January 1, 2020
This is not my tongue.
These sticks and slashes
Are not mine, yet they tumble off my tongue
Like scandalous gossip and
Poses of reason
Like my snobbish neighbour.
My tongue curves and coughs
Its way to obscurity --
Its taste unfelt, its textures unknown
Save for legends of
Its youth in the deserts of yore.
Is it possible to borrow one’s tongue
Or have I leased mine
To sleep in homesteads in the metropolis?
I have been brought up in my neighbour’s house it seems.
April 15, 2020
My bones have grown old in your pain --
I learnt to gulp it down with concoctions from the market.
Tonight’s a new night --
With the cold prick of your sight
Let me sew my greening wounds up.
Is it too much to spare?
Or did I jump a queue to be served?
Passion is being rationed tonight --
Since the casks of my heart lie full,
Just smear a little on my flesh.
April 18, 2020
You walk in concrete meadows
And make them bloom.
You smile at showroom windows
And profits boom.
At night you wake up to dreams
And they come true.
At noon in my arms you sleep --
Life in times few.
In the streets you hid your hands
Streaked with scars.
On my chest you cried your pangs,
Old love’s memoirs.
Time has been tough to us, yes,
Owed li’l, coerced heft --
Future receding, ceaseless,
Who’re you not to love yourself?
April 26, 2020
My uncertain perch
Nesting over lost absolutes,
I mourn my balcony’s crisis
Of purpose.
It rains acid tonight
Over the neon mascara of the city,
Bleeding grimy rainbows
Into overflowing gutters.
Souls unwound and alleys unfound
Where sundry lives lost like
Tears in the rain
Dissociated away like consciences shooed.
It was an evening such as this －
When the skyline was pelted with
Frigid tears. Children had gathered
To collect the sublime then.
Electricity came and went like
Thoughts of my lover －
Antagonised by the tv’s, the console’s
And city lights’ perfect utility.
My mind ghosts into metro stations and
Web searches on Bombardier.
Working from home does afford one the
Luxuries of time.
The night rumbles as candles are lit
To remember those who fell to
Coughing － the wind is too strong
And the flame’s intent too weak.
What if I took flight?
Will I float away in this upturned dream
Or splatter on the concrete
And dissolve in this rain?
At least this balcony’s worth something －
To bang plates or shoo away spectres of death.
Mr Prufrock would be proud
Of his rich tradition.
May 18, 2020
It has been a century
Of motion
Smitten with the inertia of love.
All children grew up and died
Lonely or alone.
All our trees perished
In the draft of civilisation.
It has been a century
Of time being kind to you.
People were buried under asphalt
Like pillaged booty
And you think they can be exhumed
With the ballot.
It has been a century
Or just a night’s sleep
And yet you dream
Of loot.
It has been a century
And you haven’t long to live.
June 19, 2020
It was a debate for another time --
“Am I or am I not?”
Today, there is no conjecture,
There is scientific precision.
The fights go on with me or without,
But once do I recede, so I’ll never be.
June 29, 2020
I closed my eyes yesterday
And summer was over.
It was you I saw last.
Who is summer?
Your back glistening under the morning
Sun － not the best time of day
In these parts of the world.
Time unwinds like the ball of yarn
Under your cat’s paws.
The fan atop the table shakes its head －
Humming its displeasure as the
Bottle of water sweats.
Nothing changes since everything changed.
The clocks are broken and yet we age,
Thousands must die and a dozen must thrive,
You sob but never let out a cry.
Till when?
July 20, 2020
We were moulding leftovers from
Yesterday’s plate －
Kind enough to be spared a day
And a day’s meal and a day’s change.
Yesterday eschewed and threw us away －
The sinews, the broken bones and the sucked marrow
To be served in dustbins of the past.
The cackle from
Yesterday’s feast still lingers like
Sirens, regretful.
That was when I met you －
Still ululating and
Reading in the libraries.
Utkarsh Sharma is a postgraduate student of English at University of Hyderabad. Willing to pursue literature further and fascinated by its role in people’s movements, he can be found reading, debating and sloganeering. His writing can be found on The Hindu, The Medley and Prologue and Kitaab.
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