Gauravonomics Diary

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As I read through
The hundred odd poems
I have written
I watch myself, like a voyeur,
Fall in love, four times.

The pattern repeats itself
With startling regularity:
Attraction provokes poetry;
Poetry reinforces attraction;
And we are in love.

Then, the inevitable follows:
“As long as you write, I am yours”,
She whispers.
“Write or watch me writhe and die”,
Love lists down my alternatives.

In spite of the pressure to perform,
The poetry flows, as does love.
She is my muse:
I worship her with words,
Make love to her with verse.

The poetry, in itself,
Is more mature each time;
Deeper, in some sense.
A result of years, I wonder,
Or of love that is more mature?

The intensity varies, though,
And follows no pattern, whatsoever.
There’s poetry light like a danseuse’s step,
Or heavy like death itself,
Or reflective like wet eyes.

And so, it works perfectly,
Until love dies, or poetry,
And the other follows suit, leaving behind
Two broken hearts and some verse
As evidence of what once was.

To understand a poet,
You need to understand his poetry.
It is difficult, of course,
But undoubtedly worth it.

For poets are as abstruse
As the poems they pen;
And as ineluctable once
You actually understand them.

Never ask a poet
To explain his poetry,
Especially if it has been
Written for you.

He writes poetry
Because he cannot, or would not,
Put what he has to say
In so many words.

Poetry therefore is
Speech though silence,
His way of saying everything
Without saying anything at all.

You are supposed to
Read through his riddle-in-verse,
Find meaning between his lines,
In the wily web of his words.

If you find it there,
You won’t need an explanation;
If you fail to find it, trust me,
You are better off without one.

I: To my not-so-numerous friends

By being partners in my excesses in words and worse;
By indulging, unwaveringly, my vanity and verse;
You own a part of my poetry,
As indeed, you own a part of me.
Without you, my verse would be orphaned;
Not to say, my vanity.

II: To my numerous muses

As I spend sleepless nights,
Trying to reinvent language;
Twisting words together,
Torturing them till
They yield new meaning;
All I seek is your love.

You are the source and subject of my poetry;
The ‘adi’ and ‘ant’ of my being.
The stream of my thought
Starts and ends with you.
Yours is the womb from which my verse is born;
To you, I dedicate it.