Poems for All Seasons

Winter

Winter has arrived

She gave me a call a week ago

I was not home

I thought to call her back

Is she awake now, I thought

Perhaps I might call her in the morning

By then I could come up

With a funny story

How I missed the train and a cow

Was staring at me

From the other side of the railway track

I overslept

And now

Like the rest of the city

I am lounging under a blue fog

Of desolate memories

Spring

There is no nice hotel in this town,

Said Spring and turned into a hospital bed

I was lying about my sickness for a long time

I never felt better in months

Perhaps I needed attention

Perhaps

Songs that make us happy are always shorter

Than those which make us sad

I realize this and get up in the darkness

Of my own reflection 

Spring has nowhere to stay

Her bags are still unpacked

And yet the town has no plan

To build a hotel which won’t look like a sanatorium

Summer

Everything including shame and the last week of April

Is now on bet

The forest that leads to the mountain is so deep

That one can pretend to take rest without stopping

I was walking all morning

My shirt is wet with perspiration and doubt

Shall I ever reach the point from

Where I started my journey?

Will I?

The point is not missing

It has just gone out to collect an old debt

I shall let you know if it returns anytime soon

Then the world will see

And talk about us in whispers till June

Monsoon

The act of disappearing is the easiest

Said the man in black cloak

And disappeared

I sit at the corner of the bar

Holding his hat

Waiting for the rabbit to come

Out anytime soon

It seems the man was lying

Disappearing is difficult when you

Want to do it in the dark

There needs to be some light

Some recognition

That people at least knew

You were here

Otherwise it's too painful

Too stupid

Like announcing your death in advance

And living to see how

A premature monsoon washes off

Your footsteps in the hills

Autumn

The inglorious autumn

Appears in your letters

Like a ship without cabins

Like a soap without foam

Like a face without wrinkles

Like a death without mourning

The inglorious letter

Appears in chapters

Like a house without rooms

Like a dream without reference

Like a storm without centre

Like a story without beginning  

It is official now

Delusions are different from dreams

Fall

We were leaning on the railing

And expecting

It was I who told you about the city of Baghdad

How the streets there woke up one morning

And swallowed the caliph like a half-boiled egg

Later they died of indigestion

We were leaning and looking

We were looking beyond our city; our streets

Were supple and hungry

They grew around our legs and started

To tickle our darkness

Later they died of indigestion

We drew a straight line thereafter

And never tried to cross it

Lest we fell