We Are Never Whole

We are never whole
we're born incomplete --
naive, suspicious, trusting, selfish, hungry, afraid
dependent on the mercies of others
being made everyday
in their multiple shapes and shadows, 
a loosely knotted ball of
myriad prejudices, anxieties, mixed memories
and learning to call it our "selves"

We spend our middle years
trying to be whole 'again'
chasing a delusion
of constructed realities
unrequited desires
abandoned dreams
gather memories, 
as if they'll last us a lifetime
memories that start changing
the moment they're born
like us

The wisdom that we think
we get, as we grow old
is a piecemeal, primal understanding
of our incompleteness
our bone deep acceptance
that we are a constantly changing part
of a mythical whole -- 
      not just a larger whole of another
      evolving incompleteness, 
      we call humanity, 
      fractured into teeny tiny shards
but a whole that we are
in what we leave behind
on the merciless canvas of time --
as we shed memories
lose faculties and people
integral to our
very idea of ourself

We're lucky
if we can feel whole
looking back at the million holes
in our tattered devolving self
ready to be one
with the larger void 
of completeness ... 

Which one are you?

Only a few speak up, now
many choosing to stay silent
while most justify
and some speak, just to go silent

A time will come
when those staying silent
will join those who justify,
those who justify
will turn into killers,
while the killers
giddy with joy
will dance on the dead bodies,
and will finish off those
who burst into tears
after witnessing it –
cry in horror, or
shiver in terror –
and will occupy 
all of the spaces

That is why 
the tribe of those who speak up
should never shrink
and of those who stay silent 
should never grow

Which one are you?
You decide.


(A loose translation of Vishnu Nagar's poem - Kinme ho Tum? )

Translation: Lohe Ka Swad (The Taste of Iron)

The Taste of Iron 
by Hussain Haidry

(A loose translation)

A blacksmith after reading 
Sudama Pandey “Dhoomil’s” poem
"The taste of Iron"
went straight to a stable,
and started asking the horses
"what's the taste of iron?"

Some, neighing, said:
a bit bland
a bit hot
a bit bitter

some, tapping their feet, said:
like spit
like blood
like pus

Some, pulling on the bridle, said:
of enslavement
of helplessness
of anger

The horses started shouting
over one another
causing a ruckus in the stable

The blacksmith picked up a hammer
hit a horse on the head
and asked,
in the ensuing silence:

“OK, now tell me,
in soft voice,
in clear language,
peacefully, and lovingly,
in one voice,
what's the taste of iron”

--
 

Hussain Haidry is a well known poet, lyricist, and a prominent voice on Twitter. Please follow him on Twitter(@hussainhaidry) if you don't already. 

Hussain's original hindi poem can be found at the link below, and I'd urge you to read it, if you know Hindi. I'm, at best, an amateur at translation, and the poem reads much better in Hindi. 

The poem title is based on these lines from Dhoomil’s eponymous poem: 

लोहे का स्वाद लोहार से मत पूछो, 
उस घोड़े से पूछो जिसके मुंह में लगाम है

“Don’t ask the blacksmith the taste of iron 
ask the horse who carries the bridle in its mouth”

https://rajkamalbooks.wordpress.com/2020/07/15/hussainhaidrypoems/

The Last and Final Call

The urgent cacophony
of the last and final calls —
at the airports,
the offers in my email,
the alarming notifications …
as if, the world
is about to end

and it is,
in a way,
possibly in a very very real way,
but those warnings
fall on deaf ears
of the collective humanity
that prides
in its “rationality”,
we shrug
for the world does not rest
on the shoulder’s
of either one of us

instead we race
to board the plane,
run like hell
our precious duty-free purchases
clinging to our bosoms,
or we grab
that deal
eighty seven percent off
all year around
but ending tomorrow,
everyday

BREAKING NEWS,
#NowTrending,
“you must see this now”
‘cos you HAVE TO
get infected
by the intoxication of the viral,
the tyranny of the topical
the blaring horns,
real and metaphorical,
the beeps, the alarms
the flashing notifications,
God forbid
if you were to miss
something life changing that just happened
on one of your thirteen
pseudo-social networks

and we wonder
why we can’t feel anymore
a sense of panic
for a world
boarding on a flight
with a one way ticket
to hell

is it because
we hope
that there will be
one more
last and final call?

अभिलाषा

मज तख्त नको 
मज रक्त नको 
धर्मांध मज विध्वंस नको 

श्वास हवा 
सहवास हवा 
अथांग तुझा विश्वास हवा 

तलवार नको 
संहार नको 
बेबंद मला अधिकार नको 

उपहार नको 
सत्कार नको 
मज स्पर्श तुझा हळुवार हवा 

वाद नको 
मज क्रोध नको 
शांत मला संवाद हवा 

मज दान नको 
सन्मान नको 
मित्रांचा आधार हवा 

बुद्धीचा मज माज नको 
नशेचा मज नाद नको 
मज सृजनाचा उन्माद हवा 

निर्भीड मला आवाज हवा 
उत्क्रांतीचा आश्वास हवा 
मज आज उद्याचा थांग हवा 

This Is Not Who We Were

this is not who we were … 
it's a lament I hear
but that's so wrong
this is who we were
this, and that
it's just that 
we chose to be this

we lose that which we stop fighting for
we become that which we stop fighting
it engulfs us
we become part of it
like bacteria 
in the gut of a giant being
just another cell
one among the billions

time is circular
no, not in the literal sense
it's just that we’ve already seen 
these battles play out
again and again
pixels on the canvas of time

we choose to remember 
only the dots 
where our better angels prevailed
meanwhile, all along
the demons inside us
have been winning
with an almost boring regularity

our glorious pasts
where those who wrote the history
had a very different life,
different laws, even
while others had their tongues cut
literally and figuratively

we
who can’t be certain of the now
are certain of the glories
of the past --
with despots and kings
multitudes enslaved
histories written in
the blood of innocents

no!
this is who we were 
time and again
and this is who we will be
time and again …
the only question is
what do we want to be?
here and now?
how do we want 
this brief pixel to look
on the canvas of time?
a pixel that we own, fleetingly
before it stands, eternally
for what we are …

In Memoriam

It’s strange how they —
the poets, the writers, the painters
sometimes have to die
to make us aware
of their existence

Even if we knew them
sometimes it takes
their obituaries
for us to go back
to their works
sifting through bookmarks —
that graveyard of information

See the irony?
as the artist is laid to the ground
we exhume their work
giving it the attention
it always deserved,
like when we were busy
in petty arguments
and topical nonsense,
in cheap hedonism
that leaves you empty, drained
when we could have filled
those moments with joy,
with awe, and inspiration
touched by the only divine
that there is

but alas, we wait
till it’s too late
and never get a chance
to tell them
life’s worth living
because of them …

and maybe
the curse we live with
the curse that makes us barren
creatively
is because we don’t
value the artists
till they, on a silent night
pass away, like any other mortal
just as they are reborn
in our mind-spaces, as immortals

could it be that
we deserve our hell
because we don’t care
for the slice of paradise
given us?

Narcissus 2.0

Mirrors everywhere
in every direction,
every dimension
curved, warped, broken,
fluid, distorted —
distorting …

You look
at your myriad reflections
trying to stitch together
the real you

What if,
Narcissus had fallen in love
with himself
that wasn’t really him?

What if it wasn’t love
but the idea of being in love
with oneself —
one’s recreated self,
stitched back
from a thousand reflections:
each distorted
in its own way?

The inner you
that we all are
so obsessed with —
it feeds on these reflections
it sees itself through those eyes,
those distortions
and contradictions

Like a huge jigsaw puzzle
with pieces that don’t quite fit,
with overlaps that don’t quite match;
but we still force fit,
because we are eager to see
the whole picture
in its illusory unity

the id
the self
the ego
the aham —
a quilt of reflections
from mirrors we have chosen —
for they tell us
a nice story

We’re Narcissus
who kept on checking
reflections in a pond after pond
till he found one
that made him look
ravishingly good,
and blamed it on Nemesis.

Muse, Interrupted

Stories lost in no man’s land,

ideas fleeting through the mind,

before one could catch them,

be possessed by them

we do manage to catch

ideas, dead, dry like creepers hanging on to empty skeletons of their former selves,

characters who refuse to open up their souls to you,

a medley of distractions,

chasing without a target, rhyme, reason

 

the muse, how long will she wait?

and why?

we all believe we’re special

raised on a diet of pulped up culture

and peppy psychology of winning

we’ve turned the mirrors into disco lights

we’re dazzled by their empty iridescence

and when

at the end of the day

we turn ’em off

we wonder why we didn’t

get enough done

and perfect that we are

in our own exalted images of selves

we find an honorable blame

enough to prove our conscience

a generic, opaque fallibility

 

we fail like everyone else

but we want to succeed like no one has

and we don’t

the muse leaves

to better homes, or better prospects at any rate

and we stare

at the emptiness

in disbelief

a shallow incomprehension

because we’ve lost

the habit of hanging on

to a futile looking dream

like the creepers, almost dead

Memories and Us

Only false memories can be so vivid,
to seem unquestionably real …
false, or manufactured, or wilfully distorted,
maybe it’s the effort —
to invent them out of thin air,
to recreate them, as per our whims,
to mold them into what we wished they were —
is what makes them seem more vivid
than real memories …

The real memories
that are struggling
to hold on to the last straw
as they drown in an abyss of oblivion
bereft of colors,
their once unforgettable scent fading,
the fabric of their real slice of reality
ragged, and tattered …
their very being turning into an apparition

No, it’s not us who need memories to survive
that’s a lie
planted by memories,
a survival tactic,
for it’s they who need us
without us, they are orphaned,
obliterated