Abhey Gupta

Category: Poems

Free verse and quiet poems — in English and Hindi — on love, longing, loss, and the slow work of healing.

  • This Life Again

    Far from the shadow of yesterday,
    a haze of a new day, and a dawn of fate;
    with the beautiful memories of you,
    I wonder at this life again.

    Beneath the pillow of dreams,
    under the hope of an endless sky,
    I gaze through the eyes of the present —
    I welcome this life again.

    Thorns of desire, and the pale;
    flowers of love, and of hate;
    and with time, you smile —
    I love this life again.

    Endless is my way, my journey;
    speechless, the thoughts of mine;
    and with one glance of yours one day,
    I contemplate this life again…

    Into the surrey of the day,
    you welcomed not my silence;
    with the end, it starts again and again —
    I am lost in this life again…

    Secretly, in the span of time,
    the worthless seems so worth again;
    and with the final words of the way,
    and with you, I wonder at this life again…

  • Battle Mind

    Another day, and I will shed my way;
    travellers, the innocent, are my blood’s target.
    I may live or die, but it traces out my existence —
    the secret I keep locked away, in this battle of the mind.

    Words are my sword, and sorrow my blood,
    heir of a royal bloodline, wasted in surrender;
    you may see no more death in the world,
    but the soul-ripper has its own way…

    I could never stand beneath the words of love;
    we may travel all this world alone,
    battling the present for the despair of one past,
    fuelling a battle of the mind, every second.

  • Start to End

    I am walking down memory lane,
    the one I met first, but never last;
    still deep in every lonely day,
    lost deeper, and remembering all the way…

    Retrospective, travelling this time —
    the one in my worst, and forever;
    friend, or beloved — but the one;
    and whether I lost or won, still the last one…

    Drifting through one more memory,
    I wanted, but never the way;
    and I wondered, long, for one,
    and ended up with a lost beloved…

    All the way through this journey,
    one has been there, all the way;
    once a friend, a beloved, a friend again —
    but the start, and the end, with me.

  • Morning at Mourning

    Beneath the moon, up in the sky,
    the wind is blowing, high tide;
    I fear not the losing —
    I am travelling with time.

    Morning with light, morning with a smile,
    morning of freedom, morning of cessation;
    though not always morning —
    sometimes a morning at the mourning of a lost one,
    the mourning of what is left behind.
    But this mourning is better than a morning
    without oneself, lost in the darkness of last night.

  • The Moment of Love

    Once in a while in the day,
    filled with love and life,
    yes — it came to start,
    with the end of the line of desire,
    but the long way to another time.

    I guess it wasn’t the right choice;
    I wondered through dusk and dawn,
    with eyes filled with hope and love,
    but the dew of a shack,
    and the shame of neglect,
    answered only the shadow of time.

    And yet the end came with a “yes,”
    and I wondered all the dark night;
    but the answer came with the truth of none,
    and again I wondered, of hate and love —
    the beautiful moments of life…

    not with the one I got,
    but with the one I lost long ago,
    in that one moment of love.

  • Sky of Memory

    I gaze up to the endless sky,
    the blue, the vast, with countless tries;
    alone, and in groups, flying high,
    the birds of the sky pass by me…

    I find my colour in the clouds of the sky;
    life is beautiful, ever — no denying;
    and in the morning dawn,
    I wonder, watching, all day long…

    I open my eyes, and I am flying in the sky;
    you are everywhere, here.
    With the melody of the winds, blowing high,
    I gaze at this gazeless sky…

    I look to the farther sky,
    everything in miniature, potent in itself;
    though far from dreams and reality,
    the sky is raining with love today…

  • The City

    The city sleeps with light,
    with a blanket of dreams and night;
    at the edge of shore and success,
    the night shines more than the day…

    The city runs on the metro track,
    and people upon one another;
    to dwell, and to do well, it fills everyone —
    and whispers its loneliness, on a wonderful night.

  • The Story

    Sunk under the weight of my own,
    I surrender my peace to welcome her;
    though the sky, not so distant, is burning,
    the finite is not so serene…

    Plain roads are a symbolic game:
    the closer it seems, the farther its way;
    up above, yet so dispersed within its own,
    covering an inch of the sky’s stone…

    Noisy, yet entertaining now,
    it feels like riding hell with your own;
    a hidden glory beneath the flying cloud —
    how it matters, leaving its comfort shell…

    In the full night of the dark lorry,
    the Lord walked to the fire and spelled a charm;
    and I showed my heart to you — and it was gone:
    the feelings of it, now, are what they call love and hate.

  • Another World

    Glaring, those black eyes at mine —
    I wonder, who is the angel?
    I moved back to the yard, and caught a glance of her:
    she is my love, and you…

    Holding back my heartbeat every time,
    I steady myself, and whisper in her ear,
    “Will you be my forever, in every life?”
    And she smiles back, and says yes to me…

    She pressed her lips to mine,
    and I wandered, in a wonderland;
    though she knows this is only for a while,
    she is the one I know — with love…

    I move back to my present, with hope,
    and all I see is one faint message of hers:
    “I know you, but you are not mine.”
    I know she is mine — but in another world.

  • Thou

    Here you are, in my heart —
    but not in my life…
    Surely you live in my dreams,
    but not in my life.
    You give me love,
    but not the one I desire.
    You know what is mine,
    but not the one I know.
    You owe me nothing —
    but I owe you my life…