Repaying My Debt to Marquis de Sade and Charles Baudelaire

The same words written,

The same lovers smitten

The same cigarettes smoked

The same evenings, doped

The same music being played

The same shitty words being said

The same roof, the same walls

The same streets and movie-halls

The same poor, the same rich

The same dog, the same bitch

The same joy and the same pain

The same loss and the same gain

The same old-fart sun rising up

The same cheap coffee in the same cup

The same raindrops from the same clouds

The same hazy faces from the same crowds

The same nights with the same dreams

The same fears and the same screams

The same Judges and the same rules

The same assholes, the same fools

The same audience, the same game

The same guilt and the same shame

The same flesh with the same desire

The same ashes from the same fire

I feel so screwed-up in this whirlpool

I feel like a maniac, I lose my cool

This sameness – it’s like a mystic maze

Like a shroud I want to set ablaze

I need some gasoline, I need some fuel

Now come on ennui, fight me a duel !

I’ll take your life and I’ll rape your wife

And I’ll stab your children with my cold steely knife

You’ve tortured me for long – now it’s payback time

I hear your death-bells, oh how sweetly they chime !

Now fight me like a man, I’m ready with my sword

For I’m Barbaric, I’m Mystical and I’m Bored……..

The Dead Nightingale

They’re playing the funeral song real slow

They’re taking the dead nightingale to the grave

Four of them carry the coffin

The King, the Queen, the Ace and the Knave……..

I was chained in the cage of love

The nightingale used to sing to me

Her songs were sad, her wings were broken

But now she’s dead, now she’s free

She was chained in the cage next to mine

She was lonely, and so was I

And on silent nights when the moon was down

She used to sigh and I used to cry

Deep inside my restless heart

I could hear the rattling of her chain

Her feet were tied, she tried to be free

As the silent night trembled in pain

And now she has gone far far away

Beyond the misty shores of the sea

But her songs – sad and sweet

Will stay forever inside me………

So, the King, the Queen, the Ace, the Knave

They’re laying her down on the snow

The nightingale is dead, it’s time to mourn

They’re playing the funeral song sad and slow……

Ennui

It rains all day, all night

Rains, like chains, tie me down

Clouds fill my sleep

Clouds, like crowds, strangle me

Insects dance by the lantern

Insects, like sunsets, block my vision

Dusts in the bookshelves

Dusts, like rusts, gather in my bones……….

But beyond all these absurdities

and nude sunflowers that stare at me

like holy angels,

water beckons –

Water – cold, blue and silent………

My City and Her Ass

My city sleeps upside down

The sea sleeps near her bosom

Sudden shivers attack the clown

Sudden rose and cherry blossom

Knocks and thistles fume and rage

The river runs and purple lips

There he goes – the savage sage

Silence! Silence! My city sleeps

Paradise rolls and cancer breeds

Passion and fear creeps in dark

There they are – the mystic creeds

Fireflies, fairies – naked and stark

My city dreams of dust and gold

Another world and nomadic lore

Flashes and flames and ages old

Poison and sex and something more

Wholesome whores and thorny crown

Listen sharp and you’ll hear her sigh

My city sleeps upside down

With her ass projected at the sky

Thoughts for Kshudiram Bose

India,

August 11, 1908

They hanged your worthiest son

India,

Your saree became red with his blood

India,

You were Mother, then

India,

Dust has gathered over the pages of your history books

India,

Your time and tide waits for none

India,

Your eyes were sad

India,

His sacrifice had purified your tears

India,

He was 19, much younger than me

India,

He smiled with the noose around his neck

India,

His final breath stretched across the sky

India,

He is a martyr – the purest breed among mankind

India,

101 years have passed

India,

The Ganges reeks of alcohol now

India,

I’m staring out of my window

India,

I’m searching for your soul

India,

Your sky is void

India,

I don’t see any stars up there

India,

Have they stopped shining?

India,

Sleazy filmstars and corrupt politicians rape you everyday

India,

They call you ‘bitch’ under their greed-fouled breaths

India,

Wake up, please !

India,

I feel strangled

India,

They’re taking you to your grave in their shiny Mercedes

India,

I’m bleeding, not for you, but because of you

India,

Where are you?

India,

You’re no more a mother now

India,

You don’t wear a saree anymore

India,

You look pathetic in your mini-skirt

India,

You’ve forgotten your martyred son

India,

Be Mother, once more

India,

I beg of you

India,

Let not his blood flow in vain

India,

Let not his sighs disappear

India,

He loved you like a son

India,

Give to him the love he deserves

India,

That’s an order!

The Suicide

The black bird sang to him for one last time,

And then it flew away –

Into the silent womb the timeless dark……

The clouds gathered…….

The tides….. the tides……

The clockhands mocked him for one last time,

And then, time ceased to exist…..

The stars were weeping

And the furnace cried out for him…..

For the train was leaving

And he had his ticket booked

He saw the magic land –

A land where sorrows don’t exist,

a blue land inside the flames….

He had to step in,

For the world wasn’t ready for his love

And it’ll never be

For life wasn’t ready for his love

And it’ll never be

For poetry wasn’t ready for his love

And it’ll never be

Even love wasn’t ready for him…..

So he had to go….

And there shall be no more tears

No more pain

And no more broken sighs…..

It’s over…..

Everything is……

The clocks have stopped

And then…….

The final sleep in the blue palace of eternity

Hate Me, Please...........

I’ll wrap myself in the envelope of hazy dreams

and I’ll mail myself to you

I’ll burn myself with the flames of passion

and I’ll send my ashes to you

I’ll drown myself in the pain of my void heart

and I’ll record my throbs for you

I’ll kiss my image in the mirror of smoky death

and I’ll preserve the corpse for you

Only then you’ll learn to hate me

To despise me with all your heart…………

Perhaps that's the only thing I want

Tomar Jonyo........

Tomar jonyo shejechhey aaj alo
Tomer ghorey Bashonto Utshob
Tomaye dilam megher kajol kalo
Tomaye dilam dukkho-bikel shob…..

Tomar ghorey chNader lukochuri
Tomar jonyo ektukhani poraag
Tomaye dilam shagortiirer nuri
Tomaye dilam moliin astoraag…..

Tomar jonyo shiuli phooler mala
Tomar jonyo doyel pakhir shish
Tomaye dilam megh-roddur khyala
Amaye diyo ek phNota neel bish……

Bored, Tired, et cetra

Pull a trigger
Bloom a flower
Do whatever
Doesn’t matter
To me
Anymore
Anymore

Fall in love
Kill a dove
Do whatever
Don’t bother
Me
Anymore
Anymore

Be a hero
Fiddle with Nero
Do whatever
I’m not your father
I’m not your mother
I’m not your lover
I’m not your sister
I’m not your daughter
I’m not your brother
And I’m not your son
So leave me alone
Just leave me alone

Children’s rhymes
Heinous crimes
All the same
Part of a game
Am no player
So why shall I care?
Go find yourself a soothsayer!

A fucks B’s wife
C takes D’s life
E has a sharp knife
F and G in constant strife
H goes to Sunday Mass
I fingers his own ass
J says his bedtime prayer
K doesn’t really care
L loves fistfights
M hates dark nights
Everything’s nice, everyone’s fine
I’m really happy, am on Cloud Nine!
I’ve earned my freedom at great cost
So don’t pester me, fuck off, get lost!!!

Just stop fooling around and off you go!
Or else I might bust your balls, you never know!!!

Me Pink You Pink Yellow Green Toad Happy Bad Sad

Tell me green stories
Let me not think about sex
Just tell me stories
Or else I’ll tie you up with the horns
of a big pink unicorn…..
I bet you won’t like that
So tell me green stories
And purple stories too
And the story of the one-eyed mouse
Or else I’ll make you my diary
And I’ll pour out all my sadness in you
I bet you won’t like that either
So tell me all the stories you know
Stories of all the raindrops you’ve petted
and all the colours you love…..
Or else, get ready to face the consequent
accidents and mishaps
Blehhhhh!!!!!!!!

Eka Manusher Gaan

Eka manushera eka rattirey eka shwopner akash boney
Eka manushera eka kNadbei ekla kono ghorer koney
Eka manushero obhiman achhey chilekothhar nirbashoney
Eka taragulo chupi-chupi bujhhi eka manusheri galpo shoney

Eka manushera eka brishtitey ekla ekla bhijtey jaye
Eka manushera golir koney eka kagojer nao bhashaye
Eka manusher boka mon gulo eka i bujhhi thaktey chaye
Eka manushera ekla bhishon – aye aye aye brishti aye

Eka manusher jonye dyakho ekla jagey nodir chor
Eka manusher buker bhitor ekla nachey bhishon jhhor
Eka manusher eka rupkotha dottyi dano tepantor
Eka manusher eka prithibi shyaola pora ekla ghor

Eka manusher galpogulo shuntey bujhhi chaichhey keu
Shomuddurer toter upor bhangchhey dyakhho raater dhheu

Kaan petey shei dhheuer aoaj shuntey tumi pabey
Mon paboner nao bhashiye kothaye urey jabey?

Dik hariye paal chhutiye Sindhobad er bhyala
PNouchhey jaabey thhik jeykhaney ekla loker myala
Dekhbey takhon ekla thakao ekta mojar khyala
Shei khyalatei uthhbey metey khelbey shara byala...

The Moon and My Unrequitted Love

The moon makes me sad every night
She makes me sigh
And the clouds – at times they cover
her body like a purple veil
At other times, she’s naked –
Like a silent fairy
Like a faithful dream….

I’m a night-bird
And like other night-birds
I seek to make love to the moon
But I hide myself in the womb
of the night, for I fear
the creatures of the dark….

The stars are the children of God
And they remind me of eternity
They are frozen in their own silence
Like forgotten sighs and broken promises….

Sorrows are the ashes of life
Life burns, pale and cold –
Like the fire of Babylon
The moon is pale and cold as well
She is a princess – banished
from the kingdom of love….

I love the moon
But she doesn’t love me,
She loves the lonely cherry tree
which stands, sad and forlorn
in a lonesome valley beyond the hills
and beyond the horizon…

And on new moon nights, when
she’s allowed to go back to the kingdom
from which she was banished
The cherry tree weeps in silence…
And I fly to the cherry tree
to drink the honey of his tears
That keeps me alive
And that’s why the moon
doesn’t love me,
She thinks that, unlike the cherry tree,
my love is selfish….

But this isn’t true
For had the moon loved me
instead of the cherry tree,
He wouldn’t have cried for her
on new moon nights,
And I would have starved to death…..

The moon doesn’t understand me
Nobody does
But I love the moon
And I’ll keep on loving her…….

History and Her Mystery

Hail the future hail the past
Falling like brickbats thick and fast
Hail the knight and hail the squire
Hail the pageboy who’s gone somewhere
Hail the king and hail his crown
Hail the kingdom hail the clown
Hail the princess sleeping in her bed
Hail her pigeons – those are well fed
Hail the queen and hail her maid
Hail the poet and the words he said
Hail the worker earning his bread
Hail the soldier though he’s dead
Hail the church and hail its priest
Hail the hero – he has slain a beast
Hail the farmer who’s reaping his wheat
Hail the sparrow – it goes tweet tweet
Hail the cynic and hail his scorn
Hail the Magi for a Star is Born
Hail them all, friends, hail them now
For they’ve got stuck in history somehow

Five Snippets of Solitude

1)
Perhaps darkness was better than light
Perhaps life was better than death
Perhaps the soldiers should have marched back
But the twilight the twilight the twilight…..
Who dares defy the orders of the twilight
in the city of the civil guards ?

2)
Here, in these tired and restless corners
There are no pyramids or totem-poles
to remember the dead moths
Yet, and yet, they are remembered
by those cats – darker than the nights,
who used to make love before the sea

3)
But I shall not seek that city
where time seeks the blood of lovers
I shall not seek that river
where hyacinths refuse to bloom…..
And I shall not seek the room
where the roof smells like death

4)
Must I embark on that dreary voyage
in search of solitude?
Must I refuse the love that comes
to me in tattered robes?
Must I wake up every night
and watch helplessly as my city
burns in silence?
Must I keep on crying in the empty
stone corridors only to hear my
own tears mocking me in echoes?

5)
Ah, these are forbidden thoughts
Empty like the sounds of our
very own footsteps…..
What matters is that you made me happy
I used to wake up to stare at the garland
of a thousand voices and dreams
encircling your naked body as you slept….
You made me happy
Or maybe it was the rain
Aye, the rain…

A Hyena in China

Once there lived a hyena
Beyond the Great Wall of China
It went to a dead lion’s den
And put on the dead lion’s mane
And became an utterly fake king
(I’m not talking ‘bout Deng Xiaoping)

Troubles began soon
Some of them sought the moon
But not the silver spoon
So the hyena ordered rocks from the Alps
And crushed the troublemakers to pulps
Everybody watched the show
And when they had to go
Said “Amen!”
(I’m in no mood to discuss Tiananmen)

A certain big brother outside was busy with oil
And was already perturbed by some other turmoil
Besides, being once bitten by an ally of the dead lion
He feared similar fate in the hands of the hyena’s scion
And so he decided to remain cool
While the hyena’s successors continued to rule
(Don’t think of America, you bloody fool !)

Upholding the banner of equality
They treat all with the same brutality
Except a few who are extremely clever
And wise enough to pay their taxes in silver
But the hyenas are never put to shame
It’s only the mane that gets a bad name
Think twice friends, whom shall we blame?
(If you think I’m defending all things Red
Tomorrow morning you’ll find yourself dead
Lying in the Yellow River’s yellow bed
You better get this notion straight in your head)

Of Midnight Drunkenness

Darkness throughout….Occasional glints of yellow-orange….
Cars rolling by…. Jokers and eroticism

Chaos and hysteria…. Madness prevails
Few goblins digging the mist and silence….
They have a few dead fireflies to bury

Clock hands are but daggers – meant to stab time
And Einstein wouldn’t have denied this
Sudden intense desire to shoot down
all the sheriffs and their deputies

Streets getting flooded with blood
Blood – of my strong brothers and sweet sisters
Blood – of all my friends
They’re bleeding to death
I can hear their mortal screams and moaning
at dead of night
Curtains shake

Breeze, Breeze, Breeze
Skeletons hanging down the street-lights
The lights are yellow
The nights are yellow

Fleshes cry for poison and eternity
Bones are silent
Nights are silent

Lucifer loses his faith, and that’s
the worst possibility….

Yearnings embark on their futile voyage
Yearnings for naked solitude…

An owl sits atop the roof of the public lavatory
down below, across the street
The street reminds of forgotten prophets
The graffito on the wall of the lavatory –
it’s a blue sunflower,
But it smells like tears of old Gypsy storytellers…..

Sky becomes sea – dark, morose, thoughtful –
like Tintoretto’s Paradise....
Sea becomes a wolf
Hope loses virginity
Rain loses creativity

High on saintly delights:
Might burst into peels of laughter pretty soon
Blue halo of clouds around the moon:
Green signal to the tears….
Laughter and tears – brother and sister
Both sired by the mirrors
And hence they come hand in hand...

Silent poetry of being….
Teardrops and petals from the womb of night
Tears are the wings of words
Once detached, words become petals
and fall, lifeless, on torn pages of poetry
Blank pages, blank verse…..
Petals of black rose
Never seen a black rose in life
And that’s reason enough to cry

Never begged for love or mercy
Begged for thunderbolts…
Begging for aurora borealis
Would have begged for immortality in future
had future existed

Shadows fall…
Other things fall as well –
Body, soul, flesh, blood, bones, semen,
lives, epitaphs, stories, empires, twilight
sadness, totems, hermits, angels, flowers
butterflies, fears, nightmares, Jocasta
moksha, parking lots, tunnels, ukulele,
benzedrine, hallelujah, roman candles,
sex-parties, stereophony, unrequited love
etc etc etc

Me standing before the mirror
with a cigarette and some
desired bitterness between my lips –
Wholesome, naked, happy….
Me – laughing…..
Me leaning against the balcony
with a cactus, a cat and a few severed limbs
near my feet –
Shattered, intense, sad…
Me – crying…..

Fifteen Reasons Not to Cry

Right at this moment
Fifteen silent echoes in the valley of magic
have sired fifteen children
Right at this moment
Fifteen saxophones celebrate their birth
in fifteen different tones

Right at this moment
Fifteen little sparrows have fallen off
their nests, chirping
Right at this moment
Fifteen church bells are tolling
near the Gates of Sorrow
mourning their death

Right at this moment
Fifteen young men have decided to become saints
and have set themselves on fire
Right at this moment
Fifteen old men are staring
at those very fires contemplating jazz

Right at this moment
Fifteen boys have discovered
their Oedipus complex and are
too perplexed to react
Right at this moment
Fifteen scholars have submitted
their papers on suppressed sexuality

Right at this moment
Fifteen nuns are enacting Resurrection
in a monastery, clad in black robes
Right at this moment
Fifteen paintings of Giacometti
watch their play from the frames

Right at this moment
Fifteen rivers have dried up
and fifteen moons have drowned in them
Right at this moment
A gypsy poet is writing a ballad
for those fifteen rivers
and those fifteen moons that once existed

Right at this moment
Fifteen lovers have parted ways --
each shedding fifteen crystal drops of tear
Right at this moment
Fifteen flowers have wilted in that sorrow

Right at this moment
Fifteen eagles have perched atop the sun
watching the world go round
Right at this moment
Fifteen elves are seated below the sun
watching the sky fly away

Right at this moment
I have posed fifteen question marks
for me to wonder why
Right at this moment
Those fifteen question marks
are hitting back at me with their sharp edges

But all these had happened before…

Another Child

Downhill and downhill, bitten
but not smitten
Lonesome knight, further, ahoy,
shorn and scorn
The cup is not full yet,
Far away, the fields are green
The sunflowers – like a merry dream
But for nothingness, nothing persists
For the sky the sea is blue
And the tired dreams too…

Singer, sing a song for me !
Jester, crack a happy joke,
For the matinee show
has been a sellout,
though everyone knows the story
of Rumpelstiltskin …

Twilights too shallow to whisper
Darkness too dead to die
There’s a brook down the valley
There’s an inn with bread and wine
There’s a cottage where a candle burns
There’s a girl to love and love…
Solitude not so dreary as once dreaded
The moon might shine, it might not…

Truth be told, I fear death
Cold blue light in an empty room
The parrot flutters in a golden cage
Someday, it won’t flutter anymore
The diamond shines with all its edges
Someday, it won’t shine anymore…

Downhill and downhill, further, ahoy,
The spear is blunt, the horse is thirsty,
The knight is weary, but the crusade’s over…

Fever-induced Articulations on Doom

Last night when I was sleeping my last sleep
Under the last roof of my last shelter –
I dreamed my last dream…

I saw the last flower being
burnt on the last pavement
I heard the last note of the last saxophone
being throttled to silence by the last gunshot

I saw two blind children being crushed under
the boot-heels
I heard their last mortal shrieks melting the
thin dark mist

I saw the last beggar being dragged to the gallows
I heard his last moans being gobbled up by
the last halo of the leper moon

I saw the last sons of the last bitches
playing with gunpowder –
their fingers showed their bones
I heard them shouting the last F-word
which crept past the last blue dungeon
of the last train – like a caterpillar

I saw the last gypsy lady reading
the Metamorphosis of Ovid aloud –
her smile faded out into the womb of the tonic-night
The words played around like an endless ring
of smoke and vapour and fume and such other
shit…

I saw the last teenager googling “Armageddon”
for the first time
I heard him whistling all his hopes away – he
whistled sharp and smart but he had no
lover

I saw the last poet writing his first poem
on love, and burning the pages away
I heard the last owl hooting thrice behind his
window pane…

I saw the last lovers parting for the first time
I heard their tears dripping down with the rain
into the last gutters where the last pile of filth
floated away to the silence of the doves’ breasts

I saw the last military tanks waiting, like
Vladimir and Estragon did for Godot,
to boom out for one last time
I heard their metal wheels ravishing
the shapely bosom of the virgin streets –

I saw the streets bleeding with the pain
of the final Resurrection that never happened
I heard them crying for the last piece
of the freedom-cake that the vagabond night
had preserved for them

I saw the last silent procession of men and women –
Like fallen soldiers they had been hoodwinked
by the falsities of faith hope and love
I heard the march of their feet rhyming
with the clamour of the chains of passion
that had bound them to the doom
of eternity

I saw the last holy book being dumped
at the garbage can
as the last litany swirled its way
up to the tired stars and nebulae

I saw the fumes from the burning river
bringing down the last darkness of the last night
I heard funeral sermon of the last old God
who had finally died…

And then – nothing, nothing, nothing…

400 Blows - My Thoughts

Truffaut’s 400 Blows. I have seen the movie thrice, the first time being when I was sixteen, and it never ceases to make me feel disturbed.
I could relate myself very much to the young protagonist of the movie – Antoine, because like him, I myself used to have a trail misunderstandings following me everywhere – at home and at school.
Of course, I have grown out of these feelings now, but still I feel touched by the subtle way the entire film, with all it’s complexities of children moving apart from their parents and the emotional ties and attachments disappearing in the post World War II European societies, with the nuclear families becoming the norm and individualism and existentialism being the catchword, nay, the shibboleth , of the urban middle and lower middle class families.
The character of Antoine is a representative of all the children in such similar situations – childhood being converted into a scapegoat to be sacrificed at the alter of existentialism. It was, and still is, an age of innocence being lost, and morality being spat upon in the face, by children and grown-ups alike. Antoine never thinks twice before giving the false alibi of his mother’s death as the reason for his missing class. Or maybe, just maybe, he does think twice, he does hesitate for a while, signifying the battle between morality and the morbid individualist existentialism…
What Camus’s Meursault, in The Outsider, had while declaring the death of his mother in the famous opening lines of the novel was honesty – naked honesty, and Truffaut’s Antoine had the same honesty too. Because to him, his mother is dead indeed, or may be that she never existed to him, and, looking at the picture from the other side of the glass, he never existed to his mother. This is because he had overheard his mother telling his stepfather that she wanted to have an abortion, only that her mother didn’t let that happen…
Maybe that’s what this state of Being and Nothingness all about… The underlying theme of 400 Blows is existentialism. But unlike Bergman’s Silence, which, too, was shown from the perspective of a child, this one is presented in a light manner. And all the despair and hopelessness and pathos in the movie remains hidden behind a cloak of childish innocence and exuberance. But at times the cloak gets lifted, and we can see the nude flesh, like when Antoine, while skipping his class and walking around the city with a friend of his, sees his mother locked in the arms of her office colleague, walks past casually as if nothing has happened and when his friend asks him “that wasn’t him (your father)?”, Antoine nonchalantly replies – “never saw him before”…
And the scene of three little girls, hardly four of five years old, locked up in an iron cage and staring at the older boys playing at the Juvenile correctional centre – complementing and perhaps supplementing the earlier scene of three grown up women, presumably prostitutes, locked up in the police station, is bound to send streams of slow and ice-cold shudders running through the spines of the viewers. Together, these two scenes represent innocence, being locked up in a secluded cage, staring at guilt and the ennui of hopeless fear, as described aptly by Baudelaire in Les Fleurs du Mal – “C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire”. This was perhaps the underlying theme of the entire movie. And I say ‘perhaps’ because this movie is like life itself – open to perspectives and interpretations – the objectivity of the flesh and blood
The scene of young Antoine being interviewed at the correctional home is another visual masterpiece. I’ve heard that for this particular scene, no written script was provided to the boy who played Antoine’s part. His facial expressions, the sudden quick glances, the gestures and movements of his hand – everything were real – there was no acting involved.
And one more piece of cinematic magic was the the medley of whirling faces staring down at the rotating chamber at the carnival. This scene reminds me of the immortal lines from The Hollow Men – “Shape without form, shade without colour / Paralysed force, gesture without motion…”. This was a celebration of life and lifelessness, like a brother and a sister, abandoned, standing on the roadside hand in hand and staring at all the geometrically vorticistic movements of straight lines, parabola and hyperbola – men and motorcars…
The essence of the movie is pure humour – something that brings out our smiles and tears simultaneously – like good old Charlie Chaplin staring out of the frame of City Lights – smiling and biting his finger with a rose in his hand. 400 Blows, to me at least, embodies all these feelings – those of smiles and tears, of the stream of never-ending hopelessness and despair, and the absurd happiness creeping out of all these like Camus’ Sisyphus…
The character of Antoine Doinel in 400 Blows is a confluence of Ray’s Apu from Pather Panchali and Bergman’s Johan from Tystnaden (The Silence) and what we get as a result is not merely a product of cinematic genius of the highest order, but an embodiment of life in itself – with mirth and melancholy flowing like an eternal river. Many of the shots, scenes and sequences reminded me of yet another masterpiece by yet another master – Bari Thekey Paliye by Ritwik Ghatak…
And perhaps my vocabulary is not sufficient to describe the last shot of the movie, where Antoine has ran away from the Labour Station and on reaching the sea and realizing that there is no escape route from there, turns back and faces the audience and the camera freezes…It is as if he is staring at the audience, at the people, and his eyes search for their cold hearts…He is punished and caged – not merely by the Correctional Home or the Labour Station, not merely by the unfeeling society, but by the world at large – by the lack of empathy, and the infertile detachment of our existence – imprisoned by the stone corridors of eternity, stone corridors that have no life and no feeling, he has no option but to stare at the lifeless insides of us – the hollow men, the stuffed men – devoid of all feelings and compassion, leading an existence of nullity… All the modern man has is a chain of present-moments – no past and no future, and an intense fear of the unknown, Antoine in 400 Blows, like Johan in Tystnaden explores these innermost fears…The innocence of these little children is something that is feared by the those who have embraced this existentialist mode of living (or maybe, not-living)…for innocence strikes like thunderbolts and declares a jihad against the guilt-ridden interiors of a fading morality… and the cold, lifeless whispers of this fear, of this intense horror wake us up in the middle of dead nights… at the Hour of the Wolf, and make us break into cold sweats…
The Horror…The Horror…

Silence, Love, and the Sparrows

Please don’t turn your face from me,
When it rains real hard
Shine for me, O Shine for me,
When the sun gets all covered up

In the glint of the snowflakes
Let me feel your eyes,
For the sky is all fog and smoke
And the thunder brings no surprise

But the night, it wilts away
Like the flowers of your silent smile;
I’m tired, tired, walking all day
Hold me in your arms for a while

See the old man, drowning in sorrow
Clutching his old violin
He knows there’s no tomorrow
Every day is today for him

See the young boy, eating his pears
Sitting at the branch of the magic tree
He stares at the sky and discovers his tears
As he sees the sun going down into the sea

Evening falls like a drop of tear
Floating across the lonesome valleys
In the gypsy tents they gather around fire
And listen to the wise man’s stories

Shine on me, for the moon is down
It’s cold outside and the fire is dead
Take my scepter, take my crown
And give me some love instead

But I need to fight, I need to conquer
The loveless kingdoms beyond the sea
Promise me that if I fall in the war
You’ll spare a sigh and a rose for me

An Ode to a Hypothetical Classmate

In the distant provinces
There lives a pretty princess
I see her in faint glimpses
In beautiful dreams

She is like Hamlet’s Ophelia
She is like a winter Dahlia
She is like a Christmas Camellia
She reminds me of chocolate ice-creams

She has a strange light in her eyes
She is fond of butterflies
She must be a fairy in a lady’s guise
And her whispering voice breaks up in a thousand sighs

I have no words to describe her face
She is the epitome of beauty and grace
She wears a purple moonlight dress
And she steps out of a photograph by Arthur Tress

Indeed she’s a pretty lass
She sits right next to me in class
And I might sound a little crass
But she has a boyfriend, alas !

Rasputin

Rasputin sat beside the Rubicon
With a cup of hemlock in his hand
Evening was falling like silent tears
The sky was drunk with crimson mist

He stared across the river’s breast
He saw the wild flames leaping up
Two dragon-flies sat atop the flames
Rasputin laid his sword of faith down

In a shimmering pyre of solitude and wood
He saw the bones of Joan of Arc shriveling
When the horses in the stable became restless
Rasputin spat between the eyes of Revolution

Beneath a leafless and lonesome yew tree
He saw History playing cards with Death
And the little boy who knew all about destiny
Strummed his balalaika in the empty valley

And by the time the chandeliers were lit
The theatre and the cathedral were dead
The seven wise men – they were clueless
For the moon had stolen the missing piece

Jesus of Nazareth – he was nailed to his cross
The five blind Jews carried him across Rubicon
And a dead brown leaf whispered to my feet
‘Did the faithless faith healer cross the river too?’

An Autobiography

Do they still sing my name
under the starry sky?
Do they still find my name
etched in the stars?
Do they still hear my whispers
when the wind writes her poetry
over the desert sands?
Do they remember the irony
I invented once when the moonlight
reached the haunted barn
and disturbed the dreams
of the brooding pigeons?
Perhaps not
But I was a God once,
till the temptation of flesh
became too strong for me to resist…

And now, only the silence
can afford to sing my name
Only the great nothingness
beyond the seven seas can
fill itself with my confirmation
of existence
Only the corpses with their
lice-infested skulls and the
mummies with their petrified
flesh can remember me,
For once, I was their God
For once, my hand used to
point their path to the grave
And now, the deserted stone-corridors
of the catacombs and the pyramids
whisper my name in the naked
silence of eternity and doom

The seven frozen children
stare at me from across the mirage
with their eyes full of the last
moment of life as it left them
with their eyes full of the first
moment of death as it entered them
But my only terror is that
there is no love or hatred
in those eyes…
They were the seven children
of my seven deadly passions…
I married the seven sins, and
each bore me a child…
And after the last one was sired,
a great misty veil of silence came
down from the heavens and engulfed
me into the wombs of my very first
mother – her name was Darkness

I lost my crown of thorn, I lost my
kingdom of moonborne dreams
I became empty, empty like a
leafless maple covered with winter-frost
And as I lay chained in the bastille of my
passions, I saw my children die…

And now the owl sends her condolences
to the moon by hooting out thrice every
midnight, and for three seconds, the moon
wears the cloudy veil of a silent widow…

Clocks tick on,
Angry moths spit between the hungry
eyes of lizards
Soldiers empty their machineguns
in the empty stomachs of starving
children and fatigued saints
Eternal nothingness waits like
a seasoned stalker
in the padded paws of a cat which
she licks whenever a mouse
is spotted
Revolution squanders in empty
liquor bottles
as those red ants make a feast with
cow dung
And the world trembles between
my dusty boot-heels
with desperate pain, striving to find a voice
The new gods want me to kneel down
and repent, so that I can join their league

I refuse to hear…

A Small Gift

I fear looking at my own image in the mirror
Especially those eyes
Yet I spend hours and hours in front of
mirrors… and the eyes from the other side –
they keep on staring at my transparent self,
right inside me…
And that sure gives me the creeps
At times I ask myself – which one
of the two is real ? The one inside
the mirror, or the one outside?
I’ve been trying to find a way out
of this labyrinth for quite some
time now…

I am a joker
And like all jokers, I have
sad eyes and a face that smiles
vacantly out of the empty mist
And I play a saxophone sometimes
And like all saxophones, it sounds
like a nightingale in a lonely valley
But wherever I go and whatever
I do, I drag my purple self with me
Like the moon dragging the violet
clouds at midnight…

Perhaps someday I will smash
all the mirrors
Perhaps someday I will stop smiling
But till then I plan to keep myself
entertained with all the treasures
I have dug out of life –
the dearest among them being happiness
Well, I guess that’s what living is all about

"Conversations with the Executioner" or "Self Negation"

Poet?
No, just an old fashioned hypocrite
Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius
Let him have it then !
Acta est fabula, plaudite, plaudite…
But what’s the point?
He waited, so did she
Who there chants in my ears?
Believe in epitaphs?
Don’t turn the lights off, please!
Sad memories of childhood?
No, just a façade to hide behind
Any unfulfilled ambitions?
Next question please
Sighs? Tears?
By Jove, what are those things?
You seem to be drowning, old pal
No, no, just escaping the mirrors
Shall there be no faces to smile at?
That’s entirely upto you
And who shall join the procession?
None, except my own mocking selves
Any last wishes?
Here lies a presumptuous fly
trapped in amber for five
thousand years, pretending
to be alive
Set it free…set it free...

Odyssey, Nocturn

The day doesn’t have any wonders

It’s the night – that fades
like skeletal nuclear stones with
the rendezvous of the falling stars …

It’s the night – that withers away
like dry pages of the book of apostrophes
with the running paradigm of the clocks
that show the mortality of desires …

It’s the night – that dilutes through
the test-tube womb of the mother
of destiny with the trembling ethos
of the long-lost dungeons of despairing
happiness …

It’s the night – that disappears
like the misty grey purple covering
the blind God in his heavenly light
with the empty multitude of the
absurd dawn …

It’s that passing night that brings
me closer to the silent image that
resides across the empty canvas
of my evanescent eternity

An Ode to My Ego

And now I shall write the poetry
of dreary solitudes and windshaken
twilights

For the windowpanes are singing
the song of the drowning man
in death- whispers

For the leaves are shed,
and the sinuous tree is naked
in its faithless belief

For the keys of the piano
hide wounds of mortal love
and wrap the agony up
in the feigned ecstacy of harmony

For the silent machineguns are singing
the song of the lifeless mannequin
with the rhythmic silence
of the stone-drunk corridors
in echoes of lost words
meant to be spoken everafter

For I have found out that the fire
purifies my words by turning them
into ashes and smoke

For I have been deaf and mute
since the time time was born

For my naked fingers dance
with the drumbeats of the
soundless carnival hanging
from the cocktail waves
of the mocking-bird’s plume

For the nightingale becomes silent
after singing out once

For I am tired, tired, chasing
parched mirages, cracked images
and blue lights

For I have been waiting in vain
for the wind to erode these
cold dead rocks away

For the eyes of dead fishes
swim around the alter of
my dreamless quintessence
and the currents meet
under the seven-sea-waters

For my tears have forsaken me
and I am left with this…this
vast desert where I have been
ordained to raise a garden
of the first Green

And hence, my friends, I lay down
my wreath of cactus flowers
at the feet of the trembling despair
of the approaching evanscence
of the three infallible hands
of my wallclock

It’s half past four in the morning