Ruins Poem by Ibohal Kshetrimayum

It's about time we talk of ruins.
So, let us talk, for you never know
How long ears of hope will remain receptive.

Your lips are missing, and your kisses fall,
Like ripe plums and tint my confession,
Like coffe stains with the smell of rust.

Looking back, dreams had stories,
About laughters blooming in dews on trembling grass,
With roots growing deep into layers of blue skies.

That dark sweater you began knitting,
Lies lifeless by a woolen ball,
Like the buried half of a rainbow.

My greys are silvery now, and my smile
Looks like a scar, but my heart
Keeps shredding dead skins.

Footprints covered by caddish shadows
Of hubristic tongues,
Never to be retraced, and
The wish to carry your whispers beyond life,
Scavanged by beaks of time,
Are nothing but pieces of
History's torn chorion.

Entangled in my pensive repentence,
Memory of a girl (assuming) ,
Whose playful steps ruefully erased,
Even before she was assisted into the world,
Stares back from an obsolete painting.

I sense blood seething in my viens,
But wth no ill will.
If only I could stop this moment from passing away,
And touch life one more time,
Gently and wisely, perhaps sweet palpitations
Would be heard knocking from within.

Lying in the heap of fallen bricks
Of the dilapidated castle of Eros,
Where, once upon a time,
Our romance was a folktale for angels and fairies,
I'm supossed to be bleeding the high noon sun,
To feed yesterday's vampiric fleas.

My body no longer lives on bread and grains,
But on tears and prayers, and
It keeps on living, surprisng the undertaker and
My foes,
Who begin to think
I'm here to stay indefinitely.
So, I labour to hasten my swan song
To gladden those who want to witness my exit.

The yarn with which I began weaving a flag
Has been sold to the brothel of politics,
Where patriotism is only a slang
In perorations of capricious pimps.
My nights are haunted by ghosts
Of betrayed slogans
I once coined bravely on fisting graffiti.
Standing amidst graves of words
Spoken inconspicuously,
I see soldiers placing putrid shocks and
Ugly boots
On books strewn across the floor
Of my old school's library
Which is now a fortified barrack.

But when I see tombs sleeping like babies,
In the quietness of a cemetery,
I beg you -
Don't let me die without a wound, and
Even if it is in pretensive nostalgia,
Bury me with a bloodstained kiss.