#700

5 Poems by Gulzar

Come let’s make a poem

Come let’s make a poem
Let’s rake up some wound
and cry.
Let’s cut up a vein
or Let’s lust stand
on forgotten crossroads
and call out someone’s name;
come let’s make a poem.

Deja Vu

I wonder what it was that
I wanted to say to you today!

I met you and I forget
what I said
what I had thought I'd say,
when I met you
I had this feeling
I have already said it to you.

There are things I've never said to you before
but somehow it feels
I must have;
what strange confusion!

I swear I'm not absent-minded
or inattentive;
I have become only
a little forgetful
in your love.

The Poetics of Desire

Throw away your papers tonight
put aside your pen
let your fingers
write on my body,
an empty page
a word,
a sentence,
write a poem
if your syntax hurts my skin
if I sigh, if I moan
just tighten your embrace
if your fingers stammer
dip them in darkness
and start again
fill up my margins
suffocate me with your grammar
proofread the madness
you have created
erase with your lips
any mistakes
your fingers make
read to me
what you have written
see the pages of my life
come alive
in your fingers
tonight.

Gift

I look at the gift
you gave me
a Wiltshire knife
on my birthday
and think of all the things
I can do with it
I can slice
the head
of a lettuce
I can carve
a smile
on a pumpkin
I can clip
the wings
of a chicken
I can thrust it
in the heart
of a celery
I can peel
the skin
of a potato
I can slash
the stomach
of an eggplant
I can behead a mushroom
I can hurt a tomato
I can hurt as many tomatoes
as I want
the possibilities are endless
Be nice to me
down the years
your gift
comes
with a lifetime guarantee

A Morning Walk

This morning
I took a poem for a walk
the long night
of unwritten darkness
had made it restless
to stretch.
At first,
the eager beast
dragged me
till I jerked it
back on the leash.
Then having settled
into a rhythm
I let it frolic a bit
I let it sniff the metaphors
I let it bark
at some passing adjectives
snapped at it to heel
on seeing some run on sentences
till we came to an open space.
With no noun in sight
I unleashed it on the green
and set it free
to run
in lines,
in phrases,
in clauses.
It ran without commas,
it ran without pauses
till I caught a glimpse
of another poem
a high bred
well-versed
handsome looking poem
sauntering
behind its poet.
I abruptly beckoned mine
to come back.
On the way home
I found myself
on the leash
looking for something
to sink my teeth into.