you are most beautiful
when you sleep–
when the coffee-toned notes of your skin
brew, a silent language
while your perfect lips are too tired to doubt my eyes
now, the dark mist of your breath
trickles down my neck
I wait,
I stare at you
unwaveringly.
outside there is a trail of rain,
and the wind
in the willow cage
whispers
as if it dares to tell
the moon and
all the listening night
that this silverlight should not
touch you, in front of me.
the moss by the window grows up
presumptuous contentment ferments itself.
This air is magically much lighter today
I remember this forgotten dream
where each rain drop
becomes a spiraling sigh of someone I knew.
Searching for my heart,
I scramble in linen white bedsheets,
my eyes rummage the room for a mirror
for this face must be a void :
an artist’s regretful hallucination
a dreamer’s revered loss.
We smile the best,
when the mind’s eye forgets the face.
I should settle for a second slumber
to grin like a Cheshire cat,
the sky turns murderous grey
a lovely occasion? Isn’t it?
Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
The day is still leaving
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it’s raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables.
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
The curves begin to melt,
Its astounding we remember
everything we touch.
So your memory is a trace of fingertips,
From the callous neck, to the sculpted collar bones, you are a like a hidden lake in a forgotten island, where I dip to forget myself,
The curves extrapolate like rays of sunlight never knowing why,
From the breasts to the fine arch of the back,
Everything dissolves again and again,
My hands aren’t wet with your touch?
Are you really what they call as magic?
For my hands disappear within you,
Tracing every tips without whispering to you,
Touching everywhere without telling you?
Making it a dream, with dreaming you,
Do you feel it all, or should I be dissolving you?
Not by touch, not by shyness
But by a pool of shyness and leaving you?
I never knew how to withdraw, so the dress is leaving you?
Maniacal? Sensuous? Are you mad?
All sound same. While your eyes teach you.
You sit in the garden
swinging to and fro,
a shining sun
brilliant yellow with warmth
brightly painted oranges in your hand
or are they tangerines?
I do not know
for I was not invited
to this winter feast.
You sit with the others,
peals of laughter,
seeds of conversations
leak into my room somehow.
The pulp of the oranges
dripping from your lips
as you discard the peels
dulled by time
turning bitter and dry.
Let them fall to the dirty ground
uncared for and
unnecessary.
I forget their existence, the sun
and the warmth.
I remember us,
the pulp stained lips
and a thirst for never missing such feasts,
where your eyes inch this close to me.
where the breath turns citrus in unison.
Every ray of sunlight,
is a drop of warmth
melted by god’s eyes
You, a silver mirror,
That can glitter my hand even in the darkness,
as if a thousand ants enjoying a living feast,
for their heart’s are as restless as a lover’s hunger for voice.
In my dreams, each night,
Someone cleaves the sky with no voice.
It becomes a darkroom where I fumble with trembling hands,
my memories dipped in a pool of questions,
like a photograph being developed in a room full of darkest red wines.
I wake up to a room devoid of light,
wishing to be in a subway where no one cares for your existence if you have learned to forget your hands.
I sleep wishing the subway leads to nowhere.
A silence is a powerful noise,
When shall our ears act like our eyes?
– Shashank Bhardwaj
There is no shame in choking the uneasiness
out of one’s sleep.
My larynx melts
when it is this dark.
The neck dissolves itself,
into a pool of subtle cold regrets
Silence drapes my bones
in a shroud of voiceless memories
rotting them, turning them
into the color of a fragile copper abandoned
in an unnamed graveyard.
It is basically a practice of perfection,
to death: the permanent sleep,
the unanswered question stabs
the unasked answer,
The god with no eyes and a displaced heart
just sighs.
– Shashank Bhardwaj
Writings to Heaven 