vignettes of winter

winter has its own vignettes,
pickle jars and pigeons on terrace,

badminton courts, racquets,
pullovers, quilts and jackets,

cartwheels, bakery, yeast,
people having a grand feast,

son et luminere, Dominique,
festival of flicks, bearded critic,

fairs, handloom and crafts,
Samuel Beckett and Jean Paul Sarte,

cakes, toffees, regatta, jazz,
a session of poetry, Octavio Paz,

conclaves, picnics, Jacobean lit,
misty mornings, sparrows on streets,

dews on glasses, on lawns, windshields,
mild nip in the air and lemon peels,

freckled skin, dry and withered leaves,
moisturizers and northern breeze.

literary beings,

if you implore I can talk
not of that kind of love,
where we would become streets and lanes,
crossing each other like a tedious argument,
instead let me recite that love song
where tears of human race belong,
and human happiness too -
in finding Galapagos island;

and you will refer to Lazarus,
as your source of inspiration,
someone who can turn you to Epiphany,
you will talk of that occurance at Bethany,

from there you would begin perhaps
your writing of a poetic fiction, a verse,
you would say that was all you wanted to write,
you would talk of sobs that made watermarks on your pillow,
and I would say, people just come and go,
you would ask if they were like Michelangelo;

then there would be a pause,
you would try to find a cause,
and put it into a way to make
your statement of saying nothing,
your dearest possession, a stream,
that had rolled down the hills
and mountains to the plains,
your lyrical offering, to all who disdain
kindness and human oaths,
you would sing, love in your throat,
for all,making no discrimination,
you would become a boat,
and sail away guided by the flow,
you would just away go,

and I would say
people just come and go,
and you will ask
if they were Michelangelo;

I would talk of Prometheus,
and John Lennon and Beatles,
and would place flowers in bulletholes
as my tribute to friends, and to those
who had learnt to fight till the end,
risking death every moment,

you would ask if I have of late
grown a liking to any poet,

my answer would be an affirmation,

'Eliot, Donne, Browning, Tagore?'

'That could be a lethal combination'

'what's that then? who that could be?'

'no one, as such, between you and me'

from there we would turn to words,
from there we would become humanists,
you would talk of Renaissance, Yeats,
I would of paintings on the streets.

Dubliners, a leitmotif

                    I

It would have been perhaps
that part of a dusk
taken like a leaf out
from that vivid 'Dubliners',

                    II

there were no memoirs Irish
no forms of imperial gossip,
eastern guards they were not there,

                    III

only it seemed as it were
to say something
for some people to hear,
and for someone to let out
all that were kept like doubts,

                    IV

a lot can happen over talks,
wars, and our pieces too
broken and missed up cues,
bread, spinach green,
cold coffee , strawberry cream,

                         V

everything just over talks,
talks peppered with mustard sauce,
and forks resting beside knives,
cutlery exotic, plastic swipes,

                          VI

and then posters hanging on the wall
Stephen there about to weep for a girl,
a little flower claiming possibility
in crystal vase, stored for antiquity,

                          VII

have they all become metropolitan?
smart, clicking heels, stamping boots,
crumpled scrolls of unspoken truth,

                          VIII
Stephen remembered the poem recited
by his uncle in a drunken state,
to his aunt about something patriotic,
love for the land, in a tone charismatic,

                    
                            IX

the wheels moved at slumbering pace
passing posts making misty trace
on window firmly shuttered down,
it was a faraway town,

                             X

the sound of florins on the floor
making jingling noise broke the stupor,
'Dubliners' there on the table kept,
turned into a motif leit.

('Dubliners' is a collection of short stories by James Joyce, )

                           

the family photograph

'say cheese!' the man behind the lens
asked the assembly to flash grins,
and all of them did so in the sense
they tried their respective best,

the grandpa in the middle had no teeth
so he flashed his gums vacant and still,
granny beside him took a breath
and so her face looked a bit grave,

and the eldest son having arthritis
shook his right knee by his hand to ease
the standing posture,his wife beside him
was thinking about the chilli paste left
in the sink, her face had that hurried look,

their son back from college had a book
in his hand which he was not willing to keep
anywhere lest his younger sis would take a leap
for it and would take it away with her to Jersey,

the second eldest son, still a bachelor,a musician
was probably thinking the middle portion
of a song which he downloaded courtesy
the electronic device that he possessed recently,
so his face looked composed and calm,

just beside him his niece returning from Greece,
held an artefact resembling a bow with strings,
she insisted to pose with that for it would bring
a touch of verisimilitude to the snapshot,
personification of a tourist with a spot,

her brother, the youngest in the scene,
was sandwiched between his mother and aunt,
looking pacified after crying over a bottle of jam,
he held a toy of a gun in his palm,

his uncle, the husband of aunt had a band
in his arm expressing solidarity with those
killed and wounded somewhere in a Pacific coast,

the aunt from Hazaribagh on a visit
squeezed her not so slim figure into the frame,
she,  having the taste definitive a bit
held a paperback with a flashy name,

her only daughter with a habit of dozing off
anywhere anytime if kept idle,
almost to a quick nap momentarily dropped
leaning her head on her mother's lap,

grandpa's butler cum masseur cum errand man
was the lone figure sitting on the ground and ,
he held the pipe of the hookah perfunctorily-
not to smoke but to indicate his glee
in keeping everything grandpa owned
as part of his little acclaimed luxury,

at the far right sat the family's pride
the big furry alsatian, after a Persian
monarch named, who tried to hide
the bone he stole from kitchen,
not so long since then,

all these to put flippantly
made the portrait of the family.