Diamonds

Diamonds,
You look through the glass,
Your eyes transfixed.

A fleeting glance at me,
Through the corner of your eyes,
I manage a smile.

Your eyes,
Sparkle for a moment.
And turn dull,
Diamonds...
Vanish.

"Why diamonds?"
I hold your hand,
You rub your fingers.
"Because diamonds are forever!"

Tonight,
I hold a pen and my heart,
I cut, shape and polish,
And love feels,
Every stroke of my pen.

The stars sigh,
I carve your face.
Eyes gleaming
A luminous smile.

Diamonds?
I have no clue.

I kiss your fingers,
Soft and tender.
You open your eyes,

Smile.

Diamonds...
I keep them forever.

Ankur Srivastava

Knock!

Wrapped in a silk robe
Of shining darkness,
She knocks at your door.

Her fancy bag promises
Rainbow gifts from a distant world,
But you know
Those are dreams from the past.

If you let her in,
The night will simmer
In her stories of dreams.
And its lurid layers
Will melt drop by drop.

Her mysterious tone
Will rise and fall,
You will ache
To catch a glimpse of her face.

Then she will be gone,
A lipstick stained wineglass,
A sweet surreal scent
Left to linger in the room.

So, you pretend deaf,
Behind bolted door.
Her knock; light and faint,
Dissolving in familiar noises.

But,
Can you stop
From looking out of the window
When those dreams
Run homeless in the streets?

She is knocking!

(c)Ankur Srivastava 

Just Before I Am Lost

Just before I am lost,

I want to write a love poem.

The color of love stolen,

Tears dripping,

And a night lit up

By silver moon of memories.

The journey of love,

From being born in tears,

To being lost in smiles,

Finding its way in silence,

And choking

Under the weight of promises.

I am here tonight to say it all,

Things that were not meant to be.

Love made it happen,

Our little sweet miracles,

That have somehow stopped.

It's difficult to draw boundaries,

When you are too close;

So many things go wrong,

When you are lost.

I don't beg for tomorrows,

I would rather buy a yesterday.

Love somehow holds it all intact,

But tonight love is lost,

It has fled, defeated...

Without a message.

We are blinded,

Left to wander, in the sea of thoughts.

A thousand unknown reasons,

For the death of every star,

A hundred questions...

Why our miracles have stopped.

Just before I am lost,

I want to write a love poem.

(c)Ankur Srivastava

Canvas

Slowly, Suvesh gets up from his bed and stealthily walks out of the room. The clock strikes 3 in the morning, it’s still dark. He walks out to breathe in the open air. He shuts his eyes for a moment and his entire life flashes before him. It was not meant to be like this, he shakes his head but there is no escape from that terrible feeling.

Reema pretends to sleep, like every night. She feels unnerved to ask him any questions now. It’s not that things were any better before but now the damage seems to be irreparable. She lets out a heavy sigh as she watches her husband go for his daily walk… in the middle of the night! She feels she is quietly letting him slip into the dark but she can’t help it, can she?

Suvesh left college with just one dream, the only dream he saw ever since he first held a pencil- to leave an impression on the beautiful white canvas of life. It has been a year since his last painting was rejected by the galleries. He remembers when his first painting was displayed, nine years ago when he was 22. It had gone unsold, like his next seven paintings. He sees the portrait of a sad and ugly painter who lived in the illusion of a dream. Terrified, he scraps off this image and tries to splash some new colors but colors are fading now. They can no longer hide the face of the ugly painter.

He still paints, for a living, making posters for a local theater. Most of the times, he is asked to draw the same images, a tempestuous girl with playful eyes. Sometimes, he mixes a little pain with the colors as he paints the curve of her smile. He hides a little anger at the corner of her lips. Often he draws thin lines of worry on her forehead or merges her blush with a light of hope. He chuckles at the fact that no one has noticed, and you can feel the heart breaking pain in the humor. (No one has noticed!)

Reema tries to close her eyes… to life and Suvesh… to sleep. But sleep has evaded her … like smiles and joy… and love? She decides to follow him, instinctively or out of love, she knows she has to. She had known it that day, when she left his father's home to be with him. He wasn’t ready to let her come with him but she had sneaked into his life. And today she has to follow him again.

Reema walks out of the door into the sidewalk but Suvesh is no where. “How far could he have gone?” Indeed, how far could he go? She sees a dim light coming from the guard room. It is strange as there has never been a guard for the apartment. She peeps through the tiny gap between the doors.

Suvesh is standing in front of a huge canvas. The sky is murky. Its darkness is terrifying; layers of black merge into each other and dry like a clot. Shades of gray hint a storm that had died in its stride. Stars have lost their shine; they remain helplessly suspended in the mist; hanged in the darkness. Moon is alone, robbed off its beauty. Its flaws are obvious and grim. Its sadness is like the pain of a yesteryear's heart-throb who is now old, ugly and undesirable. The earth is a huge mass of ice; cold and frozen. Still, a little green twig has grown, staunchly, from its infertile womb. It's fragile but unperturbed by the torture it has undergone, the effort it has made to break the layers of silence and coldness. It wears the green of the brightest dreams, ecstatic joys and undying hopes. It is so unreal and yet when you look at it, you feel that it is meant to be. The painting is a mosaic of sorrow and hope. 

Unaware of Reema’s presence, Suvesh tries bit by bit to perfect the painting, adding colors, layers by layer. His brush strokes not only the canvas but also his heart; soothes and heals it. His heart and soul are, for a moment, in harmony with the freshness of the green twig. 

The painting isn’t an expression of the painter; it is his escape from everything he has been.

 Reema smiles. 

(c) Ankur Srivastava

BEAST

Beast
The rusty shackles of last night's dreams
Melted away in the flaring sun.
In a never ending dusty afternoon,
He woke up, almost reborn...

Some remembered him,
"Ah! the boy with the sad smile."
Others believed,
He had risen from the grave.

For, his face was blank...
A smile hauntingly pasted.
He hummed a strange tune,
Staring into nothingness.

He was never seen before,
Or perhaps went unnoticed.
But then he set his thumping feet
On the empty streets
And dust kicked off.

As the Sun bowed to his feet,
Looking up at the heavens,
He rose a toast,
To the mourning for strangled dreams.

He seemed sad and yet so strong,
Grief embarrassed;
And guilt was set free
Naked, in the chilly evening breeze.

The innocence of a full moon,
Was put aside with disdain.
He played with the shadows of night.

And painted the dark
On his face.
Mask of sanity scrapped.

He walked the road,
The beast he always was. 

(c)Ankur Srivastava

Loner

I walk alone,

From the forest of dreams,

A tiny wish plucked away..

I feel the wind of desire,

Brushing my hair.

And I hold my breath.

A stare at the sun,

I let it look down at me..

Proud of its light;

Oh dear, beast of light!

However,

you may look down at me,

I will rise again tomorrow,

To stare at you.

My blood has lost its red,

It's now black and white,

Grey,

The color of my soul.

My smile,

a twisted lip on frozen face.

And my eyes will show nothing,

Just emptiness,

So deep,

You wont dare to reach.

I am here all by myself,

Dont know,

Where I will end up,

I run against destiny,

From the forest of dreams.

A solitary traveler,

Lunatic,

Is on the hunt,

Smelling tears,

I love the pain...

Anybody around?

To reach for me?

'Just back off and stay away! '

(c) Ankur Shrivastava

Eternal Love

These tears have a story to tell,
I have kept them in your heart,
To cry with my pain,
As we turn around this corner,
To take different roads.

It’s important to stay apart,
So as to miss each other,
And keep loving long after,
The secret of love is known.

This evening walk is a pensive sigh,
From the lips of a tired day.
Its warmth would be lost
In the cold night of broken stars.

I will come in the morning again,
With the dew on green grass,
Whenever your tears will fall,
I will hold your hands again.

Those would be little moments,
Little verses I will read to you,
Little mornings spent together
For that we shall live forever.

(c)Ankur Shrivastava

Wrong Dream!

Have you ever dreamt?
Tender and misty,
Unknowingly...
Without calculation,
And felt it hit you
In the chest.

A heavy heart,
A heavy sigh...
Have you searched
For those wishing wells
From fairy tales...

I have...
And so I stand on the shore,
Waves come, tides rise and fall,
No clue of the missing pearls
From my eys.

After every triumph
Have you known...
The glory is shortlived
The admiration false.

I have...
And so I stand
On the losing side.
Waiting for time to deliver
That knockout punch.

And when I close my eyes forever,
I will dream one last time,
My dear dream
That went wrong.

(c)Ankur Shrivastava

“GOOD MORNING!”

8 AM,

Something is buzzing in my head,
I fly off the cliff in my dream…
Oops! I trip from my bed,
Bang! On the cold floor.
Alarm clock screeching.
Ah! Not today.

8:30,

I zoom on my bike,
Engine cold, fuel low,
False gear and cranky brakes
Broken headlight, shirt soiled
Heavy fine, angry cops.
Ah! Not today.

9 AM,

Slowly I walk to bus stop,
And there she goes
In her flashy car.
And is there a guy with her?
Holding her just the way I ache to.
Ah! Not today.

 9:30,

I reach the college gate,
Alas! The lifts are jammed,
I take the stairs for 7th floor.
Hurried feet miss a step,
Pangs in back and a screaming gut.
Ah! Not today.

9:50,

Guys laugh and girls giggle,
I am one stupid joke,
Professor asks for apology,
I open my bag and reach for pen
And see what comes out, a cigarette!!!
Ah! Not today.

10:30,

Time means little now,
Kicked out of the class
I head for an expensive breakfast.
Coffee and dessert with chocolate sauce.
God! Where was it that my wallet fell?
Ah! Not today.

11 AM,

The restaurant owner is a burly man,
He bullies me to do the dishes
To pay for the breakfast bill,
I settle on “waiter stuff” instead.
And in comes she, with her friends.
Ah! Not today!

Ankur Srivastava(c)

Where is the poem?

"Where is the poem?”
You asked. Your eyes, still so beautiful,
If eyes can be painted in words,
Their color, and sheen,
And the way kohl smudges after a tired day.
And the pain and silent tear
That never falls.

I told you not to talk of poems,
For, poems make us sad,
Rather look out of the window
The rain is about to fall.
The drops are sweet like teenage love,
Oh teenage love! Why doesn’t it last?

May be I will write a poem again,
A poem that won’t make us sad,
Like the flowers in the vase,
Oh! Don’t they look real?
And yet they will never die.

A poem with a smiling face,
Like your photograph in living room,
That hasn’t aged, not at all.
But, then I want the lines of your face,
That remind me how you added a little love
To the everyday pains of my life.

I can’t write a poem.
But may be someday,
I will steal one,
From the way your hair hides your face
When you are asleep.

You can find it in your lazy yawn,
I will read to you
In a sweet morning kiss.

Ankur Srivastava(c)