Mosaic - On the Helm

Constant deliberations that I have made
about that unique afternoon, and evening
weigh down upon me - as does a shade
that bears down silently - a part of being

a tree
all alone
and still steady,
but outworn
within
a singularly worked-upon garden.

Someone waited for a cemetery to materialise
and wanted, furthur, a brief brush to evolve -
a satisfying trope that this text would realise
as a conquest, less said - and would revolve

about
nothing more odious
than a pair of brown lips.

Then, should I be silent, silenced
by an erratic demand made fancifully?
Or should I be hopeful? Entranced
by only a faint hope, wishing dutifully

for fulfillment
at the hands of a white-livered lily
wresting so painfully
with the tentacles that it itself conjures
within-without-all about -
lenses all awry

To my land of dark days
lost in the uncertain calls
of twisted rivers flowing
ceaselessly but erratically....

I think this would be a fairly well-turned-out introduction to the new book.

My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose

smaragaralakhandanam
mamashirasimandanam
dehi padapallavamudaram


My love is like
a red, red rose.
It turns all black
when the evening dews
drench it, burn it,
stain it with more -
Love is the only dream
my love cannot bear.

THIS SOUNDS TOO SWEET FOR MY EARS

I met a small ringing sound
trying to cross a difficult road
into me and my stolid solitude.

I was promised a grey earth
and a primordial sky without black
or white or anything in between.

I replied in no small terms.
I rang my life many a time.

I sat silent then and thought -
This sounds too sweet for my ears.

I let go of it and forgot
about it and me being friends

I am a truthful man from this land of palm trees
Before dying
I want to share these poems of my soul.
My verses are light green
But they are also flaming red

I cultivate a rose in June and in January
For the sincere friend who gives me his hand
And for the cruel one who would tear out
this heart with which I live
I don't cultivate thistles nor nettles
I cultivate a white rose

courtesy - ODDITY - this being by Jose Marti....

Which road did we not take?
Which one was fair and which
was not? Which one
should have lead to what?
Which road?


THE ROAD NOT TAKEN - Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I couldn't travel both
and be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear.
Though as for that the passing there
had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh,I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The question of choice in human life. An eternal peril. Surely we know better than that. Do we?

POEMS FROM MY FIRST BOOK - IN THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR

These poems are taken from my first book of poems IN THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, published from Writers' Workshop, Kolkata.


THE BIOGRAPHY OF A SONG LEFT WOUNDED


The river made a circuit of the day,
the sound of birds, beasts and clashing cymbals
the giving way of breaths to a beggar called Life
then the flowers of humanizing rain
the love of the Lord, the pleasure of pain.

But there are some trees standing as yet in darkened orchards -
Orchards made when Eden was young,
before the gates closed forever with a fiery clang.
These trees even now live, grow and flower;
these trees - away from the unhappy hour.

We were talking aloud when I became the river.
Across my huge, bony, wrecked heart
wreaking havoc on my senses
and yours,I flowed about.
And across this land of many hued dreams
this land of daya, of damyata, of vairagya and of santih
I flowed away, floated away
till all fallen ones began an earnest prayer;
and I, with daya, entered the waterpot of the one who never came back.

The yellow stretching lines and in the middle a blinding fire,
all the while a busy flurry of patterns turning into figures slowly,
slowlyand then the dance of the nine triangles.
In the hurtling dance came the colours.
In red came knowledge.
In yellow came darkness, silence, calm and all things unknown
together fused to make an Eye, all-seeing, all-discerning.
In the gardens, the bursting of senses and of light -
And all the while,into the vast endless Sea
I, the river never born, never made, ever Living -
ran into in mute delight.


IN THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR


In this room there is a single window
which looks out on a huge garden
which has no flowers to possess
no roses to love and be hated for.

In the house next door
they are having a party.
In the house next door,
someone’s come visiting
with lots of laughter
and good old wine.

They have forgotten all about me
this room and this window calling out to life
but life does not recall it.
In the house next door,
they are making hay
while there is still sunshine
and laughter and coffee with fruit cake.

They are not aware that someone walks outside
waiting for a glimpse of the merry window.
The garden is silent in the evening calm
while cars sit gleaming on the tarmac
between the houses and the road.

The garden meditates
on what would be the best way
to feel silent and at peace.
In the house next door
they who are having the party
have forgotten this room of a window.

In the house next door they are busy
busying themselves over flowers
and place settingsand mellowed mulled wine
and some tea of course.
I do not care and neither does the garden,
silent and meditative.
For to be lost is to be at peace with everything.


TO BOROBOKRO – IT DOES NOT HAVE A SEA


Ancient coins, ancient fishes
ancient currents that overflow
broken bridges, only waiting
for the queen with a sword
who never came back.

Twisting turning knots and boats
pullulating heart streaming skies
sun and moon and tears of dew
widows beating paper breasts
singing loudly singsong voices
Bring home the children, river wise.

Who knows how the river breathes –
in ones or twos or regular ham-sah.
Someone anxious for a child
ate a floating dead banyan leaf
and sprang Borobokro from the spit.

Ancient river, bloodied banks
banks where grew the Third Species
theirs to love, theirs to hate
theirs to know and forget even
stories and legends of a grey woman -
one-eyed matron in the gods’ chamber
dancing Sapphic for a clutter of bones.

Someone waits on the far-off bridge
that spans and shrouds you, cowering river.
And though it breaks its heart to do so
yet midnights are the time to love in peace
with moons above and you beneath.

UNKNOWABLE LIVES AND LINES



I see everything by the twilight's last glimpsing of songs
and moons and dusks and long abated blissful nights,
ones that were once heavenly
but are now faded into unknowable oblivion -

and I wait for more,
more as in fulfilling visions
of darkly humming bridges and rivers
at regualr sundowns and sunrises.

Everything is soft and pliant here
as in a memory-charm
created to bamboozle urgently beating fists
upon doors that do not open, never open at all,
except on specifically shrouded blue-moon nights.

Many generations have passed into known history.
Many hours and cruxes-in-time so simplified
have watched us grow together, my loved land.

Nearly a hundred years in wakefulness have I floundered
in wide open dualised arms,
but still I do not know your names,
your eyes and your lives.

I, living engendered, vastly dismembered, mostly endangered.

Many knowing moments of iron-clad worshipat evenings
during the time-goddess's mad dance across courtyards
I remember even now as sad and great
and as vibrant in untimely time
as a single Bloody Mary.

And songs sung from doors to windows
fluttering as sexist statements from pillars
to posts and empty roads in a curfewed dusk
with that lonely bag of rice standing all alone by itself,
awaiting a liberator, a saviour and his hands
that are the hands of a healer.

What do I gather here - nothing
except only knowledge of things to come
and things that have been
and may be those that will rain down again,
swift and soft and hardening then as rocks
that are borne so caringly, sparingly
by the fertile womb of confusion.

My land in dreams and in knowing discombobulation,
nice words long ones and extremely religious ones these are,
the ones that I curse onto your newest life, your ancient names
and your twisted, ever turning, always meticulously burning
surprisingly maturing visages that you hide.

Many leaves have faded as mortal butterflies
once out of the cocoon, ever fated to fly, ever hated
by everything that loves and longs indubitably
for timelessly sweet, saddening eyes.

Many songs have been sung, many copper bells
in significant hour-endings have been rung.
Many a nephilus has flown to heaven and back.

So many moments, immoment, graceful, have passed,
and nearly a hundred years as well,
but still I do not know your names,
nor you and your lives.

AN EPISTLE TO THE BURNING MAVERICK EMO....


The burning heart in the deeply dark night lonely burning
watches only the darkest vision of its being slowly turning,

turning into a silent scraping at the shut doors of life returning
all claims of blood and soul to the lonely heart lonely burning.

You are that other one who comes ever silent.

You have spoken of some singular sense,
speaking also of sense shutters
shuttering all songs seeking safe sibilation
but all the more strangely silent, waiting

waiting, as more others would say,
for a wan, very-other-like, wasted way
of the weakened world always dying
to open up, shore up its death-songs,
in death or in life burning,
burning and turning,
and returning.

To you, our loved eye, our hated heart, naked heart, lonely soul
only soul burning, to you I remit this epistle -

This is my ever-strengthening vision
of most ends burning.