Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A Late Retreat


Slimy Darkness gnaws at the hearts of men
The Women burn with a strange fever
A blistered moon hangs upon the city of dead poets


There were Children, once like gods
Now they walk on all fours
Having mastered the secrets of Cannibalistic Rituals


The Weather Stations Speak
Like Greek Oracles
Only, they speak what we have always known


The heretics are no more slaughtered here
Our world has room for everybody
So, now we send them to the circus


In exchange for sordid blindness
We received a million magical eyes
That were to become our everlasting companions


Dumb mouths and Snake skins shout and groan
Walking the cartoon streets
Pleading to be baptized

But Somewhere in a dream world
The Goliath Towers collapse to dust
And For the first time in many Aeons
The Priests once again don't know everything
And the balance sheets have become doves
waltzing in the gypsy winds

Whispering a subtle prayer
Not directed to anyone in particular
I turn off the computer and go to sleep
The pale green led light flickers for a moment
And then becomes a host of fireflies
In the tragicomic suburbs of my head


Looking out through the rusted bars of my wonderland
That has long lost its salt
I see a black sky punctuated by soft grey clouds
And Little Adults bunny hopping across the garden
I put on a slicker and muck-boots
And run through the gloomy corridors like a possessed druid


And the hemiparasites are finally learning to wail
And Naked Sultans are snapping their fingers and slapping their cheeks
Clapping like toy monkeys, tapping their feet
The Skinny physicians clenched their fists and howled curses
When they saw lepers turn into silky angels overnight


And suddenly after a long time I grow too weary of sleeping...

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Evening




Banshee Sirens fade into oblivion
Genies emerge from Conch shells
You suddenly recall your countless past lives
And a few prisoners escape the reformatory…..
A tear, two or three misdirected prayers, four trembling sighs


Evening is where the camouflage suddenly begins to wane
Evening is where the masks begin to crack
Evening is where alien songs emerge from tea kettles
Evening is where I once gave my favourite jacket to a shivering stranger
Evening is where I heard your name….


The Stars come out of their siesta
Slowly and suspiciously, tenderly and progressively
Like ghosts
Distant thus consecrated
Adroit and yet kind lovers
Stars never force themselves upon you….
Nor does evening….

Evening is where sorcery turns practical
The gaunt and sinewy days all become women
Women who have waited for aeons
For sons, soldiers, fathers
For a placid touch or a kiss on the forehead
Perhaps for a genuine ear
For a sturdy and silent embrace
For ringing stillness….


Lie down, flat on your back….
Look at the sky….
What do you see?
Blue, deep deep blue,
Maybe a bit purple too
Like an Ocean waiting….
Distant islands here and there…
Come hold my hand

Let’s take the plunge together….




(dedicated to Sayantani. Thanks San)

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Questions……





Like pitch black scarecrows on fields of green absurdity

One or Two or Three

Here and There

Questions stand…..

Apparently Innocuous, flaccid but truly more potent

Than you and me

Than all of us combined

Than life or death or life and death combined…



Questions will always find their way….

Questions will always demolish frontiers

Sometimes in the guise of a half eaten apple

Sometimes in the form of a rusty old wrecked car

On a corner of a hectic avenue

Questions will shock you



As you walk on paths

Strewn with deceased foliage and plastic bags

Illuminated with measured neon lights

Questions will follow you like fluorescent companions

Questions will never leave you alone



Whether in the air-conditioned hours detained in pigeon coops

Or in disdainful evenings and tea breaks

When you close your eyes and look at the mirror

Only to learn that no image is perfect

Questions will thrive everywhere



Swarms of Questions will cover you

Like Flies

Like Fantasies



As you navigate from Question to Question

You Befriend Questions

You Fight with Questions

You Sleep with Questions

And then….

Questions are born from Questions…..



The Answers have always been there….

It is the Questions that we really seek


(Dedicated to My sisters Goutomi and Sneha, to my friends Biplab, Ayan and Joejo and to my student Aninditaa)

Monday, May 2, 2011

The Rain Came


She was the ground....

Where I stood

Gazing at a catatonic sky

She was also the ground that kept me pinned

And neutral


She hijacked the day

And brought it to the diseased room

My room


She smelled like flavored cobwebs

On the books and the Portraits

Dancing to the rhythm of a prehistoric ceiling fan


Why does flavor always remind me of pink?

Fat pink spiders

And this pink is not the pink of shapely, well toned, jelly filled bubble gums

This pink reminds me of bells and Ferris wheels as well



He came with that pink

An emaciated man wearing a red checkered shirt

He came with a blessing

I was perhaps five or six

And I had squashed a monstrous green chilly between my molars!


This pink

The pink of the spiders

Pink spiders with soft pink fur

Took me to cartons full of old books with no pictures

Sacred pink

Like Snow

I have never seen real snow

Maybe I will never


That means maybe

When we switch fancy dresses

What use would it be?


The rain came at 4'o clock

Such an odd time to come and where?

To my room when she had hidden the day

No, days

She's been doing this for quite sometime

She burst laughing.....


All the pink

Simply Vanished

The rain washed the pink to her T shirt

And I went looking for coffee mugs


Wednesday, March 31, 2010

31st March, 2010


A Sun full of vengeance,
A lung full of gunpowder,
...Summer's foreplay
Now jeers at this forlorn heart...
That does but vainly beat its course...

Yet
I have had visions..
Emeralds and Sapphire
That now but smart
Under the tyrant of this afternoon sky..

Can Crows be Parents?
Parents that so fondly suffer
Weeks of examinations
That graduate their children to parenthood and rebuke...

I am yet to know..

O look!
Now the unvaccined stray..
Whose throat blazes
Like a building on fire,
Confronts the lonely vendor
Who goes selling eggs
From lane to lane....

And yet I live this unknown term
Only because of my wisdom from these meagre years...
Makes it known
That Mother
And evening...
Come at the end of the day...

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The Guardian


Fight the moonless night

Walk the skin of the city

Lick the innocence of the air

With my forked tongue....

But when lizards come rushing

Into the realms of my aura...

I run and hide ...

Like a brave man...

I crouch

I smell the armpits of time...

That reek of ancient sins and caricature

And I howl curses at myself

And at my god

Curses of immortality and cosmos

I smell the armpits of time..

And

Pause

For

A

while

And

Look up

And

I pray for Rain

Someone had asked me once,

What are you good at?

I know the answer now...

I am good at prayers …..

And deciphering signs

That speak of the wrath of gods

And the butterflies of Hell...

What am I good at?... What am I? Something about me?

Come

Seek...

And you shall find....

Come and I'll wrap you in my tentacles

That'll keep you warm...

You can bite into my tentacles

And suck out jelly as much you want...

Come

Let me be your exoskeleton

Because once upon a green time,

I had been the deep eyed guardian of light

But the honey in my blood

Is nothing but Jelly now...

Colorless, tasteless

And yet It'll keep you going for a while...

So when lizards and sewer rats come rushing into your galaxy...

Remember the fallen angel....

Whose only dream is to be a guardian deity

Again.....

Or when shameless floods of decay try to force their way

Through the sacred gates of your heart....

Whisper my name

And I'll roam the diameters of your dream

…..I’ll keep you warm and dreaming

For you see…

I am good at prayers

I am good at war

I am good at surviving

And I’m good at reading signs