when two candles meet...

How that could have been?
If you to me the light of cool candle bring?
If you would drip drop by drop
On me a speck of luminance soft?

 How that could have been?
If you like a light stream
Fall on me straight on my heart
Your spotlight just where my dreams fall apart?

How that could have been?
If you on me like a passageway lean
And show me the ways to the inner light
Where another candle glows by day and night?

How that could have been?
If you throw away your earthly screen?
And come to me all bare...sans dress
To collapse my all in your sweetest embrace?

Perhaps then we both would melt
Perhaps wax on the floor could then be felt
Like a big pool of semi solid spread
Like an unison by temperature bred...

a fanciful season fills me and my city...when you wait for me...

The sky overcast
By clouds with scent of rain
Tells me plain
You're there for me
Waiting at the bus-stop...
You would be surely in white...
Your hair wet and eyes bright
Surely wait for me to descend
Near you where my road always bends...

Can easily perceive
How the rain-soaked breeze
Play about you as you there stand
A relentless picture of  love-in-wait by the news-stand...

The trams must have moved by you
Minibuses must have honked...
From the billboards with a filmy view
The rising starlets must have cast a look blank...

The leaves must be running round
Circling you in a frantic move around...
The tea stall owner by the stop
Must have put on stove a silver pot...

This sky overcast...
This spring breathing her poetry last...
This clumsy chaos of weather dark...
This wait of you for me embarked,
On my city scape, by a snapshot earmarked-
Must be happening for a reason...
Of filling my city with a fanciful season...

come! my joy! let's walk through...

Look at last I have come to stand
On your native land...
Walking a long winding road
Growing blisters by breaking clods
Of hardened earth....full of hurts
Moved through all the darts
Thrown at me with precise choice...
Look how have traversed distance to hear your voice!

Now don't be so tight-lipped
Don't look at me like a vacant street...
Don't please down your eyes...
Though I know blocks of ice
Are there within you stagnant like tears frozen cold
I know your pains coagulated to blackish blemish untold...

Look... me too also bled
Gone through as well like you the hellish dread...
Look...I also got scratched and bruised
Venomous clouds also fell broken on me from sky loose...

Now that me traveled wide and far
And you also stayed for me like that dazzling fixed Pole Star...
Come'n! let's just take a conjoined leap
Let's join hands before we embrace the Sleep...

Now that the night sky is bereft of frowns and acid rains
Now that time has provided us finally to despise pains...
Come! my joy! let's walk through
The last quarter of our life together glued;

the sight of flowers spread brings an illusory state

The sight of flowers yellow and red
On the scorched summer afternoon street spread
Like loosely sewn carpet soft
Takes me back several years cropped
Of my long strip of memories of summer holidays
My leisurely bicycle rides...my post exam days...
My days of little secrets of savoring mango pickles
All alone at the terrace, so greedy and guilty struck...
My days of playing football, jostling with little buddies covered with slushy muck...
My days of coming sleepy tired home...
With moon all over me like a roundish white drone...
My summer nights under the sky, with blowing breeze
Me bitten red- painfully stung by bees...
My countless waits at the window to see
A girl returning home in white skirt and green tee...
My afternoon sweats falling on papers, plastic and stick of glue
Trying to make a foolish aeroplane that never flew...
My Cliff Richard with boyish charms singing loud
Summer holidays with a blue sky without doubts...
Me accompanying my mother in the evening
To the market with a silent hope of getting
A simple toy with two wheels that could run
Across imaginary streets and under hot bulgy sun...
My father coming home with a book of a superhero
Who could pick up speed of immeasurable dimensions spending time zero...
My days of being seriously inclined
To run a race with friends on the street with trees lined...
My days of falling prey to someone's call
My days turning to nights of being dumped by a lively next door doll...

The sight of flowers spread
Of colors yellow and red
Brings me back to an illusory state
A state of being innocent, naive, and a bit too perfect...

Subho nababarsho dear!

Wish to see you today dressed
In a red bordered white saree
And hair braided knee-length...
Sandal wood smell from you
Coming to me through
The busy day's all hurly burly
I am still engrossed with your hair curly...

I am still with your saree-end's knot
In which you've kept my lot...
Tied and hanging in the air...
With you moving fair...
Across your living... peopled so much
Coming to you to fashion another new year...

Know you're too busy today
Serving your guests with your smiles
And sweets on silver tray...
Only wish you would find a spot
Secluded somewhere to plant a plot
Of kissing me, caressing me fine...
This new year when on you like a glory shine...

Subho nababarsho dear!

(Subho nababarsho...in bengali, means Happy New Year...today, is the first day, i.e; poila baisakh of bengali new year 1419) 

leaving in me dreams of a painter...

Felt so many times to you leave a touch
But you shrunk shy my touch me not such
That I restrained...from drawing calligraphic write
On you...I didn't create pencil shades of dark and light...

I didn't embellish you grand
For felt you couldn't that withstand
I didn't pour my all engrossed self
For felt that was too deep for you to delve...

I didn't dip my paintbrush into pots
Colors stayed within me like solidified dots...
I shied away... for painting you would mean
Committing that unpardonable historic sin...

But then you are sometimes so condescending
Coming to me with rules bending
To accommodate me with such an impulse
Rubbishing my conflicts as cowardly acts false...

That I again feel to leave you with a touch
But  you shrinking again such...
That my desire remains forever unfulfilled
That slowly my coloring thrust I do kill...

This loopy loop, I think, would keep me awake
Several centuries... of being  unpoetically on check
Yet you would cause me with newer wish
You leave in me dreams of being a painter without leash...

when the wind played hard on me...

When the wind played
With your hair soft
Sitting by the window
With the setting day's glow...
I cast a look on sly
And saw how sometimes secrets fly
By the air so smooth and gay
At the end of a scorching day...
Riding by me, by you...
Riding with us like a window view...

The vehicles then surely did hoot
But then our world was on the mute
For we heard nothing else
Only images cast passing tales
Tales of passion unexpressed
Tales of poison leaving no trace...
Tales of adventure forbidden...
Tales of memories bursting sudden...
Within me...perhaps within you the same...

When the wind played so hard
Sitting several seas from you apart
I could feel the return of sense
Watercolors on my eyes dense...
Paints of days sketched with all expertise
Paints of memories come without cease...
Paints of being on a same ride
Paints taking nostalgic flight...

once when you became both...the lighthouse and the stormy sea...

Once when the sky got dark
You just took me out ...to witness the spark
How flew from one end to another like a flash
On you then saw a titanic clash...
Of two real unreal you
How me towards you drew...

You laughed clumsily
On your slim waist I did then see
How a simple silver chain of keys
Danced in the flowing breeze...

Your uncoiled hair afloat
In the wind toppled my boat
I swam and swam blind
Not knowing how the shore to find
I was just left disarrayed complete
Off the earth dangled my feet....

O how you then became a guide
Helping me to swim across the tides
Real huge sweeping across me
O how you also became the stormy sea...

You the lighthouse...
You the sea...
O how you played with me..
Constantly...
Till the evening died to sleep
Till you with exhaustion tripped...

your call came but...with silence...

Looked at the screen aglow
Your name it distinctly did show...
But couldn't get that touch of your voice
Which (I remember, by God!) earlier brought joys
Of being belonged, of being caught
By your songs so much terribly wrought...

This time only heard some heavy blows of wind
As if a stormy weather somewhere cleaned
All the debris of blocks of life tumbled down
Instead of your songs got hissing sounds
Of stray leaves blowing at super-cyclonic speed
Telling me strongly how words also silence breed...
Sometimes when words stop for nothing plausible
Sometimes when the telephonic conversations die so young but feeble...

Oh! wanted to get that tiniest tinge
Of passions overflowing your bowl's rounded fringe...
But...only heard how storms wreck trees up
Conversation died in silence trapped...
Heard a lot of car horns blare
Heard how heavy big structures, storms did tear...

Oh! how I wanted desperately
Happy visions of a full bloomed tree...
In you, through your mellifluous voice
Coming to me with a dreamy poise...
But...
Heard only panicky horns loud
Ripping apart my hopes devout...

reaching...my place...leaving mortal dress...

Steps of tea plantation green
Trees with branches professionally trimmed
Got temporarily erased by the mist and fog
By the road...at the fringe...slept under haze a lazy dog...

Saw with bundles balanced on her head a lass
Climbed the steepness with ease as I by her did pass
She waved to me dimple cheeked
The misty air dense my face did lick...

The road wound uphill as if a spiral
Catching me with feverish adventure viral...
I watched how the clouds came to fall
On my head like an old gray shawl...

After few turns round the hill
Reaching a flat top, did I feel
Air hung heavy with smell of incense sticks
A strange aroma my conscience pricked...

Small thin flag posts there stood
Like slender saints on the brood
They greeted me with lovely smiles
Welcoming me for crossing several miles...

Across the hills,rivers and vale
Across the horizontal plane without fail...
Across several tempting spots
When I was there unfailingly brought...

The misty air, the downy incense smell
Enveloped me from all sides to tell
I had finally reached my place
Leaving behind my mortal dress...

Wonder sometimes....losing the count...

Wonder sometimes losing the count
Of days, months , years, of not seeing you paramount
Coming to me, with a big round dot
On your forehead glistening like a beauteous spot...

You coming to me watery wet
As a post rain session all set
To wake me up from my slumber right
Like a white flower blooming conspicuous for the night!

I have lost the memory of your physical taunts
You dipping me breathless into your deepest pond...
With the reflection of the white circular thing
Right on you guiding me to swim...
Passing by the hyacinth afloat like bouquets
Your watery invigorating sense leaving me tokens
Of being so much into you like a dream
In your pool so cool, me on swim...

Wonder sometimes are you still the same?
Do flowers bloom on your locks and mane?
Does the moon still shine on your watery pool?
Do you still carry bouquets on your water cool?
Does someone like me, in your pool,crave for a swim?
Does on your forehead glow a big round dot not dimmed?

when rains drew patterns on your face glassy...

When the rains patterns sketched
On the glass of your morbid face...
Seated uncharacteristically calm
At the table like a dry flower losing charms...
 I tiptoed towards you pulled
Like a man in a circus ring fooled...

Thought not to break your trance
When rainy drops by the glass panel danced...
Only wanted to sit up you in front
Gathering your eyes smitten by empty vaunt
Thought not to unravel your state
Wanted only to be scissored by bewildered fate...

The Fate of being with your glassy patterns
The fate of discovering melancholia, not by mere chance...
But by a choice made the moment the pulls on me worked...
By my tiptoeing silence towards you as distinctly chalked... 
Perhaps like a preordained unchallenged mighty prophecy
Perhaps like being doomed to be sunk finally in your face glassy...

you the artist...me the clay...

Your turntable and the mound of wet clay
Move round and round in my dreams all day...

Your fingers with layers of trust
Fall on me softly just
The way you shape and mold
Wet clay by your moving fingers told
Stories of different shapes and forms
Stories carrying conical or cylindrical turns...

Your fingers thus on me move
And how they clearly prove
Your overwhelming creative sense
On me leaving imprints dense...
Imprints of tiny cobwebs of your skin
On me applied like a soothing UV 40 protect screen...

Your fingers make me a mound of clay
I find them on me always at play...
Making, unmaking, shaping me fine
Drawing on me so many kindred lines...

finding a stormy sea...in my city streets...

Two inches perhaps wide
From you then ran my unseen tide...
Ran unseen, always forbidden
From you by the shadows of scrapers hidden...

I perhaps then looked at the flowing day
How on the streets my redness laid...
I looked  perhaps at passage of love
And thought how it always unpredictably curved...

Perhaps then felt like an explorer
Instigated by the wanderlust, perhaps me dared...
To get into a stormy sea...with clouds looming large...
Me then guided only by a hitherto unforeseen upsurge...
Ran to the wooden deck...to the wheels to steer
To run my ship's course to the shore still unclear...

O how then the streets turned into a sea...
O how the ride turned turtle only me...
O how the car then became a ship...
O how within me an explorer then did I keep...

the rain has stopped but left images...

The rain has stopped a few minutes back
And on the tram tracks
Across the city and its lanes
It has left its watery stains...

Water everywhere...
Water on the leaves...
Water on hands bare...
Watery pots and pans...
On water how your reflections dance...

The rain has stopped sure my love...
But it has left so many images here and there
Images of streets fresh without dust...
Images of iron rails gathering rust...
Images of crows looking helplessly cowed...
Of trees like defeated soldiers by the racecourse, bowed...
Of buses and taxis failing to start perhaps chilled
Of you sitting on the last bench of an empty class room, with poems filled...
Of empty corridors...with marks of shoes all over wet
Of the hanging sense of big real water droplets...
Of umbrellas spread somewhere to get dry
Of hails like tender joys and wonder falling from the sky...

The rain has stopped...
But left marks here and there...

 

treading the same...only the gale changed everything...

Sometimes some roads appear known
A too known thing
Which fail to bring newer hopes
Though the familiar designs
Carrying familiar signs
Help me to reach my destiny
Without worries any...
But there's nothing for me to get the touch of excite
Out of known, familiar sights...

But...
When the western sky is red...
And a storm is going to shed
All my leaves on the floor...
I stand there at the opening of the road
With all my physical, impetuous load...

I stand for some time before I tread
Towards that same known road that me led...
To known territory of exfoliation
Leaving my leaves one by one while in motion...
They fall off in ones and twos
They fall off on my Monday blues...
As if they are to be felled-
When a strong gale
From the Arabian sea
Reach me with full force to tell
That my exfoliation would happen again
And it is very much part of the life's eternal chain...
Of death and rebirth
Of decay and renewal of mirth...

So I walk on
The road all known
Only the gale changed the set
Through the storm a new life me get...
For my leaves fallen just fly
By the wings of the gale losing my ties...
For the dust and smoke burst loose
Fill the known road with new hues!

your tears kill me...invisibly...

Keep those drops of glass
Within your eyes dear...
For when you let them fall such
My blue sky get smeared-
By thickest black bleakest smoke
And my throbbing sense of that reddened pump gets choked...

Feel like I am losing all
From light undertaken a free fall
To the fiery molten burning feel
As if by your tears you me kill...

O what a terrible way is it to die
By glass balls from your eyes...
O what a strange way to be dead
Killed by the tears you shed...

Will it be really a happy sight?
Killing me with no apparent marks of fight?
Will it be a just cause
To put my heart to an eternal pause?

So...don't cry dear...
For your fall of glassy tears
Kills me invisibly...

my love's lost anthem...

Your lines written and erased
So many times on my white page
Left little scope for another write-up
You simply left me as an unused draft...

 Your cubes, your squares
Geometrically left me unawares...
Your lines vertically erect
Left indelible printing mistake
On me...so much strong
No proof reader could right that wrong!

Your unmindful little scratches
Left unmistakable dark patches...
Patches like thick ink-blots...
A smudged plan all botched...

But...
When I look at those marks
Even if they with doom lurk...
I somehow find in them
My love's lost anthem...

The more I look at them
Several  flowers of the morn unashamed
Bloom in front of my eyes blurred
O how I find poetry unmarred
Rising up from the ash
Like a Phoenix...in a lightning flash...

I then paint the patches with all my colors of heart
Dust off  with love all the grime of filth and dirt
And renovate the pages with vigor new
Fill them with flavors of  my sweetest honeydew...

a flashback narrative...

As you stand there with hair flowing black
And eyes lit up by the light from the fisherman's shack
In you find her waiting like a picture obsolete
A picture sold for a few bucks on my city's street
Across that white building with architectural moments
Of supreme delicacy, my mind you there send...

Why you so much resemble-
My first experience of female ensemble?
My first kiss, first night-long weep?
My first day dream, my first night without sleep?
My first feel of someone's covered glassware?
My first going beyond the outer layer
Of affection, respect, longing, curiosity...
Of affected pride, lost false vanity?

O my love! how you return
In many forms but to the same turn...
To the same rise and fall of  breath...
To the same sense of having faith-
On your soft fingers with which mine you hold
On your tales of twists and turns by your flickering eyes told...

O how to me you keep coming back
With your eyes so deep and hair so black...
O how I again at the river-ghat you find
Tracking the signals of my occupied mind...
Standing there, for ages, on the steps of rock
Leading to the water which Time always mock...

Saturday night squall...

This squall...this sense of rain
After the dry hot and humid chain
Of restlessness like an upsurge
Sung for me a Saturday night dirge...
A Saturday night dirge...what a contrast
When I should with my glass
While the time away till the drops of wine last...

You came like a squall
Hitting against my glassy intoxicated wall...
And reminded me of our Nor'westerly leads...
In you when once I dropped my seeds...
Of dreams ,of hopes, of generation wide
Under the rains when our naked selves lied...

This squall...now that it carries away all
Dry leaves of last autumn caught midway in the fall...
This smoky dusty impossible vision
Hindering the progress of all automation...
Blinking lights, disarrayed streets...
Tenderly chaos how with memories meet...
Memories of you and me on the open terrace
Caught by the hints of outwardly mess...
O how every bit of us come with your Saturday night squall
Memories of your cherries pressed on my glassy wall...