Tag: Poetry

Posted in My life

First steps

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

My daughter started telling stories when she was three.

Most of it was reused, recycled and repurposed from the stories I had told her or what she saw on You Tube (Link to the proof: Plagiarism with Brains: Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose). She would add or changes animals in my animal stories and replaced mango with pumpkin in fairytales.

Yesterday, she wrote her first piece of poetry–on the fly and in 60-seconds flat. I actually had to ask her if she had taken ‘inspiration’ from someone. She claims she hadn’t.

Here is the piece. Before you ask, I have taken Your Highness’s permission.

Touch the sky,

Touch the sun,

Just go on and have fun.

You don’t know how long it will stay,

Or rather it will just go away.

I haven’t correct anything there. I had just asked her why she wanted to write game score on the diary I had given her to write poetry and stories in. So, she just took a pen and jotted these lines on the first page (rather the cardboard) of blank diary.

Now that she has a foot in the door, I can hope. I know, there is no guarantee that she would want to continue at all. But that’s life of a parent.

Posted in Random Thoughts

My moon and star

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I went to the moon to see the noon;

But she wasn’t home;

So I waited and the stars came out;

So sky I plucked them from.

I wove some into a dress and

buttoned the moon tight;

To night I returned the rest and

wore the dream until light.

Author’s note: I wrote this piece for my daughter while I was helping her with a piece of school poetry. I was just trying to teach her how poetry can help us express our desires–an attempt she refuted by reminding me “Who will ever wear a dress made out of stars?”

She watches Doctor Binocs and knows more that she should. Sigh! Knowledge can be so glaring, it is blinding.

Posted in Reblog

Poetry day: Favourite piece

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

I want to share a piece that is forever branded in my memory: The Highway Man by Alfred Noyes. It taught me how poetry can be used to tell stories. The teenage girl in me, who first heard it in elder brother’s voice, still get goosebumps by the mere thought of it.

Here is the link if you wish to read it.

Posted in Random Thoughts

Humsaya | Urdu | Poetry

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Pur-yaqiin thi joh aa gayi tere jahaan me,

Is jahaan ko par mera yaqiin na hua.

Baithi hu ab waapasi ke intezar me,

Pas-e-aaina par koi mutaqiin na hua.

Translation:

Trusting, I entered your world;

Your world but did not believe me.

Wait in front of the mirror I must;

For no one trusting to pull me within.

Author’s note: Urdu poetry is usually a bit obscure, often containing meaning that isn’t on the surface. Here, the piece dwells on the concept of how everyone sees one’s outer-shell in front of the mirror, but behind the mirror, the true-self is trying to break out.

So, when a true-self manages to show herself, the world doesn’t believe her to be real, telling her that she must control herself as before. And now that she wishes to go back behind the mirror, the mirror doesn’t trust her to allow her to return.

Posted in Love

Yakeenan | Urdu Poetry

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Ye Waqt yakeenan meri saut hai.

Tere aane aur chale jane ke beech

Jo mauhalat hai,

Ek lamha hai;

Tere ja kar wapas aane ke darmiyan

Jo fasla hai,

Ek zindagi hai;

Tere ja kar laut ke na aane ka dar

Har pal maut hai.

Ye Waqt bazaahir meri saut hai.

Translation:

Waqt: Time

Saut: A merciless co-wife (translated as rival here since it clarifies the intent)

Time is a ruthless rival.

A second’s respite once you arrive

And then you leave.

A lifetime stretches when you leave…

.

.

.

Until you arrive.

Every moment wondering if you’ll return

To me is death.

Time is a ruthless rival.

Posted in Love

Mulaqaat | Sher | Urdu poetry

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Milti nahi thi ghadiya jinhe ashique se milne ke liye,

Rote hain ghanto se wahi intezar me dafeene ke liye.

…

In rukhsar ke moti kafan pe chamak chhod jayenge.

Chali ja! Zamaana haazir hai ilzam dene ke liye.

Translation:

Who couldn’t find seconds for love,

Is here crying for hours at my funeral.

…

Pearls from your cheeks will leave a sheen on my shroud.

Go away! For the world will see it and blame you aloud.

Author’s note: Sher in Urdu poetry is a couplet with a central idea that can standalone as a separate piece.

It also requires a certain word balance, somewhat like syllables in English poetry but much more complicated since each letter has its own weight. It is clearly outside my range of abilities. 😊 I just try to balance syllables where I can.

Posted in Life and After

Mooning

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Midnight. At the windowsill,

Moon reminds me.

Sprinkling silver pixie dust,

Lighting up the path

For Words to find me.

…

Sleep spreads its blanket

On the neighbouring bed.

Enraged Jealousy urges me

To shake awake

The Sleepyhead.

…

Muse nudges the

Story hiding within.

Spying the pen, she retreats,

Fearful of the ever-

judging Punctuation.

…

Sleep warns Desperation–

Inching towards her patrons

to seek help.

Sense prevails.

Who wants grumbly audience?

…

Responsibility cautions

To wait for the first light.

Unacceptable though,

I watch Moon sitting on the windowsill,

Sprinkling moonlight.

Author’s note: I have not learnt writing poetry, but I dabble with it sometimes.

  • I have tried a 1-2, 1-2-3 dancing style here.
  • Personification is meant to build a crowd on an otherwise quiet, lonely night.
  • I have also tried shape-writing to bring a sense of repetition where you return from where you start.

Please let me know which part of it worked and what sucked. 🙂

Posted in Life and After, Random Thoughts

Something

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Scared by the darkness,

She looked back. Nothing.

Something told her, her shadow wasn’t following.

.

She couldn’t be sure–

It was too dark.

Surely she would know if her shadow was still her part…

.

She would feel it

Sticking to her shoe…

Certainly there would be something…a slight cue?

.

Unknown, unreasonable,

Fear crept in.

Panic filled up empty crevices within.

.

She rushed back

To the streak of light.

Her shadow was there the other night.

.

Travellers swear,

In car headlight,

A phantom dives under their speeding cars. Every night…

Author’s note: Some people working in graveyard shift in Gurgaon back in 2014 used to say that a phantom woman would dive under their car’s front wheels. Every night. Scary! 😨

Posted in Blogging

It isn’t what it looks like!

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Once again, I missed her.

My siren.

There she was singing to me about new stories,

Sitting right beside me,

While I plodded on with office work,

Waiting for it to be over,

So I could write down what she was telling me.

Now I sit with smartphone in hand,

Clueless of what

I was sure to have memorized.

My siren is long gone,

Disappointed at being ignored,

Suspecting of my love.

This is what happens when

You spend too much time with Work.

I hope she knows it isn’t what it looks like!

Posted in Life and After

Gard | Urdu | Sher | Poetry

Posted on by Shaily Agrawal

Sara jahaan jab gard me lipta hua lagne lage,

Sheeshe khidkiyo ke saaf kar lena durust hai.

Translation (Not word-by-word):

When bleak, bleary, blurred world

is blanketing in dirt

(one friend at a time),

high time someone

cleaned the windows.

Author’s note: An Urdu Sher is a couplet that deep dives into a single topic within two lines. A conventional Sher must be rhymed with specific word weight (this one is not) but it is not necessary. The theme can vary from society to love to faith and everything else under the sun.