Gaw Kadal, Srinagar

(Elegy for a Bridge: Osia)

You are eleven cement pillars
and thirty nine rusted banisters.
You are a small kid who dropped
his freshly painted kangri
and ran away once the first of the one thousand
fifty six bullets were fired.
And didn’t look back to see what happened.
Otherwise he would have celebrated
his twenty first death anniversary this winter.
You are a young man who stood
like a cross inside a pheran,
five feet nine, 16 years old, hands stretched
horizontally as a matter of reflex,
to shield ten thousand nine hundred
live targets from the barrel
of a light machine gun.
Eleven meters away from the finger
on the trigger, he stood like the Chinar,
straight, uncomplicated, on his own.
He took the holes on his legs, abdomen, chest, neck and face.
Sunlight passed through his ears
as he dropped dead on the road.
You are a face lying close to a broken kangri
and flinching from the burning coal and getting a bullet from point blank range.
You are an afternoon, a memory
that hangs together,
a half-eaten pear, a winter,
a chopped off arm
and a healthy stray dog
chomping off that arm.
Nobody can eat winter like a pear.
Nobody can live inside a pear like winter.
You are a dying voice drowned by a shout
“Don’t waste your bullet. I’ve pumped enough rounds into his body. He’ll die on his own”.
You are seven shocked policemen
who came to collect fifty eight dead bodies.
Angry but helpless, helpful but unlucky, they loaded the truck and drove
to the police control room.
You are a name not known to anyone.
You say a name not known to anyone.
Maybe because the newsreaders live on the banks
of a river that doesn’t sound like the Jhelum.
Maybe because the history professor teaching
his class the nuances of state building
has kept on wearing his old glasses.
Maybe because the law of the land
orders the well-fed government employees
to destroy the old records once in every twenty years
in presence of their immediate senior.
I knocked at your door.
Please let me come in, I said.
Let me see you from inside.
A foot print here.
A stride there.
Three stumps and a cricket match.
A sentry post and a face behind a mask.
A torn school bag and a broken ink bottle.
I am not a house, you told me,
I am a bridge, I have no door.
People walk on me. They don’t stay here.
You are a bridge for cows to cross
the river before it gets dark.
You are a worried mother who tells her son
studying in the university hostel library:
‘Come back home early or don’t come today’.

Happy Birthday

You were in my heart when I first took wing
silently floating on my mind
like a butterfly in the sky
Fiesta of sunrays at daybreak
upon distant misty mountains
still reminds me of you
When we sauntered across
around our comforts
criss-crossing the peripheries
of pure joy and kinship
Thy laughter and floundering
gathers in my soul
like a robed wizard’s charm
Old times whereupon
I held your finger
to turn new leaves
My soleprints on the shore
look lonely this evening

© Sameer

Harvest and hankering

Can we not light up a fire
and see each other’s gaze?
Can we not make noise
like those good old days?
Can we not break into a song
when first snows alight?
Can we not be awe-less
and fear not the night?
Can we shut out the guff
rulers let fly at us?
Can we summon to mind
poems of harvest and hankering?
Can we paint wistful meadows
in bold colors of concord?
Can we sit and laugh
in the midst of this curse?

© Sameer

Scarlet puddles

Woodlets are cold once again
Nights are drawn-out again
Death rattle is here again
Burying grounds are busy again
Scarlet puddles have formed again
Bowmen appear on trees again
Wildly shooting at dreams again
Each bird is a foe again
Birdcalls are grievous again
Darkness at dawn again
Nighttime at noon again
Clouds bursting once again
Old men crying yet again
Savage wilderness once again
Hop-skipping puddles time and again

© Sameer

One more

One more smokestack is smokeless tonight
one more child put six feet under
One more mother is wringing her hands
one more son is inhumed tonight
One more joy is trampled upon
one more lad is overhung tonight
One more bullet to the heart
one more woeful home tonight
One more sombre evening
one more starless sky tonight

© Sameer

To my old bed

I smell wild wood trees
possessed by buccaneers and bulbuls
criss-crossing each other
along heaving paths
I see bee-eaters, their iridescent wings
like violin bows upon the track
fringed with tall pines
like sharp arcs into blue Eden
I hear sounds being chargrilled
in the timberland, so green
surrounded with dug-outs
as deep as war sorrows
I walk into my vale
self-same over the years
cacophonous and comforting
if only to fell happily
into my old bed

© Sameer

Why?

Mother they promised me
honey from the bee hive
and I ran to savor some
mindless of the night

They gave me not a single drop,
instead put
honey-color death beans
in my mouth

I kept asking for some
food and they kept
spraying me with arrows
till I gave up

The longbow man roared
and turned to his men
wiping away blood, he said
my violence conquers yours

Mother I think they killed me
But I know not why
The thinnest crescent
of a moon saw me bleed

© Sameer

Fig and the cartoon bird

A cartoon bird flaps its wings
in a doodle as old as dirt
Looking high and low for perch
across a glum-looking portrait

In a wood and canvas canoe
I drift along the bird
Looking for shiny moorage
by a phony familiar island

I forget what season it is
as I chase the cartoon bird
I wade on,
as it soars, abstracted by the trail

As it reaches a tiny garden
to halt upon a fig sprig
Kissing wasps on a fruit
gape at the bird’s beak

Figs deny to grow in winter
shy of sky-smelling snows
Adam and Eve robed in leaflets
once rambled about the sky

The bird pierced a lilac fig
to jab a wasp deep in it
Drupe is often confect
for the lover lives inside

© Sameer

Liberty

Past prairies full of dewy grass
on a hummock east of sunrise
Next to boughs laden with cherry
in the rouge of concealed groves
Far from a million churlish noises
where stillness strokes the soul
Beyond the bounds of barley fields
deep in woods of rose-ringed parakeet
In the land of shiny caterpillars
cocooned from the ogre-ish uproar
Across streamlets with slippery cobblestones
underneath cliffs of last year’s snow
There is a hint of hope
and it is stark

© Sameer

At the last gasp

Was it effortless?
like your smile
Did they wake you up?
one last time
Or was it quick?
like a burglar in night
How many wings did it have?
Grim-reaper or arch-angel
Did you float or glide?
was it heady, like dope
Could you see our eyes?
from the cheese-like moon
Is it hot or is it cold?
beyond the stars
Do souls have foot-prints?
in the kingdom of heaven
Is it limitless hence?
are you weightless tonight
Will they let you see God?
from an opening in heaven
I’ll see you in the cow-slips
by your distant grave

© Sameer
~Dedicated to my amazingly mad-cap friend Selçuk, who passed away earlier today

Published in Poets' Basement -- CounterPunch Magazine, USA -- on the weekend May 7-9, 2010.
www.counterpunch.com/poems05072010.html

April sprinkle

Rain -- cold small beads
come slanting down
on Zero Bridge,
upon old waters that flow beneath

Wet almond blossom
in night-long showers
scattered in bolshie gardens by the Dal
stamped upon by everyday ghosts

Bloodshot glower in black skies
Men in sand-bags with sad, cold eyes
Spring showers upon ugly bayonets
early rain on parched souls

Moist, hidden graves in deep, distant woods
under damp raspberry trees
Dead sleep in rain-swept dark
the undead roll in stone Hamams

Rain spatter on familiar roofs
Rainy sounds like idle words
Rain-color puddles on the boulevard
No rain songs to live it up

© Sameer

For the baby

Stones, that fly thick and far
like poisoned arrows in some war
A million rocks to wallop the foe
no kind souls to hear the woe

Stones in drizzle, stones in snow
pale evil mist on each little bough
Noise in alleys, tumult in the village
Stones to scare, stones to pillage

Double edged swords, our bold stones
Beneath all broil the city still moans
Stones that hurt, stones that maim
Fanfaronade without any shame

Slings and canon to pluck the stone
old lake shore, a virgin battle zone
That random shot in some head
aimless bricks and more of red

Rock pigeons on Hazratbal dome
Tiny nests in chimneys, back home
covered in some dark foggy soot
shaken by endless funereal hoot

Princes’ waltz and paupers die
Are peace pastures in the nigh?
Shall we always torch our shawls?
Let's throw some scooped snow balls

Sameer

Love and alarm clocks

Love is setting up early alarms
and melting into bracing arms
Little strokes on the hand
saving a solitary hair strand

Sound of the autumn rain
brings back the images again
Million maddening mysteries to crack
and only your memories to stack

Love is waking up at ungodly hour
to check on the mystic flower
to look at the alarm clock
answer heart's tender knock

Sameer

Why is the dew roseate this morning?

Why is the dew roseate this morning?
Why is this frenzy without a warning?
What are those forms near the brook?
Why are they clubbing us with shepherd’s crook?
***
Why does the orchard smell of hurt?
Why is the father without his shirt?
Why is the village wailing in a distance?
Why does the heart yearn for resistance?
***
How did the country flowers die?
How was this lad hit in the eye?
What are musketeers planning to do?
Why is an old man refusing to move?
***
Who put fetters in my valley?
Why aren’t men allowed to rally?
Have our tears also been banned?
Why should our lament always stay canned?
***
Why did the Saffron turn so white?
Why are the alleys startlingly quiet?
Why is the Jhelum without a ripple?
Are we a country on the tipple?

Sameer

When I am dead

[Originally jotted in the year 2000]

When I am dead, my boy
sing no sad songs for me
When my souls blows away
etch no epitaphs for me
When I am put to rest
hold no hands for me
When my echoes wear out
read no praises for me
When the lights go off
light no candles for me
When my laughter peters out
cry no tears for me
When the gusts go strong
breathe no sighs for me
When the spring breaks again, my boy
Watch me in the cowslips, by my grave

Sameer

Of pals

Originally written on June 24, 1999

The voice smells of wine
such are old friends of mine
some knocks stir lifelong joys
you recall the broken toys
You miss those loving times
The silly school rhymes
Oddity, sleep, familiar paths
You recollect the impish baths

Sameer

Catechism at 21

First written on Sunday, June 10, 2001

My little vale, why do you cry?
why do your airs sigh?
What ails your mountains?
What shut your fountains?
How did your blossoms cease?
What happened to the evening breeze?
Who set your shrines aglow?
And why doesn't the Jhelum flow?
Where did our neighbors go?
And why could we not know?
Who is that khaki scarecrow?
And why do the winds not blow?
Those joyful sweet songs
Are they replaced by our wrongs?
Our warm nuptial surges
replaced by sad dirges
Shall cool zephyrs kiss us again?
Will groovy buds adorn us again?

Sameer
[First written 9 years back, in the midst of mindless violence in Kashmir]

I wish I had met you before

I wish I had met you before
to know what love is like
to learn to love with eyes
to fathom the meaning of silence

I wish I had met you before
to hold onto your soul
to shut you from the hurt
to clutch your hand

I wish I had met you before
to cover you in those storms
to keep you forever warm
to hear your heart's song

I wish I had met you before
to love you like a madman
to hold you in my arms
to never let you go

I wish I had met you before
to make you feel safe
to brush your tear away
to never let you fall

I wish I had met you before
to walk you into eventides
to talk an ancient talk to you
to count the myraid stars, with you.

Sameer

Why do I think you love me too?

Why do I holler inside?
Why do I try and hide
Why do I still care
Why do I think you are there?

Why do I love you?
Why do I think you love me too
Why do I feel pain
Why do I feel insane?

Why do I need you so bad?
Why do I get a li'l mad
Why do I miss you like hell
Why do I feel you are my spell?

Why do I still love you?
Why do I have this view.
Why do I allow myself to think
Why do I feel I can't even blink?

Sameer

Snow

Soft, new, cold snow
Tiny flakes in heaven
Come dancing in the dark
on countless twigs and buds
Rooftops, tree tops and topless rills;
on highways and lowlands
upon the pen and a little nest;
over the mountaintop
on tiny eggs in the nestling;
upon black umbrellas
and aquiline noses
on moulds and fresh graves
into deep crevices
and our buried hopes
upon grasslands and horses
on little homes of ants
Tall spires of the mosque
And abandoned temple ruins
It snows into the night
And upon my memory

Sameer

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www.sameerbhat.blogspot.com

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www.kashmiryat.wordpress.com