Our old tiled house had its corners Soft and purring like our family kitten We looked into our abandoned well To fathom the depth of its corners The water there was a mere shadow The shadow of a reality that once was.
The key would not turn I can see through the keyhole A shadow playing on the wall The shadow moves towards another Until they both become one Playing the same music Of life and death Of death-in-life.
The night queen bloomed beneath the window And I can smell the morning grass Beyond the red-and-white saree That hangs, dripping, on the clothesline Amid shattered pieces of the summer sky.
Then , one dark night,when we were fast asleep The monsoon arrived with fierce wind and gale Spoiling the children's fun and promises of sweet fruit We blame this entirely on our cuckoo friend Who brought in premature rains this season By persistent and persuasive musical supplications.
My moon had fallen into the well; My pail could not bring it up I shall continue to drop stones Someday the water will rise enough To bring up my beautiful moon.
In the morning when we shook our hibiscus Tiny tingling raindrops fell like icicles On our falling eyelids and outstretched tongues Yesternight we were afraid of the fierce rain Our dear hibiscus stood between us and fear .
Kudos to Kolkata's kids With lilywhite cheeks And lightweight stomachs Scrounging for food crumbs In its garbage dumps They keep the city clean And our conscience clear.
The morning crystallizes The moment swells To an iridescent event Amid outcry of cutlery And bone-clatter of china Sparrow-love on the lawns And aromatic hotel smells.
I lie here , on this side, A miserable ,reluctant host They enter me, quietly, And cling to the nuclei of my cells. Beyond lies opaque space Neither I nor they have choices That is the way the script goes.
There is allaround oblivion felt in my unbeing Only the other day I was a blade of grass Today I cannot wave in the mountain breeze Uprooted from my mother I do not know my being Just like that hill covered in a haze of forgetfulness.
Metallic music poured forth From yellow discs in fevered rhythm As our sepulchral child-egos rose Our consciousness flapped its wings We only rise once over the clouds Our waxen wings melt too quickly But our memories remain of flying.
Our eager hands rise from our hearts Our feet beat music out of the earth But these shadows keep playing with us We produce our living music from death Our prayer hall is full of holes in the roof We see fine particles playing in their beams When it rains droplets from the broken sky Fall into extended palms disturbing prayers.
As the temple bells ring The earth burns slowly Going up in swirls of smoke. These lights hurt him But the smoke does not. At the tunnel’s beginning It is like what it was When it all began.
He interrupted us ,smiling, In our endless dreams. The earth came alive Where his feet touched . We felt, actually, small as if We had to remain silent While the earth came alive.
The flowers spoke nothing Waiting for indifferent lovers. Their colours touched the sky. Their existence was close-ended Being closely trapped in the sun. Drinking moon-beams, they want to be
Beyond the grey hills Thick white smoke Rose in a column . My glass eyes saw Veiled habitations I heard voices rising In musical supplication Drum-beats quickened Existence became smoke.
Things remained unsaid Beauty had cried in torrents Of words bereft of thought Till the blazing March sun Beat history's scraggly stones A midsummer celebration Ensued with images galore Beauty returned from the hills.
In the recent monsoon Our rivers felt as if The mountains had bled From fresh wounds Their flesh has gone, Across the green seas, To the distant Chinaman To fill out his bones.
And today his breath stirred Under the unkempt beard Tomorrow under the blue sky When my car will pass this way There will be a grey space Then my eyes will turn away I shall roll down the panes.
Then the world moved away under our feet; A barebacked child mopped the floor under our seats A fifty -paise coin glistened in his hungry eyes Like the broken sun found in the muddy puddle That had formed in yesterday’s wind and rain.
It is this luminosity, my dear, Of the gilded leaves in the sun The magic eye promptly catches A silver flicker, a yellow transience. A palliative to the chemical pain In variously knotted entrails and The reddish tinge in eye-whites.
Mother Kali’s magnificent lidless eyes Were moist with maternal tears As Bengal squirmed at her bygone glory The loss of yesteryears’ literature trophy Has left its bhadralok bewildered and bereft,entirely.
The rock is being cut Slowly disintegrating Real existence, ours. The drill pierces time. The sky becomes bluer With nothing between The blue sky and us.