Abhey Gupta

Category: Poems

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

  • Rise and Fall

    Thou — the rise meant for the fall,
    I feel the horizon beneath all that passes by;
    darkness in the shallows of shine,
    yet I wonder, holding an answer of time.

  • Ray in the Midst of Rain

    With the shadow of light,
    and the darkness disappearing into the light of belief;
    in the shadow of the new, old memories take their places —
    and in the memory of a gloomy loss, aren’t we losing the world of today?

  • Time Warp

    Thee — the endless times,
    and the weave of beads through time;
    scarlet in the virgin sky,
    and the stars shooting high above —
    though it is the breeding trap.

  • Clashes of Memories

    Like a ray in the mangrove fields,
    departing from one to another;
    there is a time that lives between two memories —
    a chase toward the one, and a chase away from the other.

  • Come to Go

    The dream sleeps with the dawn,
    and when nostalgia grips the soul at the day’s end,
    when the world rejoices in the pain of being someone in disguise,
    I find myself in the past of time.

    When, at the shelter of love, they grow hate —
    mania and garishness are their intake;
    though surrendering to the darkness all around,
    all alone, I ship my way.

    People come, and go away,
    just like another season of a year;
    with the change, they drift away,
    but I look on, silently, at everything, like every day.

    When they shout at the fool of a day,
    I wonder who is the better one of the day;
    the same interests, so many others —
    but all of it, when I come, only to go away…

  • On the Mirror Side

    A long way of time, but another line just like it,
    dubbing the self so gracefully;
    I quest for myself, on the mirror’s side.

    The opened threads of memories,
    delicate enough to tear apart —
    disillusion is another life,
    with the person living on the mirror side.

    I throw myself into him,
    and lose my reflection in the grey;
    it ends with the start of a new quest:
    who is living on the mirror side?

    Holding it back with a few faint clings,
    I sit on yet another cliff of time;
    I am ready to leave behind, to begin —
    but the person on the mirror side?

  • Trembling a Life

    My eyes stop at the passage of time,
    but all they perceive is a pushing, all around;
    everyone is moving somewhere,
    but nobody knows where, or why.

    I try to deny the lie
    that I am just another part of this life —
    but the thoughts answer back again:
    everyone is trying to deal with the same.

    Holding a tail of fire,
    they fail in their tries to cool the pain;
    they try to live their way —
    but this is not the far-off battle of life.

    I glance at the sky,
    and wonder what the driver of the sky wants;
    dust in every eye, all around,
    yet they shout out the lies of their rightness.

    Everything passes by,
    until only this hazy world remains;
    I stop myself at that point,
    and linger, wondering at this life.

  • Mesmerising

    He is lost again, in the world of love,
    sailing a long way — but with the one he loves;
    and every time he looks into her eyes,
    all he sees is an endless ocean of time.

    She stretches her arms around him every time he cries;
    though he pauses to dip into his thoughts,
    nevertheless, he tries —
    like a man mid-sea, with nowhere to go,
    all he needs is her love, every time.

    He sailed his boat to part,
    but fate is something no one can deny;
    it all meets at the point of love, every time.
    Sacred, and beloved — a lover, not just another;
    he longs to be a part of the story —
    the lovers, and the happy ending.

  • Running Ends of Clock

    I am walking plain roads, but leaving my steps behind;
    reasons, or wants — but quarrels and love in all.
    Never a pearl, nor less than any precious memory —
    yet I am lost in a garland of them.
    “O you, the traveler of memories — where do you stop, and shed your nights in the same place?”

    A silent way ahead, but at the cost of what?
    Maybe some lost friends,
    maybe some buds of love,
    or just a few pieces of my own soul,
    lost on the highway of it all.

    I am travelling on plain ground, to leave a few more steps behind,
    hoping to last this journey with the known;
    but the steps of the day outlast the thirst of my every moment —
    joyous in nothing ahead, again, but these steps I have walked down.

  • Chasing Old Dreams

    The long time, and the long way —
    but all I feel has passed in a few short hours;
    all is clear, yet forgetting turns melancholic,
    and still I walk, instead of tempting loneliness.

    Instead of tagging the best moments of life,
    all I hold is a restless struggle with myself;
    it began with the start, toward an end —
    but with the endless journey of arguments,
    day after day passes, like an inheritance.