Dear Herman,
It is difficult to do anything these days. I tried to sit back, close my eyes and write to you. Hours passed by, thinking about what to write to you and then I gave up. Nothing really happened besides me ending up with a severe headache. Time is cruel. It freezes . While the pain remains that her absence has left. I often see her sitting on a chair near that window that opens to the night sky. Does she still count the numbers? Yesterday we had a chat over the phone. You spoke of several things; rooms, lines, rhythms and memories. I am reminded of a poem that a friend had written. I will share it with you. ‘Preserve and contain it in whatever form you can, a line, a drawing, a memory… ‘
This reticence is devastating, but silences and absences is all that remains for us. Silences that sweep us away into the land of memories, unsought and uncalled, to mourn a time. We used to stroll by the river side, searching for the hidden shadows among the ruthless waves. Now I open that book she had left and it always opens at the same page where a rose remains sandwiched by a ‘forever’.
your body,
like a stale thought
it rottens under the heat of some forsaken room
some dark room
some distant room
in plains.
the mountains fall in your memory
we betrayed you but
i call myself a poet
i call her too
she calls him too
we betrayed you but
as you chalked your verses
on prison walls
stale with piss
your piss, theirs too
i did cry for you
in my comfortable bedroom
with an italian attached bathroom
i read about you
some days back
that they cut the flesh from your body
and fed you that with salt and pepper
i cried on my wood carved dining table
and did not eat non veg that day
i saw your photograph
in the newspaper
your brain visible and head torn
and you unrecognisable
i cried and my tears fell on my Hp laptop
like drops of water on stones
i heard your slogan
when they fired a bullet in your heart
it made me a poet
like her
like him
i typed your name
and wrote about you
and i even cried
with my favorite flavour of coffee in my hands
i did hear about you
perhaps from some newspaper
or magazine
or some other poet
and believe me
i did cry