And so, and yet,
Life toasts to and with
Glasses half filled,
Half spilled, half empty,
And so, and yet,
Delicious
In their entirety,
Where taste is a mindful perception
And mind a powerful beast
The heart is an overpowering illusion
And so, and yet,
Is breaking free
– Akanksha Gupta
I watch
A miasma of brush strokes
Trailing over
The canvas of life –
Dull, bright, warm, sharp
Their watermarks
Evade the sight
But those that loiter
I notice
The crinkly lines
That embellish their every stroke –
Bold, rugged, shy, sleek
Impressions that time erodes
But those that linger
I remember
The dots and crosses
That stagger each line
Big, small, subtle, sublime,
An expression that holds
The redolence of time –
A taste of vintage memories
That swarm
With an ageless, decadent grace
Yet ultimately
When everything fades
Period and pause
Everything fades
They say
Life is funny that way
– Akanksha Gupta
To all my teachers: Happy Teacher’s Day!
It’s been years since graduation
I measure that time and distance
In values
That paved our way
In beliefs
That kept us walking
In attitude
That set the rhythm to our gait
And in fortitude
That carried us across
Because
The knowledge we then
Naively gauged us in
When faded away,
The wisdom
Wisely remained –
In the wordplay
During interactions
And the unintended wit
In the reactions –
Their impressions
Gained
In girth and momentum
So while it’s been years since graduation
I measure that space in memories
Too priceless to put a tag to –
Even words are not enough
To express my gratitude
Love,
Akanksha
Words escape
At the brink of night
Into the sun-kissed moon
And the scarlet skies
That carry an echo
In every wink
A phantom scar
Lingering tween blinks
In the dark of the night
The smirking moon
The star kissed skies
And their silence
A naked ghost
That hovers
Like a timeless void
Casting its shadows
Upon the din
Beckoning
To sweet oblivion
– Akanksha Gupta
Thunderous frowns
Wring the skies
Spluttering
Pearls of wisdom
Upon the ground –
Then to dance
Or to drown
Differs
Only in sound –
Those canopied
Are yet bound
To their pebbled lanes
And undergrounds
While the victims
Of innocence
Learn to thread
And wear
The fallen
Round their necks.
– Akanksha Gupta
My fingers don’t shake
Yet my pen hesitates
And the paper is black and blue.
I tighten my hold –
Had I been so lax
As to let the pen grow bold?
It is but a paper anyway;
And papers come and papers go –
The convenient martyrs
Of our self-effacing ways,
Covering our rot within theirs,
Letting our thoughts stay
Strangled within our throats –
Little birds
That now whisper
In our ears
Words
That make words cower,
And ideas, that yearn
To run free,
Find themselves
Short of words
Suddenly,
Apparently,
Justifiably.
– Akanksha Gupta
A house stood
In the far east end
Not quite marble white
Mud brown or charcoal black —
The colour faded before its quiet strength
Like the yellow of the yellow pages
And the red of the red moons —
Turning, waxing, waning —
Like a gnomon
Meditating
In its own shadow
Not so much abandoned or reclusive
As part forgotten, part oblivious,
And part elusive —
Just enough to have
A perceived objective clarity
As a bridge
Between dream and reality —
A house
Sometimes rented,
Sometimes owned,
Seldom sold,
Seeing all under its sun
Through windows
Cataracted to its soul
– Akanksha Gupta
In the darkness of the night
There are secrets that we hide
In the brightness of the day
Faces give naught away
There is blood and there is grief
There is pain no words can ease
They are shadows fires cast
Burning the future past
Gone
Is it my wake?
I hear the dirge
Am I awake?
In the dying of the light
We don’t go without a fight
In the crook of in-between
Dreams are true, truth’s a dream
There is death and there is life
There’re no truths, there’re no lies
They are shadows that time casts
Blurring all th’ futures past
Gone
Yet I’m awake
Or is it all
In my head?
(I composed these lyrics to accompany the haunting melody of Javier Navarette’s Lullaby from Pan’s Labyrinth)
– Akanksha Gupta
The apparent imperfections of life
Appear as lesions marring its skin,
Imperfectly veiling the deep wounds
Rupturing the will within.
What paraffin can then suffice
As fire for ice when ice afire,
What liquid strength can hold and embolden
When those icy cracks are clogged sepulchres dire.
And yet through them –
Through the little cracks in our souls –
We want warmth to seep in; to seep into
Each cut ‘n every fold
The warmth of recognition
Of acknowledgment of our existence
Of sustenance of our rights;
The warmth of appreciation
Of admissions of our successes
Yet omissions of our strife.
But those moments and that age
When we used to yearn for them
Have long passed our doorstep,
Leaving in their wake
Fractures –
Untended and unchecked
At the root of which lies
A quiet and visceral need,
For a tincture of the warmth of celebration
Of each moment of the life we lead,
Henceforth, to seep in; leaving
Each cleft-end to the other cleaved.
– Akanksha Gupta
Don’t lose yourself in pretty words
Their artful eloquence
Beware the silences between
Hiss with malevolence
Too long don’t stare into the woods
Keep count of every branch
Wayward traveller, wary be
Of stumbling in a trance
In vain pursuit of netted sun
On blue-green waters, hark!
Lest in you wade too deep, yet miss
Upon each wave a shark
And when embark upon next verse
Do turn each page with caution
Sharpened edges draw first blood
From beguiled opponents
So judge not by its cover a book
Read between the lines
Double entendres hide amidst
The seemingly benign
This world, from ‘far, is abstract art
Up close a labyrinth
The devil lies in its details
Trembling with innocence
– Akanksha Gupta
Out of the night that curls around
Glittering from pole to pole
A sleigh of dreams shimmies about
The contours of our souls
And in the gentle caress of sleep
It brings a world to life
That lifts the stubborn blanket of snow
Lodged in our year-struck eyes
To show beyond the place of self
Lies a joy beyond measure —
An exchange without cause or clause
That begets unbridled pleasure
Then it matters not how weary the road
How blistery the soles of day become
We shall always find the shade of friends
Even when on our lonesome
Because —
Out of the night that curls around
Glittering from pole to pole
A sleigh of dreams shimmies about
The contours of our souls
And in the gentle caress of sleep
It weaves old tales with new
A realm of possibilities
We knew not could be true
To show beyond the place of self
Lies a vision of tomorrow —
A free fall into novelty
Past year-stale joys and sorrows
Then it matters not dawn streaks
The inward eye with reddish gold
The dreams herald a future
That is ours to have and to hold
When you look at me and those I paint
I hope that you see a rainbow coloured haze
For though I speak sharp with words so sure
They reflect a mere fraction of what I think I know
When you think of me and those I paint
I hope it’s not a puzzle but a mosaic
Because what I know are parts of a whole
Coloured by mine and growing evermore
When you speak of me and those I paint
I hope an equal lack of judgment is displayed
Those words that seem sharp, sure, and succinct
Are opinions, fickle; the truth has always been extinct
– Akanksha Gupta
The night air
Sits primly upon my breath,
It’s crispness biting my tongue,
Which stills, stung
Into silence –
The cool of each
Thusly laboured death
Brings with it
A refreshing lack of thoughts –
I know that winter has come.
The faceless moon blackens every day,
A shiver of stars lie
Unblinking across a cloudless sky;
Their spartan starkness
Sending tremors of disquiet
Down my spine,
Roiling the river of scarves
Ribboned and coiled with poise
Around my neck –
Equal and opposite –
They press against a cloying warmth;
I can feel my throat tighten,
Prickling
At the bitter-sweet thoughtlessness
Trickling
Down
Like poison.
Thence the blood flows
Painfully, slow,
And nearly glacial —
A reluctant heart pumps ice
To temper and placate
The wrathful winds
Scorching my eyes.
And as I blink,
Fire and ice
Wound and lick
My flaming, mottled face
That I veil with
Endless swathes
Of downy cloths,
But the mattress remains cold
Underneath a chilled soul.
– Akanksha Gupta
All the world’s a matchbox
And all its people a bundle of sticks
Unequally proportioned their figures
With peculiarly apportioned heads
Each with unique entrances
And equally unique exits
To begin with they are thusly formed
When each newborn, slithers
Out of the same old mould –
The wilderness; the savage stones
(By the book of cut-and-fold)
Crumbled, sutured and apparently, evolved
Assembly line production
(I hear tell it’s called)
Intelligently programmed to introduce
Per product Transgressions
Where every Difference in the delicate mix
Starts subtle, but grows, startlingly
To sow
The basis of conflicts
Villains and heroes – the tragic misfits
Stories and legends – the tragedies
Bards, audiences –
Subtextual nobodies
Co-existing under the same roof
Put asunder by the same goal –
To burn brighter than the bright
Sooner and longer than the rest,
To leave scorch marks in the wake
That remain undead after death
This struggle for a phosphorescent fame
Inflames the longer left unlit,
Fuelled by the silhouette of innominate death
Born of an unfortunate circumstance;
Such as dereliction due to dis(or mis)use
Or an incurable, congenital defect
And so every head butts against every other
To scratch and tip the scales in its favour
But – even & by sporting a red dye – every form
Remains conspicuously uniform
Making no difference to the fortune or fate
Of those unchosen abiding time and faith
Who rejoice at the measliest spark
That might just kickstart them into burning bright,
But after being brightly lit for timeless ticks
These enlightened (or accidentally ignited) minds
Flicker like flailing fish toward their end, then surge,
And cease, with a soundless dirge
Lamenting that while they lived, they lived
The way they were supposed to live
With the only changes being when-from,
How-bright, and importantly, for-how-long
Never stopping by, to wonder why –
Much like the cogs in a wheel – what-for
Thus it is why that history
Tends to seamlessly repeat itself
For every life is wrought with instinctive greed
In a box overcome with collective unease
Stemming from the common fear
That one day they’d quietly disappear –
A microcosm of civil friction,
Embrittled by a puppeteer’s dance,
A macrocosm of fractious civilisations,
Even as bundled together in a united stance –
Insidious match; afraid to combust –
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
– Akanksha Gupta
Humming a half-chewed
Part eschewed
Hastily rewritten
Version of ‘Zehnaseeb’,
I am waiting at the bus stop –
Now 20 minutes and counting;
My patience is floundering,
It’s like time has stopped for me.
Why, it’s with recurring, insipid and
Unguarded jealousy,
That I watch the little people hop
Into their little taxis
That come, that go,
That go, that come,
While, all the while,
My unsteady fingers
Steadily drum,
And a deft foot taps
Left, then right,
While idle thumbs twiddle
Verbosity alight,
And oh!
There I see
The bus – my bus
Merrily making its way,
With the torturous velocity
Of an ignoramus, unambitious snail…
Ah finally! It has stopped –
To let the passengers go;
Tedious and slow,
As they clench within them,
An unhidden, unbidden desire
To push against
The damn viscous flow,
And, oh no –
Aboard, there still are,
Two lost foreign souls
Talking with an equally lost driver
(Who’s desperate to return
To looking bored)
And I?
With an inward sigh, I shake my head
And brave my left foot before right,
To become the First Person on the Bus –
First – since some 30 minutes ago,
The First Woman, actually
(Because, somehow, it matters more)
And so,
The rest of the people,
Now undaunted and properly sheepled,
Step in too;
Unceremoniously hinting a good-bye
To the poor lost foreign souls
– Akanksha Gupta
AxelleGupta 