Tasenda

While standing at the doors of Love The rare prophetess, would collect Broken gods to make earthen pots And bake them with wine still in them In the bazaars that were set among The debris of my dreams, She would sell wet walnuts that tasted Of true love, along with intricate daggers The desolate would gather around her While she wove spells to will the moon Into charms to hang in the air, while Qayamat remained a mere breath away

When rain came,  In no particular order,  It washed away the idea of me  Drenching me to skin,  Till the cotton seeped into my skin  designing into the rain  a slimy clone of me  Around me, washed away  promises  And limp memories floated away  With the rain, b urning out fires,  that I had stolen from a burnt-out Sun Leaving behind traces of m aps  That I had carved into the  Remnants  of yesterday and buried In the broken fragments of tomorrow  But when light finally broke out,  I unlearnt the rain  And unshackled the love-knots  we had tied when we last met 

In the darkness of a shamed night, When bastard diseases patrolled Kashmir  Poetry was stolen from the dead  Verses erased from gravestones  Dates reversed, Irises trampled Histories robbed  The old desolate widow houses of Jhelum - Whose rooms were plotted by the doomed architects of fate, were broken into  Their Gothic windows broken,  Their Mughal arches crooked,  Their doors empty frames bordered  only the most intricate woodwork from  Ishfan The Pacicdhars* who used to Live in attics, were all been exiled by The thunderous impotence of mad men  Who set fire to autumn skies till  everyone was a  Refugee from Forgotten memories of  An ancient nation, their identities crushed under  one-ton military trucks --- *  Pacicdhars: Mythical guardians, which were believed to live in the attics of Kashmiri houses, and used to descend in the middle of night wearing wooden clogs, protecting the homes from spiritual ills.