Impermanent Permanence

Let's talk of things in between tonight
where black and white make gray:
A gray as beautiful as pale sunlight,
pink at dawn and purple at twilight

Let's talk about colours tonight,
with white lights in a dark room;
an hour after midnight,
the beginning of another sad day

If that is what life is to be,
then breathe it in with me,
at the count of one, two, three:
two, that magical number
of you and I

Scream.
talk to me,
wait with me,
at this juncture of disillusioned life

A prayer this may seem to be,
but it's love–
sun-kissed clouds provide simplistic imagery;
dissolved.
Lost in the wind

In a beautiful house,
made of happy dreams,
windows of lost opportunities
and a door of moments misunderstood–
I'll wait for you:
come if you will,
(Even if you don't,
I'll wait for you)

A part of you,
will always stay with me

© Geetakshi Arora, June 22, 2013

Remembrance

Rereading page after page,
Paper burns with a crackling sound:
The sound of burning bones
(Excepting one).
Fire purifies, fire destroys;
It converts charred remains to ashes:
Pure, gray and black melange,
A language is yet to be found;
Limbs entangled like ropes,
Bonds broken when one breaks down;
A lost pair of eyes, searching for another of its kind
Where is that hand to be found again?
Glittering, heavy with weight-
Diamonds and wrinkles
Look beautiful together;
A laugh left behind swollen eyes
Shocked, the pages turn of their own accord:
Enchantments do not work any more

© Geetakshi Arora, June 17, 2013

Homecoming

Pushing away forevers:
Death in Life
gossimer wings don't protect anymore,
Each end begins anew
Bitter-sweet goodbyes are the only moments left,
to be treasured singly;
the peeling away of colourful skins,
to reveal the bright darkness.
The profound darkness envelops warmly,
the light, flighty life;

A life that yearns to fly away,
out of reach with the one it desires

Trapped, it waits:
with tears of laughter,
that resound for an eternity
(just one)
like a long lost love, finally returned

© Geetakshi Arora, June 9,2013

Lost Slivers

Contraries do not please,

Nor do any kind of unities,

Chaos is a homespun weave

And rhyme, the pestilent summer breeze

Nature delights no more.

Nor does this urban scape,

where polluted red sunsets

Pass for beautiful profundities

Rhyme waits like a handmaid

To that old tyrant Art–

Useless, baseless justifications

Of power that a poet must possess

Where, then, can one direct one’s muse?

When neither streams, nor trees,

Neither cities, nor forests would do?

A chaotic exploration of whatever fragments

Lie within us.

(Note the imbalance)

Fragments cannot be celebrated either,

when each fragment is at each moment

being decomposed;

the momentariness of each moment

has disappeared.

Nothing but a fragile fleeting shade remains

of what was once a rearrangement of fragmented memories.

Each precious piece then, let us break,

Till we reach that tiny sliver of glass,

Which seeps within the skin,

Embedded there forever,

Like a shining tattoo,

Reminding us to breathe–

For one more day– everyday.

© Geetakshi Arora,

     June 7, 2013

A Clean Room

Loss weighs upon the heart as heavily as a lead ball,
a weight to be carried around everywhere.
In their quiet attempts to be kind,
(Kindness kills with a smile)
whispers seduce pity to their side;
A word to be mulled over,
this pity is perhaps of a texture somewhat rough:
an asphalt road after rain

A soft layer of fragrant dust 
covers the once-shining window;
A tree used to knock against it each night,
in an effort to be let in:
itself, defenceless against the cold night,
it warmed the cool window pane

A restlessness now pervades that window;
that room lies empty, waiting
for a shade to inhabit it again,
to rustle that clear sheen of yellow and orange dust

Orange and yellow: colours of the sun,
or a sunset enjoyed with a loved one:
a colour is sometimes missed,
seen from behind closed tear-filled eyes.
They play games, these tears:
they tickle and cool warm ruddy cheeks;
deathly pale, yellow: but that colour has no tears;
mingling drops of water produces a darker brown

Will a non-living window refuse shelter?
Will it refuse to be dusted down, cleaned?
Cleansing, that word linked to life, all too often;
sterelized cleanliness rankles that dust
The wait continues,
till a stone shatters the glass,
a branch breaks into the room,
and dies.

© Geetakshi Arora
    June 3, 2013