O life!

Light traced
On my glass surface
Several stages of life...
My birth...not I do comprehend
Sometimes like flash
By umbilical chord bent
I get floated
In the liquid primeval...
From that float
Remember a blur
I on perambulator...
Taken out to the road...
Still not unburdened from my pre-birth loads...
A little grown up
From that
Toys toys filled my state flat
Toy-train puff puff
In claps I did erupt...
Then another day...
My dad came with a coloring book
Paintbrush and crayons I took
And on white boards
A blue blue lake and house boats
And pine trees straight like towers
Snow flakes me then showered...
A few years after those days did end
Captive in textbooks I followed trends
Of history modern and ancient
Of atomic structures....molecules
Cramming data I drooled...
Then being in a wide wild world
Smoky heavenly tempting fold
'Confessions of an opium eater'
Pressure parental bursting my barometer...
Going wayward...going to dogs...
Cycling through the densest fog
With friends to the den
Pot pourri me taken...
Female forms then came
So close so open...
Losing love...finding one
Kissing sunlight on me one rainy morn...
Real life... job hunt
Tied up...suited...viva voce blunt...
Laying foot on soil hard
Money honey a few yards apart...
Buying spree...buying the soul
Buying designer sarees from boutique and mall...
Buying glitter of her eyes...
Nights potboiler filling my domestic sky...
Aging sweet...aging old
Aging love...aging bold
Age finally in fictional prose
Age in me sainthood chose...
Finally the sweetest return
To the mirth eternal...
Leaving a world for another
Holy breeze taking me the feather...
O life!
What a diverse varied wondrous travel
You provided me without fail...
I am happy...
I am pleased...
You my life...
Me you put into such a good league!

memorabilia of an awful man...

Dear...
Have you ever thought
How civilization groomed
Here by this river...
Now filled with the dark and the gloom...
Have you ever imagined
What that day he meant
When by you set
He talked about birth and death?
Have you heard his whisper-tone
His mumblings out borne
Of his solitary journeys made
Through smokes smouldering his dreams delayed?

Think of that day
By some chance of luck or resultant dismay
One man came to this particular spot
And in his scrapbook he filled with laser-dots...
He sketched his heart out-
Forgetting life is for him too short...
He met you and fell in love unbound
He dipped his fingers into your river profound...
He did poems, paintings and so many idiotic things
With your pains he also his happiness linked...
He kissed you hard...
He touched you soft...
He made your eyelids to ecstasy drop...
He showed you the other side
How lunar attractions create a river tide...
He ran with you to the distant dawn
He took you to the ripe yellow field sown...
He became a child eager to suck
Milk from your nipples...so love stuck...
He...the man...the stars here met
Milky way he took you straight...

The white grassy flowers swaying in the breeze
He asked you to attend, pulling your skirt's crease...
The pond dark and cool, half covered by shade
Of trees in your eyes like a huge painting he made...
Then at night here...here at this place right
He waited with his flimsy dreams for a terrible flight...

When the lights from the other city
Over another bank
Fell and created mirages
On water when they sank...
He...dear...remember...wistfully ever
Wrote on a white fabric...a myth with fever
His hands shook, his skin got burnt
He seeking cool towards you then turned... 

Another day he talked only of his mom
Sitting by her in seclusion, by her cloudy tomb...
He talked and talked as if he has gone
Out of his wits...he then with you got alone...
He talked then of life being a journey
One way traffic...with road blocks funny...
He talked a whole day...dawn to dusk
Showing his all...his treasures of heart unmasked...
He kept his flow for another few months
You also joined him...in rains with his talks you danced...

Then another year of his stay
He remained joyous, buoyant and gay...
His sorrows perhaps that year vanished
He just flew like joys unleashed...
He flew like a seagull over the green sea
His mind flooding over...only with unprecedented glee...
You laughed and laughed
As if laughs were embedded
Into you, he all jokes by a transmission deeded...
You laughed at every sight
You laughed away dreadful nights
You just took life so easy
You by his lighter heart went fully dizzy...

Dear...
All these memorabilia
Of that awful man
I just before you present
Loosely woven though
For you to stop for a second
Or two...
And roll over again to the time bound works
Your chores several...your predetermined marks...

I have told you...

I have told you
I can't even die
If you don't upon me lie...
I have told you
I am not killed yet
For you haven't me met...
I have told you...
Death becomes me
When through the curtain transparent
Me you piercingly see...

searching for excuses dumb and lame...

Help me... can't you?
To get rid of your view?
I can't your beauty tolerate
You are so overwhelming
That I perennially commit mistakes...

Help me ...can't you dear?
To get rid of you loud and clear?
Why this craving? why this madness?
Why I lose it all in your curly tresses?

Can't you me sober up a bit?
Can't you show me the door to the street?
Why you allow me such
To get flooded in the driest March?

Perhaps in me you also get drenched
Perhaps me also broke your fence...
Perhaps you're also facing predicament same
Searching for excuses so dumb and lame...

O what a pitiable me walk...on roads outlined by your red chalk...

Haven't seen you personally close
But you're like my daily dose
Of  poems written and unwritten prose...

Haven't been there to your ground
But everywhere you I so far found
You come to me dressed in red
You come to me sans clothes naked...

You me keep in a flow
You my Heaven's door every morn show...
You at night also come
With your feminine forbidden charm...

You dry me me like a withered twig
You show me also the waves tumultuous big...

With so much of you within me
I can't beyond you anything see
You have made me a man so blindfold
That by you my all dreams get mold...

O what a pitiable me walk
On roads outlined by your red chalk...

 

the return of the vagrant...

His entry was announced
By gunshot-sounds
Midday tavern rattled and bullets bounced...
On silver belt buckles...

She at the counter then
Was trying to few words pen
To her ailing father...in town
But the dusty outside maze
Stopped her writeup and she gazed
At the weakly bolted door
And anticipatory dread in her soared...

After a few minutes...
The gun shots ceased
As if the battle finished...
And with a thud loud
A man in gray beard and eyes with doubts
In tattered jeans and unshaven face
Bootlegged an entry made...

He walked in as if hurt
She could see drops of blood
Reddening slow his shirt pocket left
As if redness he there bred...

He poured a swig straight through his throat
From his pocket red towards his body did float...

The dying man then brought out
From somewhere of the dusty coat
A girdle unharmed...made of rubber stout
And handing her the thing
Weakly for the last time he to her beamed...

She opened the girdle with her nervous fingers
Into it she found how golden coins lingered
Like a parting gift from a friend
'For your father's treatment'...
The man said and fainted...

She then looked closely at the man
With closed eyes didn't he resemble
A long lost horrible man
Who left her in the lonely tavern?
Who went from her away
Seeking fortunes in a vagrant way?

when you came as white pure...

When with Your white poster color
I woke this morn
And opening the glasses dark of sleepy window found
How You with freshly lit joy born...
I was with joy filled...
Your morn...white...wet...my earth
tilled...
And before I could embark
Choppy waters full of hungry sharks...
How You came to me fresh
You my whitest Goddess...

And I ran to You fast
You blooming open vast
Scenes from paintings of the century last...
I looked at You enthralled
Watching how dreams in shapes of watery drops You stalled
Upon Your leaves like in amber fixed
You me with Your drops of joy mixed...

Now on if I You seek
Every morn as soon as the sun peeps
Tell me...
Will You be there forever by my window?
Will You there be with Your whitest dream pure?

A quaint theme

On such a cloudy day
Filled with scent of rain
And red yellow violet blossoms on display
Feel like flying far away...

To a quaint secluded theme
Leafy balmy olive green...
To a country road with Denver blues
Mud n dust filling socks and shoes....
To a place of guitar with soft hum
As my fingers would hold her silent plectrum...
To a place where joys from rainbow would sing
Where my mystic maid would for me a ballad bring...

a paradigm of a mind

At the sight of the pond with green top
I there by its bank stopped
Reminded of my school truant days
How leaves and red blossoms stray
Fell slow carried by the wind
On me how the beauteous sight gleamed...

Now the tree nowhere found
Leaves and red blossoms no longer me bound...
But looking at the water still
Sudden vision of the tree there sealed
With its red red blossoms afloat
On the water like strange little varied boats...

Methought then reflections how remain
Of images...ideas...and how they fleetingly train
Every moment of my fluid life
How the reflector mind me drive...
Thus the virtual infringes upon
Real it changes to thoughts often...

Leaving forever but with a prize...

Before getting into the train
She cast a last look at the lane
From behind the ticket counter which went
After three specified turns finally bent
And stopped short in front of a gate
A single story house now perhaps with a sign 'to let'...
That house had been her home
Three years and accumulated months some...
That house had been a happy home
Where she spent her lovely life so wholesome...
Now leaving all for another life
She closeted into her all tears and strife...
She took a deep breathe in...a long heave...
She cast a last look of the town before she would leave...
The tree lined avenue had landmarks...
Of spending a span of a whole monsoon dark...
On the terrace...being forever wet
Of being stung painless by poison of love as fate...
She stood at the gate of the compartment
Her mind diffused in time that drained...
All her resource...her being...her self...
The train moved but she only into the deep of nostalgia delved...
The shrill whistle her mind shook
She nodded in disbelief about the journey that she unknowingly took...
The face of her man came poignant
She broke into a flood of tears and losing breath how did she pant...
The train took up speed as if it wanted to move with her fast away...
The train must have felt how she by memories swayed...
Collapsing on the seat she her strained eyes shut
Still couldn't accept how her man for someone else from her did part...
Just then she felt a sudden kick silly
Within... her slightly bulgy belly...
She woke wide open awake
And with her palm she did a survey take...
Wasn't she shocked and fully surprised?
Hadn't she from her man got a fabulous prize?
Tears again rolled down her cheeks...
The small rivulet this time with a sense of fulfillment her pricked...

That would surely be a drastic note Coming out from my choked up throat...

Haven't written any letter
To you...but kept
Several alphabets
Here and there...
On the sofa, divan, chair...
Kept them scattered
As if they didn't matter...

Haven't composed a singular song
For you...but tunes did throng
At my disc player's lens
On my barbed wire fence...
Kept them there nonchalant
As if no meaning they to me nowadays send...

But when you would come with your meandering gait
My alphabets scattered would with the stray tunes mate
Then they would together be a song
Stretching the rubbery time infinite long...

Then perhaps all meanings would descend
Like silver flakes from the moon crescent
Then would once the hoofs of horse me plough
My insurmountable highs would meet with sharp troughs...

That would surely be a drastic note
Coming out from my choked up throat...

under the apprenticeship of the night sky....when once I did lie...

Under the apprenticeship of the black night sky...
On the soft unseen grass once I did philosophically lie...
And looked up to see
How unraveling mystery
Brought by the breezy state
Me to a poem with heroic couplet...

The vehicles which by chance plied
On the field's other...too civilized side...
Sometimes sent shooting beams
Upon my chastised dreams...

Just then got the smell
Of your hair-oil, breezily mailed
To my half dreamy half awake trance
Your fingers on my chest danced...

The grassy bed became luxurious
The night sky lent a soft focus
On me... then surely in a strange reverie
Robbing away all my philosophy...

The vast expanse of the open field
Turned then into a bed room sealed...
And you and I copulate
Giving birth to a rhyme...
Another heroic couplet...

Thus with you I had a flight
From one birth to another-
Of poems, dreams, and fancy all tied...
Under the apprenticeship of the night sky
On the soft grassy bed when I by chance lied...

Black and white drops...

Last evening black and white
Photographically bright
Saw one street urchin
Running in the rain
Like a joyous sprite unfolding
On the wet hanging film...

Last evening my city took
The splendid black and white look
Water...lights...moving cars
All became soluble parts
Of the celluloid motion flashed
On my eyes as the rain lashed...

Last evening brought the old
Pictorial stories me behold...
Last evening was all copper
Images liquid filled my dropper...
Images in the name of God...
Images of standing architecture...

Images of slippery lane
Images of 'bar is open'...
And of shadows on fall
Of buildings ancient toll...

Black and white all in all
Came to me like a sudden call...

Silent retreat...

Saw you putting things together
Into your bag of brown leather...
Old books of the poet...
Cassettes...cds...full of blood and sweat...
Saw you taking a few notes
Snippets of days with fitting anecdotes...
Saw you taking last sip
From the glass a potion red and deep...

With things tidied up
You closed the zipper's gap...
And then got ready
For the road you got steady...

Only saw by the back of your palm
You for once blocked your tears that did come...
You blocked nothing else
Only once your words failed
To break the silence vociferous
Words silent left layers
Of more silence...like a retreat
Down the empty depeopled street...
Perhaps an old song then played
Related to an alien star that met
Another star...a vagrant kind
Days which to you me did bind...

Inescapable...

Wish to let you go
How far...that I don't know...
How far can you escape
From the recordings on memory tape?
How many travels can you really take
To erase all graphical art...to me unmake?
How can live I disjoined
From those names for me you coined?
Or those writings secretly saved
On notepad of your mind being once brave?
Or those walks down the wet street
One evening when the moon you lit...
How far can I go from those clips
Of pictures that from heart to my mind slip...
Can you me let go then?
Like a few dotted lines...
An ever returning refrain?
Can you your poems throw away
Like a pinkish start of another day?
Can you really abort
Cutting endless talks severed short?
Can you wrap all tinsel thoughts
And put them locked into a tiny iron box?
And then let it lost
Forever sunk into the dark most...
Of the silvery stream...
From where it all started...
From which dreams erupted...

A handkerchief white...

'Happy journey friend!'
He said before he left the train...
At a station blank...
Only on the wooden plank
Within the train where she slept
He a handkerchief left...
A hanky simple and white
With a fragrance light...
Several stations after the event
When her eyes she opened
She found the hanky male
By her lying like a tale...
Then she realized
Whatever her teased
In her dream with ease
Was damn good real and true!
But by then
The stupid foolish train
Had jumped quite a few stations
In its monstrous motion...
Only the dream stayed late
With her lonely fate
And she carried the hanky white
Close to her bosom...a pain...slight...

A silvery revelation

It was for the probing breeze
Like a sudden revelation your silver streaks...
Came to me uncorked...
And I was left with shocks...
For your countenance...
Had a youthful lustre dense...
For your attitude...
Had all the remnants of a gayful mood...

But those white streaks...
Your experience leaked...
Those thin silver lines...
Carried a contrary sign...
A sign never thought would be...
In you for me to see...

Loved really that sweet contrast
Of wisdom getting a vivacious touch...
It lent you a rarity...
Of naivete...kissing urbanity...

now please sit...

Now please sit...
Walked for long as you
On the lonely dusty street...
Now please sit ...
For a while...
Under this tree...
With leaves rustling merry
And the soft rippling sounds of evening as the boatman ferry...
Now please sit...

(see another rendition of the same in bengali at http://www.theboatsong.blogspot.in/p/mother-tongue.html)

why love me such...so late?

If you thought you would come
To me like such a wondrous balm...
If you thought you would spoil
Me in every possible sense, being a counterfoil...
If you really thought you would thus me touch
Sending deep shivers through pores of my skin such...
If you're so predestined to me unwrap
With your fingers if you would my softness tap...

Why? why you came so late?
Don't you know 
Its the time to hang heavy padlocks
On my rusty gate?
Can't you feel I'm all spent?
Can't you make out I got nothing to you lend?
Can't you see I'm so tired?
Can't you see my fate is mired
With all sorts of struggles and ox like pains?
Can't you see those heavy chains?
How they bind me to my slavery tight...
How every day I get eroded right...

Why then you come to me now?
When from life I am taking a bow...
When I am slowly but surely on the wane
Why love me such...ain't it all vain?

thought so much of you...

Thought so much of you
That in my thoughts I lost real you...
Got a vision instead...
A strong vision unreal...
A dream funereally real...

Thought so much of you
That gradually...
You lost for me the real shape...
Only now in my imagination see your face...