Take Me In

The November smog, fluid, ethereal, stings in my eyes. I drift again, from one nook of the city to the next as my eyes browse through the burnt hedges, shrubs and trees; it’s time to rebuild from the leftover pencils and brushes of my messed up, old days. I take in the haunting smell of homecoming as I soak in the toxic chlorophyll, trudging past the traffic lights as smoke rolls through my tongue….I know as I move around in deeper shades, the nape of my neck hurts, this nocturnal photosynthesis tosses me up again, root to branch…the smudged moon sinks yet again, dusk to night, night to dawn, breathing heavy, in its sniffed grains of light. I flop down beside her, my whispers broken, my voice hovering from across the void. I sway, holding my clothes, under my clothes, my ribs and bones, my veins and tendrils dance in the smog.

Many moons back, on yet another November day in your city, I had waited, heavy and slow, I had been twisted and turned over and over until the wait became a cursed game. Today, as I come back to those ashen fringes, I lean over your rickety balcony, rehashing those lost, jinxed words as I gobble up old Sundays, smell the old clouds, before holding them tight. I burn, like incense, into your skin, flying through the arid air, chasing after the smog and lost colors, descending, slowly waning, melting into you.

Do take me in, dear Kolkata…

Jinxed Interlude

Jinxed Interlude

Image source: Morguefile.com

Tireless, I meander.

The thick, fluffy bed of saltwater tears,
I lay, I roll on it, gliding in its sand granules.
The fire inside, dark, undone.

I stare back, and the waters lap on to the shore,
Billowing softly across my face.
The faint neon lights flicker and blaze,
I kiss them, the groomed walkways,
The pirated dreams they allure with.

The blue bird, a stifled halo,
Aflame at its fallen nest.
Watching it fall, over razor bumps,
Fake voices giggle in bubbling rot.

I walk past, rub against
the sweat and trash, sticky juices
Of a failed twilight.

The jagged edges whisk, simmer, burn,
Feet to head, scattered, scarlet splotches.

Between This Life and the Other: The Rain

Dark Rain. Image Source: imgarcade.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do my dirty walls rain, still?
Dots imprinted on dark leaves, scrawling,
Pressing their heads to the crushing dust of human pain?
Do the fingers still dig into
The dark, unfathomable whole,
Beneath the ribs, the pain, stark dead, burning?

Do the primal clouds of monsoon jump in puddles, still?
Longing to steam, to cry in small streams,
Ripples and kisses, running down, the deluge
Slitting throats, trampling my primordial breast?
I have seen the skin, blood, bones
Of the rain, hung on to thirsty fingers
Licking the pickled salt of a fleshy pain.
Is it mine, still?
Forgot its name since we last held hands.

Does it still rumble, growl inside,
The billowing cloud-fire, the necklace of grief?
The night, jumping, leaping, sticking her tongue out
For one last dance, entwines me,
Stumbling over, as I listen to mourning ghosts,
Moving around, in circles, the earth
A whisper of sprinkled ashes of pain?

The smoke, a translucent fusion,
Do I drink it whole? The murky waters
Ruminating on the slumber-buried drone of pain.
Do I shake it off like old dust? Here it comes back
Peels and hums amid grinning, littered rain.

The bird rests beneath the rusted bricks and walls
The flash of cool light, of rain, long gone.
The heart of the wind beating amid the dead leaves in rain,
I stand, smothered between the damp walls,
Breaking and sinking, birdlike, aflame, drowning.

A World Without Poetry

 

A world without poetry,
The concrete hammering of mails
The infusion of programmed chores
A day, yet another day shedding it’s leaf
In parched, scheduled coldness.

Collective tangling of prosaic voices
Barbecue in the summer heat,
Disjointed company of drunk folks
Stinking of the corporate fumes.

Shattered raindrops, where do I hide you
In the luscious spread of weekend delicacies?
The shrieking yells of perfumed bodies,
The flashy make-up of the powdered night
Hides you like submissive dirt.

The deep chasm of naked arms bleed
My unwritten lines buried under
The daily litany of unanswered applications,
Unsolicited proposals, boxed and sealed
Never caring for a reply, a nod, an assaurance.

A world without poetry dies and lives
Every day, crafty, stoic, plastered,
Waking in hopes of a startling twist
Of a delicate, lyrical opulence.

A very old, nameless poem

Artist: Michel Le Roux. Title: Passion & Poesie (Passion and Poetry). Image source: http://www.adelecampbell.com

Note for the readers: This poem is one of my more premature piece, when I was just starting to nurture my passion for poetry and to express subtle thoughts poetically. Keeping this in mind, readers please consider any flaws or looseness in structure, form, imagery and metaphors. I have tried to better these aspects with time, with writing more, and moreover, with reading more and more of the works of great poets of all times.

From dawn to dusk’s inevitable abode
Habitual ramblings of my pedestrian soul,
Faceless structures intrude the journey.
Sometimes, a drop or two of wild desire oozes out.
Many a times a game of chess between passion and pain
Quivers the floor of sensibilities.

From the strained womb of eternity
Emerges each day, a new-born day,
And it seems, as if in its sparkling splendor
The darkness of the bygone days
Is a thing–not to utter, or even remember.
But then, every now and then,
My pigeon lusts are choked by its barren sterility…

And I being the sterile land that it renders
Shell myself in stony suppression.
And miles away do I leave the tumultuous sea of throbbing pulsation.

Your enormous nights and my awakened soul become
Far-off strangers, long departed.
The scarlet flame of your kiss falls headlong.

And now, those forsaken dreams will form a new cosmos,
Those have been fed with despaired blood and forbidden sweat.
Your milky dreams will lick my blood-red sighs
Lick the forsaken salt of my sweat,
To form a new heaven, with your past and captive kisses…
With an abysmal thirst that never fades out.
Come, will you, to explore it all?