Poetry: Nazir Wani

Wani Nazir

1. UNEASY QUANDARY!

The thoroughfare, 

Where I stand perplexed,

To choose a road 

Heading to the city of celebrations, 

Offers five untreadable roads

In front of my eyes;

One, like a dilapidated heart

Panting and palpitating feebly, 

As the chariot of the sky 

Brings down with itself, 

All the miseries and deprivation 

That melt in its smoldering smithy, 

Onto the road, every day;

Another, like a corpse of pain sprawled recklessly, 

As the seemingly stoic moon

Disrobed of her gown of silver 

Walks swaggeringly, 

Bewailing over her lost sheen 

And the splintered dreams 

Of my fellow beings, 

Along the road, every night;

Third, like a quagmire of scalding blood, 

As the adulterated waters of the Dal

After sucking in the crimson blood

From every nook and cranny, 

In a fit of frenzy and tumult 

Bids adieu to its dwelling,

Inundates the road, every summer;

Fourth, like the old branch of the decrepit Chinar 

Niched at the periphery of my yard, 

The veins of whose leaves 

Puffed up with long fermented Emaciation 

By the autumnal whiffs 

And fall down on the road, every autumn;

Fifth, like a leech stuck into my throat 

Feeding on the very breaths 

Exuding from the sacs of my lungs, 

And metamorphoses into a leviathan 

It straggles on the road, day in day out;

May the God of the cave's men

Show mercy to this vexed soul 

And strike means that may 

Catapult me to the city of celebrations

Without having to choose

Any of the road

Marred by miseries and splintered dreams! 

Amen.

2. AUTUMN (Acrostic)

And, along with the veins of leaves, my sinews wizen too, 

Ushering the uncanny undulations of untethered flux, 

Trees bid a customary adieu to the dress of green, and I

to those youthful boulevards;

Under the sluggish sun, I gobble up the last crumbs of warmth

Mixed with salt and pepper of my indolence, 

Nudging my wakefulness to yawning hibernation.

3. REDISCOVERING MY HISTORY

Quite often! 

When a long summer day 

Disarms its effulgence 

To the dark crevices of night, 

When my scalding sobs and soughs

Admix with the tenebrous moonbeams, 

When the sand of unrequited love 

Settling deep down, 

Slows the flow of my blithe emotions, 

When a ghost of pain 

Haunts my hollowness, 

And gulps down 

The last crumbs of joy within, 

When a white dwarf star 

About to be stripped off of its apparels 

Gropes for the space for its annihilation, 

When the leaves of the Chinar 

In my courtyard 

Whisper to one another 

All my secrets and those of my ancestors

In a language undecipherable 

By human ken and phren,

I, along with my tribe whole, 

Sit engrossed 

At the edge of our backyard 

And twirl the long spools of life 

Through my fingers 

Trying to rediscover 

My lost history down Adam.

4. ELEGY!

An assortment of dreams, 

From within my rib-cage rose

Due to the heat

Of my scalding passions, 

And, on my frail eyelashes

Demurely perched;

A hard jolt of your mistrust

Shook them down topsy-turvy;

A few, trampled

Under my own impolite feet;

A few, left to be stamped 

By all and sundry;

A few, whipped away 

By the strong whiffs 

Of your reckless apathy 

And hurled in some darkened sea, unheard!

Ah! My bosom vacant palpitates somberly; 

The corpuscles tear their very being

And toss against the walls

Of my shriveled veins, 

Lamenting the loss of dreams all!

Setu, October 2017