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Poetry Month: WINDOW

if life is a house

we are like broken windows

seeking some light in

 

 

There is a poem I didn’t write because I wanted to sit by my window and just watch the clouds stroll around the sky, but things don’t quite turnout the way you want sometimes


You could be just waiting for the moon to show up, for your head to find that perfect resting spot over the pane, and

the smell of unfinished rain can make you miss him so much that before you can even ask why, you don’t know what to do with your eyes.

 

She was looking out the window,

A fixed, abstracted stare,

At the formless black figure outside.

As the eyes got closer,

Someone was banging at the door.


The neighbours saw and heard nothing.

No muffled screams or signs of struggle.

From under the bed,

My little eyes saw it all -

Those things without feet,

Floating into the room,

The window still ajar.

 

I am still holding onto my dream of a room of my own,

but for now, let me sit by your window

 

A man has climbed over a wooden desk- stranded beside the window protruding out- and seated himself over its 20 year old wooden cover. His legs are folding into the window grill like a blooming flower, quietly⠀


The day is dimming. Pigeons have started cleaning themselves, beaks in wings picking dust, with swift turns. The tape recorder humming soft melodies from the 80's would soon shrink.⠀


but the man is not worried. An old book in his arms, unfolding in the weakening light.⠀

Dirty yellow page holding several lives, intertwined; one of them unabashedly falling in love in the midst of war. Through it man finds hope.


Light has escaped the rope.

The man, now stranded like the desk

by the window, breathes, practices hold.

The air is stale, night long.


Soon the man will pick his phone.

 
 

Blue coloured eyes with ruffled hair,

A grubby face

And bruises all over.

A four year old Kurdi

Sits next to a body

Which is immovable and

Unaffected by the noises around,

Or,the cry of his own son.

Little Kurdi doesn't know

The sound of the birds

Or a lullaby

'Cause all he has been used to

Is the sound of gunfire and bombs.

He has lived under shattered roofs

Without windows or

glasses reduced to a thousand pieces.

He isn't aghast by

the smoke and fire around

Or the city being reduced to a rubble.

For he has seen Syria everyday like that

Ever since he knew life.

For you and me,being alive is the normalcy.

For Kurdi,death?

 

At lunch today your father called you his

Totto-chan, referring to a character in one of

your favourite books from a decade ago -


the title of its English translation is

‘Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window’ -

and you think of how apt it is for you


to have loved her, as you take out your well-loved

copy (a Gujarati translation that your mother

gifted you) – you’ve only known that little girl


in Gujarati, and reading any other translation

might change your memory of her

and your memory of her is so dear to your heart -


you remember her experimental school,

the classrooms set in a few train wagons, the arch

of trees that welcomed you into the premises -


and you remember her school trip -

the nearby waterfall still gushes in your ears,

the smell of the soup they cooked still lingers -


and you remember fondly how she’d observed

her mother touch her earlobe when her fingers

brushed against a hot utensil - a habit


that you too have picked up ever since -

and most, most of all, you remember all her quirks -

her oddities, her penchant for getting in trouble,


and her endearing curiosity – at times

she mirrored you, and at times she was

your other – always, a dear friend.

 
 

Interviewee 10 has a joint family of 9

10 people live in a thatched house

At the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

The thatched house has two rooms

A kitchen and the room of everything else

The house is dark even in the daytime

Gaps in the thatched rooftop

Send sharp streaks of light

Cutting the air like a knife

His wife is applying cowdung on the walls

Interviewee 10 takes me to the house of his best friend

We sit on the inviting verandah

And talk about the potted plants in the windows

His best friend says,

"Never. Even though we are best friends, he can never enter my house. These are the rules of the village."

Interviewee 10 suffers the indignities of untouchability

Interviewee 10 and I return to his home

His wife has finished applying the cowdung

Interviewee 10 is concerned

He asks me if I with my fancy city-bred nose

Will be able to breathe inside his house with no windows?

 

3 commentaires


Manuel Murphy
Manuel Murphy
05 juin

Great poems on the WINDOW theme. geometry dash

J'aime

Nicholson Percy
Nicholson Percy
03 mai

Remarkable poems ❤️ space bar clicker

J'aime

anshiakanksha12
18 avr. 2020

Amazing poems ❤️

J'aime
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