Wednesday, May 31, 2017

shapes

they keep on hustling down the poles and sunsets
asking for their dues
you don’t remember
so you reach out for your gun

but the gun isn’t real
neither are the dues
and nor are them. shadows lengthen from head to toe.
our beautiful bodies shiver
our beautiful minds shiver
some scars aren’t real, a few are
but from a distance,
they all look like all the time the stars can hold.
and rivers turn blue when thunder punches the sky out from head to toe.
our beautiful boats shiver
our beautiful houses shiver
the good earth shivers.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

সরহ, বাজাও বীণা


সরহ, বাজাও বীণা, নিঃশব্দে বাজো 
জীবনের অতিকায় ছায়া – আলো হয়ে, 
দয়ালু বাগান ঘিরে জোনাকির স্তব 
রাতের রক্তমাদর নক্ষত্রনিরব – সব খেলা করে –
বুঝি আতস উড়েছে ধূম কেল্লার অমাবস্যা-উঠোনে, অথবা
স্থবির নির্জনতা, আঙুলের ফাঁক থেকে ঝরে যেতে
কুয়াশায় জেগে ওঠা ইস্কুল বাসেদের মতো বহুদূর
বয়ে আনে স্তূপাকার স্মৃতি –
পোস্টকার্ড-স্ক্র্যাপবুকে মিশে আছে সেইসব
হিম অভিলাষ – যারা মানুষের পায়ে পায়ে
ফুটসোলজার হয়ে, মানুষের চেয়ে বড়ো
কিছু নয় বুঝে, ভেবে –
অক্ষর হল ক্রমে চৈতন্যের ক্ষরণে।
আমাদের ট্রাম-বাস-মিছিলেরা ততদিনে লাল-নীল ফিতে হয়ে গ্যাছে। 
তোমাদের ধূসর নদী সময়ের ফাটল বুনেছে।

too many people have died

indeed Thin-Man, ‘too many people have died’
coz the collateral mustn’t take sides
and there are too many sides
too many angles and pitches
too much light and blood oozing down
all the advertisements in all the billboards
in all the cities of the world. 
so many, that strangers who used to write their tales
on fallen leaves 
 throw punches in thin air tonight 
because all monsters are real, all nightmares are
Or else, too many people would never have died

So many have, that,
the sad guy in Hamlyn, after killing all the children,
must have had done something stupid or weird –
unlike sunflowers that face the sun
which are as real as all the corpses that the earth hides from the sun

It’s like, the cycle of fire just keeps on getting longer
as all circles of light and darkness shrink 
each time certain persons necessitate disenfranchisement because some rich men must get richer
a bit of the charming light fades, 
a dot from the deep darkness loses magic
Wolfeyes get redder all around flames
The hunted must watch the hunter tonight
marshlights won’t take him home tonight –. 
Home is where it rains after summer


A thing about sunflowers is - 
baby-sunflowers always face the sun,
even when it rains!
grown-up ones don’t
I have read of a place named Peristan
where the moon fades away
to humdrums of grown-ups
and where there is a dog named lion.


A thing about too many people dying is that
Despite all the sunflowery shit, we have all contributed
in our own ways, across generations of children who lived, who live,
for which some children had to turn collateral, have to, exponentially; 
Memories replaced by memories


Like the wise cat who wipes an occasional teardrop or two off the cheeks of space-time,
an occasional fairytale or two trickle down the iron-guards of history
Fairytales are as real as all our lethal contributions are,
as real as all the children who heard them before they slept were.

When will all the fairytales march out for all the children of the world who sleep in unmarked graves?

Sunday, May 7, 2017

a story of a river and a boy

all along the river’s bend
empty, earthen vessels float
certain stories never end
they stay as lumps in the throat


and ‘why did you?’ the judges scream
golden sailors make no noise
nothing to say, no dream to dream
but the river must flow – it got no choice


and then one day, when the skies frowned
a funny boy with a tilted hat
he wept a little, for the boats had drowned
and he kissed the river, and that was that.