Bad Poetry

I wanted you to know that

I learnt a few words last year

That I can bet you haven't heard of.

Before you laugh outright,

Notice how I've also learnt to smile

In the face of flashing light.

It's no big accomplishment, I know

But in some far-off bubble shaped

Microcosm

That we built with things greater than wind and soap,

It was an Atlas shaped Accomplishment

Balanced on the axis of hope.

I told you I hated poetry for heartbreaks.

There is something so inanely idiotic

In singing about something that probably never took place

Because half the time, it wasn't the Heart, but a Head

That lost the sight/taste/smell/feel/sound

Of better sense.

You laughed outright in my face.

And reminded me that my favourite poet was Yeats.

I didn't have to say it,

But you said it for me anyway:

'Touché.'

I told you then that it was different.

For one, his poetry was not

Generic

For the other

You could see that he loved her

And finally

It was unbearably lovely.

Just like the wind that had a way of

Sifting through your hair to remind us

Where percussionists make magic from.

Just like the light that didn't remember

That twilight meant it had to disappear

Because it had found sanctum in the lacquer

Of your eyes.

Just like the lines that twisted themselves

Into puzzles that only a logicless maneuver

Could dismantle into a smile.

You broke into one of those sudden smiles

That have no history, no logic, no

Sense to them and said,

'Your problem isn't with heartbreaks.

It's with bad poetry.'

I made you read my favourite poem.

It was a Neruda- fire and earth to counter

Our bubble microcosm.

I quoted it often, back then,

In the intangible hope

That the fire and the earth would let themselves be

Pulled apart by the wind and the air

And travel the distances between

A person and her naked dream

To return and reclaim

Me.

'I love you, love. In fire and blood.'

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The taste of fire, the taste of blood

Microcosmic natural disasters in a microcosmic world.

The funny thing is,

You only need to touch a bubble deep enough to

Watch it burst.

This time, I said it first.

'Touché.'

It's easy to forget that a sky can fall from heaven

And innocently call itself rain.

It's easy to forget that a poem dedicated

Is a poem given away.

And dedication means what was fully yours

Will never be the same.

And Atlas,

Atlas himself will tell you

That it's easy to balance something so steady and

Something so permanent and so

There

As the earth

But a bubble

A bubble won't topple

As much as burst.

Touché?

I didn't tell you, but you'd

Laugh outright

If I told you that there was a lot of

Bad poetry

After that time.

And then, I wouldn't have to say it,

The next bit,

Because you'd say it for me anyway.

And just like Neruda,

There's no good translation for it;

Except probably

'Hypocrite'.

And of all the words I learnt this year,

My favourite one is happens to be another one

You can't translate:

Sillage.

And I won't be surprised

When you look it up and laugh outright

Because like the Head, and the Heart

It lacks

Better sense.