the blind,
they don't know how
to distinguish,
they just know how to
love
The only way to change the past
would be to re-write the history books
Destroy the libraries that retell the stories of their atrocities
Create a new regime
that glorifies their 'good' deeds
Light the 'liars' on fire
So the smell of kerosene
masks the putrid scent of truth
Let this be an example,
To prying journalists
Student activists
The idol-worshippers
The circumcised
The ordained
The free
And the freedom seekers
Outside,
This city is dying
Inside,
We order a lazy lunch
Only worrying when we discern
these fires may delay our delivery boy
They should know,
There would be no need to re-write the history books
We've already forgotten
the first boy
that almost kissed me
saw a rainbow staring back at him
so he stopped and asked me if this
is exactly what i wanted and when i said
yes
he dismantled every one of my arcs
and told me to leave his house
i cried so much i became
dewdrops
sank into the earth
for the next boy to shape me
around his fingers
held him till he
pressed a little too
hard on the cracks
and bled me to silence
and refused to talk in metaphors
for a while
i found poetry in
the boy that broke my heart after him
roared
the night he stepped onto
my forest floor and instead of
seeing the wonderland that came
alive, left me to rename colors
after the next
who only saw me as a shadow
while he remained the
the sunshine that came before it
so i withdrew to the altar
prayed till a boy told me
he spoke to god about me
i asked him to
recite a verse with me
instead, he unfolded his palms
and watched me
set sail to meet
the boy that deserved
the world
all he saw was distance
all we shared was the sea
there are often days
when i want to believe
that love could be blind
but it has had a way of
shaking me awake
every time
you see, i
don't exist
within dreams
i exist as the rainbows
the earth and its forests
the shadows, the hallows
and the sea
and the boys,
they could never keep
what they couldn't see.
I wouldn't know how to
weave the unclarity
the state ordered starvation
the nightmare of migration
and the blind eye synonymous
to our normalcy
into a poem
quiromancia ~ palmistry in Spanish by Shalaka Kulkarni
di, overheard at school today
about palm history or palmistry
so gaze at mine
and tell me something
please,
it better be interesting
well, let me see and
tell you i am no astrologer
or a palm reader
but just a verse-maker
so let me see,
your palms look clement,
dainty as a flower bud,
covering all the inner noise,
nerves, veins and loud blood
on your left,
there's a range of mountains,
just below your finger spaces
with a creek, and a brown
moon shining over the peaks,
honey, pretty mystique
whereas on your right,
a bunch of rays have formed
a springfield,
and there's a small shack,
to play hide and seek.
and when you join both,
you can build an air swing,
the tiny cross mats
on the ground, inviting a little
al fresco of you, me and mom
just above your wrists
enticing it is, but what are
mountains and creeks?
and shacks and swings, di?
mountains are natural elevations
and creeks are narrow waterways
and shacks are raw huts,
and swings are ... wait, i can't elaborate
wait, i can't elaborate
as a verse-maker, hereby i fail
let me borrow some science
and present you your
wonderful here after -
wait, let me trace
your palm lines in braille
let me trace
your palm lines in braille.
Blind Man by Vasvi Kejriwal
I’m thinking of how musical the world
might sound to the blind man.
Is the house sparrow’s song a clink
of glass bangles? How unforgivingly
does rain slap his earth? How much
higher does the mountain of loudness tower
over him, when there’s an unbroken silence?
I’m thinking of whether roads dislodge into
a mere number of paces in his mind. And
whether his bed is a number of stitches
mending memories the world left on his skin?
I wonder whether he might be grateful
for the Braille-like embroidery wanting to hold him
through the night, when he’s loathing the most,
for wanting to listen to the darkest parts of his day
as he traces thread
on the lumpy, pigmented parts of his flesh,
for not wanting to aid him, but for taking in
the wounded refugee of sight, for mashing his body
so pitilessly into a soft, unvigilant pulp layering bone.
I keep wondering, for I don’t know. But I know
he must have looked far down the depths
of kindness, beyond the lotuses that grow
despite dirt, he must have looked
further than I’ll ever know.
when i was eight
a blind girl lived in the adjacent house of my chawl
she’d caress people’s face
and read the face lines like her braille script
sometimes what you see is not enough
to understand how another person is feeling
she'd say
on frequent nights her father would come home drunk
and beat her mother and punish the girl
for occasionally bumping into things
and he would curse his fate until he slept
on nights like those, i saw her in the balcony
her face up at the sky and she'd console the moon
“i’m fine. i’m fine. how are earth and sun treating you?”
.
i think her heart probably knew how the butterfly effect worked
and so, she was so kind
hoping somewhere sometime
her kindness would save someone's world
she didn't know but she was so tender
that it could melt the sun
after years, now when i read about the ongoing researches
and how there is evidence that proves
certain genes linked with humans being caring and kind
i laugh at how silly science could be sometimes
i want them to know kindness is a virtue you might not inherit
but can always develop within
and if they ask me how
i'm gonna tell them that i knew a blind girl
whose eyes shone brighter than people having perfect eyesight
