Tarannum Riyaz Poems

Your hockey stick, your computer
are both silent in your room
your bed utterly smooth, not a wrinkle
your table neat and orderly, every thing in place
and on the floor, in a corner, a pair of sandals,
undisturbed, dumb

For the sake of your future
I somehow forced myself to send you away
but right from the day you left
this lonely heart, these anguished eyes
have been pining for your return

Oh, come, do come
and turn everything upside down again in this orderly room
turn on the music as high and loud as you like
create whatever rumpus you will
but let me feel your presence in the house

I shall hold you close to my heart
and never scold you again
...

One should keep meeting friends and phoning them
if one loses touch even for a few days
one may not run into them for months after
even for a whole year
and after a year when one rings up
the telephone number may have changed
or that line may have ceased to exist
It is also possible
the friend himself may no longer be.
...

Do not drive me
beyond my patience
have you not seen the signs?

For quite some time now
I have been sitting
on a heap of gunpowder
with a fire raging inside me
which I have kept under control with much effort
as I do not wish you to get burnt

Stop now
and be careful
lest the world that you and I have built
explode and go up in flame!
...

If you should leave me now and go away
the world will not come to an end
the gift of life is given to us but once
I will not pine and sigh
go, be unfaithful if you will

I shall seek consolation with someone else
in the spring-scented garden of life
I too shall pick the flowers of love.
...

There will be a serpent
curled around every hair of her head
her beautiful eyes will be pierced
by red hot iron spikes
her soft limbs will be stretched out
on burning coal.
After such sinfulness,
what mercy!
Although almighty Allah
is the ruler of every heart
there is a rightful master of her life and limb.
But she is enamoured of one
who is among the forbidden ones.
...

In one square of his heart there is his ten-year-old love for me
in another, is his two-year-old infatuation for a woman he met somewhere
the third square, these days, is occupied by a teenage girl, a neighbour's guest
as for the fourth, it is vacant - so far
and somehow he does justice to each occupant

I know he cannot live without me
yet his eyes light up the moment his flame calls on the phone
as for our neighbour's guest, the teenage girl, well,
he comes to our veranda for a cup of tea with me,
hoping to catch a glimpse of her!

He seems well content with this state of things except
the vacancy in the fourth square seems to trouble him

Such is the heart that God has given him
and I am a part of him (Eve, after all, was made from Adam's rib)

I can feel his anguish and understand,
knowing how simple he is.
...

Strangely light
strangely sweet
strangely familiar
and yet unknown
your fragrant memories
fill my heart
like the pleasant scent of
old books.
...