I love being in love with you.

No backspaces.

I am so happy I found you.

No spellchecks.

I love you.

No spaces.

Iloveyou.

I see fire; I hear the wind

I stand in this cosmic cavern
In eternal darkness
My stance unstable;
I am walking on water.

Ripples cascade,
As feet fall on water;
This not be an unfortunate puddle,
Rather an ocean of black.

I walk, I glide,
With rhythmic footfalls.
No shore, no sky,
Only a never-ending ocean.

A luminescence!
Far off in the black horizon;
A speck of gold,
Flickering in the cold darkness.

Another step,
And the spark explodes.
Furious flames rush the horizon,
Surrounding me in a bowl of gold.

The flames twist and dance;
Spectrum of tangible emotion.
The heat overwhelming, cold dark forgotten
But I stand in awe, undeterred.

For I know it is you.

_______________________________

My quest,
Was of enlightenment.
My path,
Was forsaken.

Aimless wandering,
Thoughtless posturing,
Led me inevitably
To the cavern of no escape.

The wide black ocean,
Sapped my soul.
My body an empty vessel,
Devoid of life.
______________________________

The flames would not hurt me.
They playfully entice me
With their burning tendrils
But I'm not afraid.

For enlightenment was mine;
The answer within me.
It needed a spark to ignite my heart,
Remind me of what I knew.

I am the wind.
The flames do not burn me,
I fan the flames
Into a raging inferno.

It is a coupling of nature,
Feeding and nourishing the other.
I do not put you out,
I make you burn

But I do not burn with you.

If I ignite,
I'll be consumed.
Even though that may not be your intention,
It is your nature.

I am the wind.
At peace. Serene.
Flowing, enveloping the universe.
Fanning your flames.

You burn brighter, hotter
A typhoon of fire
Spiralling skywards
Incinerating the roof of my prison.

In the open expanse,
The eternally bright universe,
We do not disperse.
We bind together, becoming one.
____________________________

Our quest, renewed.
Our purpose, eternal.
Peace, and passion.
Fire, and wind.

Tiny spark of madness

Listen sonny

Wanna know the secret of living?

It isn't along some road to success

Nor in the rat race we run from cradle to grave

See, its so much simpler than that, so much more beautiful

You gotta be crazy kiddo

Gotta go full goose bozo

We are only given this tiny spark of madness

The world will try to snuff it out

They can't handle crazy

You gotta hold on to that spark

Its the only way to make it out alive

Gotta be full tip bozo, cuckoo crazy

You know, angels fly because they take themselves lightly

You have to fly above it all

Without that spark of madness

You are nothing

- O Captain, My Captain! Farewell!