Journeying

​

 

by and by             life would pass like this

flying                   like a vagrant kite at night

 

earlier                   i used to tour inside my mind

sometimes            with my mind into others

 

then i thought       my body should also tour

hence i tour          with both of them now

 

when                     my bones would start forsaking me

i would still tour   inside my mind

 

and count              my days of touring

looking at             the curve of my shadow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aperture

​

 

No matter how much you camouflage

 

some icy words from your slithery tongue

would always reveal yourself

publicizing your confessions.

 

More eyes would try to peer

through the aperture you create

 

for the known seems less

and the unknown inside — vast, virgin.

 

The world inside must formulate defense

for your own words would be used

against you    once the aperture widens.

 

Prepare to shut the door.

No ink on words      No muse on lips

just functional amnesia and secret nostalgia.

 

Your shadow would pull out of you

and so would the eyes spading your hush.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Front of a Burning Corpse

​

 

A corpse was burning in the burning ghat by the sea.

A dog was looking at me and whimpering.

 

Amid the flaming sounds and laughter of waves

the sea seemed to be in a gossip with the skies

and the burning corpse looked like an ignited cigar — 

smoked by the rolling drunk waters.

 

I felt like an infant ghost     watching at its birth.

 

The tempting body caging the ghost

was leaving a world     which loves to forget.

 

Breathing seemed as trivial as the cries of the dog

and life was no longer a doubt.

 

The roaring clouds above     were like memories

warning of its presence     to the transforming soul.

 

The flickering sodium lights were trying

to lighten the worth of loving and leaving.

 

All that was spoken and done

floated like vain lies     over untiring waves.

 

I felt     I was someone else

and while battling to become     that someone else

I lost myself     like a trifling dot in the infinity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

When I Hide

​

 

Sometimes I hide

by sitting under a tree

allowing its shade

to possess my shadow.

 

I inhale a dream

of an anonymous cosmos

cuddling a crying infant

in its ever deepening lap.

 

My shadow gets lost in its branches

and my emotions fade out

to the rapture of the wild.

 

 

 

 

                                                                       

 

 

 

​

I Never had a Favorite Face

​

 

I remember her fondly

but not her face

 

Her colloquy

but not her eyes

 

Her laughter

but not her lips

 

Her expiration

but not the curve of her breasts.

 

I never had a favorite face

but a favorite perception.

 

I gather experiences

like flocking gulls on a shore.

 

All of them

are not memorable

 

   they don’t pull through 

   the test of surprises.

 

Slashing and breaking 

like waves on stony beaches

 

few sensations stay afloat

on the depths of time.

 

Others drown

tied to the weight of futility.

 

 

 

 

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The Air Around Me

​

 

While in class two — I thought of class ten

 

Now that I have passed so many years —

I think of childhood.

 

I find a familiar air

 

in every nook and cranny

from alleys to valleys

mountain tents to river boats

 

packed with responses

about places and passing time

 

floating in the shallows of quietude

and depths of native smells.

 

It was there in Tripura, in Ireland…

 

Now    as I was missing the north-east rains 

and the chill of Kinsale, 

the same air came     imbued in petrichor

 

Same whiff      however deep I inhale 

                        however deep I introspect

 

It waits for obscurity     to stop up raptures

and then blows     like a faint whistle

 

to make me discern

the worth of living so far

 

and the worth of hoping

in the lap of natural forces.

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Reaping the Need to Know

​

 

I wonder about the day 

when I first saw rainfall —

 

a lost emotion 

searching for home

 

amid thunders

and frog croons.

 

My solitary muse 

reaping the need to find 

the acute rhapsody 

in these sinking drops

 

sat     as a meditating owl

hooting mantras in the zero hour.

​







 

No One to Wait at the Doorstep

 

 

This door is a forlorn boat of nostalgia.

 

I could see it from the clay path

leading to my maternal village.

The screeching sounds

of the wooden planks     balancing

upon still and deep waters of the past

were voices in the wilderness

warning me against stepping into it.

 

Somewhere on the other side

smells of the gone days

rode on the shoulders of old strolling breezes

from the last windfall of the village mangrove.

Sleepy summer afternoon sounds

talked me out of smelling them further.

  

They were all there — moments ago.

 

The moments have outgrown my hope

and now     as I stand to visit my grandpa

 

I can hear loos

rushing across a pair of flapping doors

with no one to wait at the doorstep.

 

 

Loos:- Hot summer winds blowing in Northern India

​







 

Through the Broken Window

​

 

This morning     as I stood there 

probing my curiosity — I saw

new cars and bikes 

passing by the window.

 

Morning prayers 

from a new kindergarten 

could be heard     and loud debates 

in newly opened shops 

seemed more factual

than befuddled newspapers

 

but, not a single face was known

not a single voice was familiar.

 

Just above my eyebrows

on the wall behind —

a new crack was born.

I could see it shivering in the panes.

 

A weird gloom and sporadic frustration

led me to this window today     

 

where memories have no houses to reside

and time is too restless to settle.

​








 

The Rooftop

​

 

The rooftop of my 1997 house 

is my daily haunt     in the dead of night.

It is a quotidian habit of my solitude 

that embarks     upon cries of foxes

and euphonious breezes

blowing from wheezing trees.

 

Sometimes    bravery of facing life 

seems to be a pretense

and this daily part of my life in the rooftop 

acts as the respite from weariness

and the route to escape.

 

Occasionally     an owl sits in the roadside mahogany

shooting me with a cryptic jargon —

which I prefer     to the day’s cacophony.

 

An unquenched thirst     smiles

at the forewarning clouds.

 

My thoughts have sucked up the veins 

of innovation and reconstruction 

leaving me to my bones and flesh.

 

A foolhardy life is straining to walk free

from the wraps of cocoons interlaced by time.