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...

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

Despite this Fever

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

A few mundane images haunt my conscience;

My subconscious is busy searching for some colored papers, crayons and a few sparklers.

And as my ego silently crawls into that ancient underground temple of acceptance,

I hear the drowsy ballad of a dove perched somewhere beyond my opaque window:

Bland and Blatant and Psychedelic;

Bland and Blatant and Psychedelic and Insignificant;

Bland and Blatant and Psychedelic and Insignificant and Rebellious,

Trying tirelessly to combat Epics and failing steadily.

I peep through a tiny hole in my southern wall

And notice a little Bo sapling making its way through an unnoticed crevice

Somewhere in the midst of an unrelenting empire of bricks and mortar,

Reaching for the sun, defying penury and tales of extinct riverine civilizations.

Millions and Millions of Lights years away from this place,

A decaying stream saturates the surrounding air and this work of flesh, bones and blood

With invisible ,vaporised tears and soliloquy

Despite this fever searing slowly into my soul,

I try to sit up and croon a favorite melody;

Unwillingly, the sunlight and the rain

Slowly make room for some nonsensical scribblings, a few old greeting cards and poetry.....

(Translated by myself, this poem of mine was published recently in a regional quarterly Bengali Magazine called "Bangla". )