Swansong

Laughing and crying at the same time, 

He lay there on the sidewalk,
staring at his life's only companions- the strings of his broken guitar.

Staring at his happy childhood; 

the heartbreak which taught him life's lessons; 

his first stage show; the last autograph; last bottle of rum; his last cigarette

And then he began to sing, for one last time, the swan song that he had penned long ago. 

Blues

My body is a sea of doomed emotions

With spurts of happiness and sunken oysters that hide the terribly ruthless beauty of overpowering truths;

     Waves of despair rise and die

And sometimes crash,

Against the wobbly walls of cynic

Disapproval.

Sunken ships hold lost virtues and helpless suffocation;

There lie copper coins on my intestine, which weigh the burden of failed faith and hopeful youth;

     Occasionally, glass bottles with notes inside, 

Hit me in the limbs,

And remind me of the vehement regrets that once rose - only to be eternal- from painful losses and failed attempts that crushed my almost heart. 

My body is a sea of doomed emotions;

It flows in different directions at different times

but never does it truly rest;

For the sea never forgets nor dies. 


- harsha jain

The Battle Within

We’re tired soldiers, left on a battlefield without arms;

We’re helpless, and are devoid of all hope;

The Blood of our souls is smeared on our palms.

     

Lets face it-

      we sold our souls, 

      our dreams, our worth, 

      our talents, our duties and love.

All for nothing but this battle- which we knew would be lost 

All for nothing but our inflated pride and deflated hopes.

                 We’re not bad people, not at the least;

          We’re just weak animals, who  could only follow and never lead,

nor ever live singular lives.

So we marked him the pack's leader 

who knew not defeat or gain -

A leader who believed not that one could ever be led -

But we tried to get the better of him

And we tried in vain.

                 

We began a crusade against our souls 

Against the absolute, the whole.

Against what was free of judgement.

We sure have lost the battle, but are not defeated

We’re only those capillaries that carry blood inside

But fail to realise their own worth.

-Harsha

May,2015

Intoxicated Musk

I sleep to your sweet lullaby 
Composing songs of intoxicated love.
And I look at our reflections on roads
left wet from thirsting rain;
Our love - laced between twisted bodies 
and entwined fingers that smell of the musky clouds -
Looks upon the starry night;
And beneath us lies a bed of cold, dewy grass, fresh like winter mornings.
We consume each other
We breathe in every inch of our existence,
And all this my dear was meant to be,
For our love was celestially found.



HarshaJuly '15

Portrait 

If I were a sketch made of charcoal,

Somewhere dark and in other places light

Written in subtle strokes; upward and downward- each separate from the other

And having been given birth to, not as a whole, but in parts 

The lips, the eyes, the freckles, the strands of my hair, the little pearls that drop from my earlobes like a snowflake stuck to the eyelash --

All drawn but slowly, with precision and wine breaks ( some beer too)

Using the fingers to shape me; the curve of my mouth, the iris within my eye, the lines on my face, each strand of hair separately drawn- to increase(or establish?) it's worth; the earrings looking like the universe

Would you feel the tears in my eyes that one of your wine breaks (or beer) consumed ? 

Harsha

May, 2015

Long-Lost Love


To all those promises that I have kept;

And the ones that you didn't.

The songs you promised to sing to me 

The time that together we never spent,

And to the  rains I wished in which we could dance.

To The violins and guitars, the candle lit dinners and chocolate bars.

Young love and beautiful odes

Labyrinthine conversations ;

Entwined roads.

If only we could have grown old together 

And memories we could make,

But now we're left with broken promises and empty evenings by the lake.

A longing to hear each other's voices and unfathomable voids,

But here's to the love that we once had,

The love of a while.

16.10.2014

KOLKATA

Of subtle evenings and street lights
Lazy roads and comforting winds,
Of old trees and familiar smells
Of conversations by the Ganges
 and of beautiful Men.
Of commas and full stops , and red terraces
Of buildings in marble and amused little faces
Of young ambition and twinkling eyes
Of budding love and morning chais.
Of park street and luncheons
Of the haves and also, the have-nots.
Of coffee and of cigarettes
Of University days,
Of a city that has history and has charming ways.
Of buildings in marble that have seen the beauty grow,
Of dinners that hold on to imperialistic thoughts
And tickets to 2 pm shows.
Of songs in gold and of the dhaaks behold;
The vermillion story -that of festive coy
The story of a city- The City Of Joy.

17.10.2014