Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 1, Number 2. November 2018. ISSN: 2581-7094
Honest Love
--- S. A. Hamid
Let
my last breath be on your lap
A
poetic death, too, is my wish
(from
the Urdu of Qateel Shifai)
In
the darkness of my aging heart
with
patches of faint light
in
the distance
are
faces
that
stir the mind
into
desire
cerebral,
detached
an
iridescence physical
in
darkness emotional.
The
faces too
with
detached passion
look
forward to rendezvous
of
increasing heart beats
pleasured
perspiration
of
the moving tongue
squeezing
lips
leading
to psychedelic ecstasies
fulfilled
mind.
We
do not wish to die
in
each other’s arms.
Death
is a lonely affair,
masturbation
of the soul.
We
will part before that
when
the body gives way.
Honest
love is real,
not
true love.
At Kosi, 11 Km from Almora
---
S. A. Hamid
Everything
returns,
realized
the Buddha.
The
river, timeless
yet
new each moment;
the
lifeline of Kumaun, the Kosi
meanders
and is still,
at
the place named after it,
then
flows down again.
This
pause
by
the side of the Temple
of
Lord Shiva
from
where years ago
a
woman waved to me
with
the fragrance of jasmine
that
entered my blood.
I
also return to the river
the
lifeline Kosi
that
flows
almost
the same
as
on that day.
The
woman, hundreds of miles away,
but
I can see her there on the steps
The
fragrance of jasmine fills my being
while
the pujari chants
Om
Namah Shivay.
The
quiet majesty of the mountains,
the
soft flow
sitting
on the dark rock
with
feet in the water
listening
to the Temple bells,
timeless,
transcendent,
peace
that transports
rejuvenates,
and
the pujari chants
Om
Namah Shivay.
Lonely Hearts
--- S. A. Hamid
In
the arms of loneliness
I
feel my ageing bones give way
to
a strange yearning
for
lonely relationships;
rudderless
ships not searching for anchor,
but
floating aimlessly, restlessly
towards
no destination.
Exchange
of sidelong glances,
a
little conversation,
aroused
minds in tired bodies
that
have waited too long
for
the right response
to
fantasies melting away
into
nothingness.
Let
us copulate in this void
to
re-ignite lost passions,
lost
hope of lonely hearts, aroused minds;
in
the darkness of silence
two
bodies condoling each other to orgasm
in
the arms of loneliness.