Trek through ravines, deserts, hills to scout your lips,
Or compose one song, you'd wish, was about your lips.
I'll believe any book, bow to any deity, become an atheist.
If you let me taste, just once, devout your lips.
Forgo father's religion, mother's language, brother's territory,
if you swim upstream for me, like a trout your lips.
Make armies kneel, poets duel, turn a boor into Kalidas,
Enchant Gods, who take avatars to admire you pout your lips.
You're like an idol, like a corpse... and we lament for you,
Let our festivities begin. Let a smile mount your lips.
Jehangiri flowers – your upper lip, chocolate jelly fish – lower lip,
Seasons, rebirths, music, love, the good and evil bout – your lips.
If I lust for you, let me lust O Menaka, O Urvashi for your Estella heart,
I'll rather exhaust my divinity, turn into a human, than doubt your lips.
My culture disapproves of my verses that unveil your kaamuk lips,
I praise like the Sufis. How can anyone suggest that I tout your lips?
Your search, my anguish, our earthly anxieties will all disappear,
If on hearing Vivek's words, songs, amor, OM, Amen spout your lips.
**
Appeared first in Nefarious Bellarina Issue 4.3
Or compose one song, you'd wish, was about your lips.
I'll believe any book, bow to any deity, become an atheist.
If you let me taste, just once, devout your lips.
Forgo father's religion, mother's language, brother's territory,
if you swim upstream for me, like a trout your lips.
Make armies kneel, poets duel, turn a boor into Kalidas,
Enchant Gods, who take avatars to admire you pout your lips.
You're like an idol, like a corpse... and we lament for you,
Let our festivities begin. Let a smile mount your lips.
Jehangiri flowers – your upper lip, chocolate jelly fish – lower lip,
Seasons, rebirths, music, love, the good and evil bout – your lips.
If I lust for you, let me lust O Menaka, O Urvashi for your Estella heart,
I'll rather exhaust my divinity, turn into a human, than doubt your lips.
My culture disapproves of my verses that unveil your kaamuk lips,
I praise like the Sufis. How can anyone suggest that I tout your lips?
Your search, my anguish, our earthly anxieties will all disappear,
If on hearing Vivek's words, songs, amor, OM, Amen spout your lips.
**
Appeared first in Nefarious Bellarina Issue 4.3
2 comments:
Your poetry somehow makes me smile and laugh. Reminds me of some of the bhakti poets work...
Thanks Priya,
My favorite poet Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' once said: I wish there was a poet who could compose Rilke's and Eliot's imagination/dreams with the simplicity and reach of Tulsi's language. Perhaps that is a distant goal.
In any case, as a verse form Ghazal was popularized by Sufi poets, who in Hindu tradition will be called Bhakti poets, and my friend, I do wish to write in that tradition, with the same piety and passion, that is present in Ghalib, Kabir, Hafez, Mir, Surdas and Tulsi...
The search for such verses and the struggle to get it right has just begun...
Vivek
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