Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Another Dead Blogger


another star is stardust
another blogger dies
another cricket match to jerk off to
another slave raped by another orangutang in another amphitheater 
(hell, no Rome is sure ever built in a day!)
another bunch of spectators cheering with silence
i believe in things i find beautiful
i believe in words and thoughts i find beautiful
i believe in magic, 
i believe in poetry
i believe in music
i believe in dust
i believe in ghosts
i believe in martyrdom
i believe in the soul
i believe in the fight
i believe in the crazy roads of the world 
but i'm such a selfish asshole that i can't write for a dead blogger without going on spewing shit about all the beautiful jazz i believe in
dear dead blogger
i am sure that you were beautiful
and because i believe, most of all,
in beauty, 
i will keep on believing in your death
may it bloom on among the ugly killers and the uglier spectators
like lotus blooms in mud.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

you are always beautiful

you are always beautiful
and little birds wake up and sing to your fruits on blue mornings like these which are like the Blue Danube
i've never been to Danube
but i've seen blue lakes and wild mountain-springs
i have jumped in some of them, and i have stared at broken sunsets on big wild rivers
i know of a poet who had seen broken red bits of sunset riding piggyback on the waves while he was waiting for his Wheel to return
it doesn't matter whether it returned or not
and it doesn't matter where and how the wheel turned and where and how wheels turn
except when they do and when little birds sing to your fruits which are the colours of mornings and sunsets and Blue Danube where i've never ever been to
and then i don't think of storms like i didn't think of storms that night

there's no war in poetry these days, and there's no peace either
Don Juan and Don Quixote take lessons of love from Lenin
but there's no love in hospitable maternity-wards of cities where they've learned to sell love for money and sell money for love
even you stay in a city but they can't touch you
because you are beautiful and because birds sing to you
hands of great anarchs send their breeze of love to caress your flowers
and your flowers are big and red, they start blooming
on the first full-moon night of Magh when they sing for Magha-Karam all night in the forests of Jharkhand that are barely intact, like their songs
they keep blooming as folks gather for Magha-Magul by the shores of Titas which is still a river's name
and they gather the flowers of Glory Bower
the same flowers that wept in your silver anklet when you danced like a torn wagtail in the palace of Indra the king of gods
and i was bitten by a big black snake
which a poet had called Black Divinity on the 15th of August 1973
but things are different now
and your flowers are big and red
and they bloom in your grand, fulsome beauty on the full moon night of love when springtime blazes the wanton night and even the moon is red
and your fruits are for the birds to sing to when the world is Blue Danube and the morning star has stopped burning in lonely anger all night
i stare at red, blue, green, yellow and white flags all night
i don't know if the Red Flag will bring me freedom or if Green Tara will

but when i was close to you and the fires were strange all around, woman,
i hadn't thought of freedom
i hadn't thought of Kabir's Bhakti or Lalan's lamp,
i hadn't thought of Bakunin's anarchy or Che's revolution
i hadn't thought how it would be if Tarashankar's Nitai makes wild love to Bulgakov's Margarita
i hadn't thought how the earth turns and how the sun burns
i hadn't thought if starlight can communicate with the smart wisdom of ghosts
i had talked a bit about starlights though, and i think about mists coming out of leaves of trees and turning into clouds and rivers of the world
and you had talked of being in a new city which could have not been new, Amarcord
and i was close to you, not close enough to feel your breathes rising with the magic of the night, but enough to think of dangling down the wheels and clockhands of time and dancing, though i can't dance in any manner that is considered to be aesthetically pleasing, but it didn't really matter then
and it doesn't really matter now,
except that when at the crack of dawns like these the skies are very blue and the birds are very chirpy
i stare from the fogged realms between sleep and torpor,
wanting to fill the world with poetry
i walk to your river and to your tree and they become the trees and rivers of the world
and they become endless roads weaving their way through the misty climes of life and the undisturbed universe to the unknown, shivery mokam, or samadhi, or whatever

so, that's how i am
and you are always beautiful

Monday, March 23, 2015

We Will All Be Bhagat Singh

river of life meets river of death
forests never walk, dear Macbeth
and there's no milk in the Milky Way
they hang Bhagat Singh everyday


the river of love - it flows on still
the sharpest knives refuse to kill
by the bends of this ceaseless fight
they burn Bhagat Singh every night


the river of blood - it sinks all boats
it guts all guts and slits all throats
'freedom!' 'freedom!' - the thunders shout
but that's not what it's really about


the river of hope - it freezes here
there's no dream, no nightmare
and martyrs aren't worth a dime
so they kill Bhagat Singh all the time


but there's a river that'll ever flow
no one knows what it's called though
but it gives them killers a mighty scare
for Bhagat rows his boat out there


there's no right and there's no wrong
all that's there is this lousy song
and the nameless river flows on strong
for Bhagat must be rowing along


Row on, Comrade, the skies are red
And my hungry kid is yet unfed
Selfish me, I think of you
For that's the best I can really do


flow on, fighter, the clouds are big
the ugly judge has lost his wig
there's no noose to hold your neck
but there are fleets we have to wreck


and there are chains we have to lose
and there are paths we have to choose
and for every knife on every throat
there's a Bhagat rowing our boat


the killers rule the earth and seas
and Rome was saved by cackling geese
but one day they'll cackle no more
for Bhagat Singh will stand by the shore


and we'll all go out and stand by him
and make our way through this ghastly dim
and the bells of freedom - we'll hear them sing
and we will all be Bhagat Singh

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Do Nambari Confessional

you had tiny hands
and your ankles were beautiful
I don’t remember much
save the magic
and we were saving the magic like we still do
and the universe was very big like it still is
and there were and there still are big people
who sell love for security and intellect for cynicism
and the last time I saw you you were fighting them
and the last time I heard from you you were fighting them
Seeing and hearing have become beautiful ever since –
Homer hearing the swishing sound of those arrows of fire,
Borges getting inside Aleph where human history shall ever be,
Beethoven drowning in the music that tastes like love,
and feels like colours
rivers singing through forests before getting ravaged by monster cities  
birds getting busy at sunrise and baby-birds getting happy at sundown
(and there are also some birds that just fly across the horizons in search of everything
and no one gets to know where they reach)
does the nucleus know where the electrons stay?
are there beehives in other galaxies?
I don’t know these things but someday I might tell you of many beautiful things that I know of
for example, I know that the size of the universe divided by the size of our bodies is infinity
which is also the distance between our egos and our Kaum
I know that the bear might be one hell of a creepy animal but often it climbs a tree or two or many to get very drunk
et cetera and et cetera
but that your hands were tiny and your ankles were beautiful and that magic exists everywhere all the time is more important knowing all these stuff

Ahoy there,
be well.







it really doesn’t matter

Listen, hey, it really doesn’t matter and it really never did
In the war the humans come and go
But where the fuck is Michelangelo?
Listen, hey, it never mattered how you were, how we are
Power killed half and greed killed the rest
Snakes never wore jewels
Except in fairytales
You speak of love and there are places
Where it never rains and it never will
And there are dots we have never joined and we never will
And it really doesn’t matter where the music goes once it stops playing in the sky
And it really doesn't matter who killed the gods and who plundered Rome
And it really doesn’t matter who sold the chimera and who bought the lies
And it really doesn’t matter who smashed the kaleidoscope against the shores
And it really doesn’t matter if we wrest away all that was taken
And it really doesn’t matter if we seek payback for all the lost sunbeams
And moonbeams
And stardust
And mountains
And rivers
And everything else
There’s a bit of love still left and that’s about it.

Friday, March 6, 2015

খুকি, তুমি কাঠবিড়ালী যাবে?


সেইখানে কেঠোভূত সোল্লাস, জ্যান্ত
পৃথিবীর কাঠবিড়ালী কি কেঠোভূতকে চিনতো?
কেঠোভূত ধুধুবালি, মেরুমরু মিলেমিশে
কাঠবিড়ালী আয়নার মত কোটর-প্রাসাদ
আমবাগানে বৃষ্টি হলে ঝড়ের হাওয়া দেবে
পৃথিবীর কেঠোভূত মোকাম খুঁজে তৃষ্ণ
পৃথিবীর কাঠবিড়ালী রাস্তা খুঁজে নেবে
ছোটে সব, পথ আছে,
তেষ্টা খুব, ঘর খুব কম
গ্যালাপাগোসের কচ্ছপটা বহুদিন খাঁচা জুড়ে ছিলো
পথ আলো ধুমধোঁয়া জীবক-হ্রীবক
এঁদোএঁদো খালেবিলে, বাঁশঝাড়ে আলেয়া
জোনাকি জ্বলেছে ধুম, হ্যাজাক নিভুনিভু
সেইখানে, মহুয়া-মহুয়া গন্ধ, বাতাস সহজ
আনখানে কি আছে আর যথেষ্ট সহজাত?
আনপথে কি আছে আর পর্যাপ্ত জিনি-জীবি?
সকলে ব্যস্ত বলে, বহুকিছু জটিল হলে
সহজ ঢেকে যায়, সমুদ্র চলে যায়
পাহাড় হামা দেয় সুর্যোদয়-সুর্যাস্ত-চন্দ্রোদয়-কথামালা
অঙ্গুলিমালা, কিরণবালা, জল তোলে
কলসী এখনো সোনার, কিছুটা ধুলোট
জটিল হিজিবিজিরা চোক পাকায় বলে কেঠোভূত চলে গ্যাছে,
কাঠবিড়ালী চলে গ্যাছে
ভাঙা কুলো জোড়া লাগে অথবা লাগে না
কিছু স্বর বহুদূর, বহুপথ চলে যায় ফিসফাস।