I wake up to this morning of tepid sun
winter's shudder has arrived, the storm
has abated. Rains peek mildly through
frozen clouds. I waver between leaving
the bed and getting ready.
All desultory.

Morning's voices speculate.
The rush for getting to school is over.
Some late comers, goers. There is movement
all around.

Inside the house, a poem calls.
Taking a pen I frantically search pages of love,
hate, passions. The ogre of silence haunts this house.
The domestic help shouts, asks me to take a bath.

I will wash myself   in absolutism and sins.

I take the turn into a country
I don't understand,
I understand history though
and how through corridors of time
people  found breathing space. I take this turn
and learn bit by bit history.

Invaders came, they rested breathed its fire
its lust and its homes covered by ornate palaces.
There were love stories as well,
dynastic rulers, fratricide and battles
I can hear those gunshots and while travelling
by train once in Haldighat, the battle field splashed
with blood, mine yours, of a country.

History, the word shakes contours of being.
The word turns around
and asks:

Is this me,  the country?

In mists  the bird hovers
suppose it drops down dead?
who will mourn?
somewhere in mists are tears, blood
and soaring skies can actually mourn.
We will not.

In mists the hills look perfect.
Position yourself, see such perfection.
In mists winter and autumn calls
echo the whatever. Stones, pebbles
breathe life into these hills on which
I have been bred, fed.

Take a walk across dreams
then water in streams will ripple
birds laugh.

I have been expressive in words
people call me taciturn, so I am
legerdemain. Words callow I manipulate.
I am the adroit teaser of and with words.
I am importunate loser when words summon
hate or a fear.

You sit unerringly on the border of words.
You write and your writing haunts into strange
dreams of oblivion. Your words impinge upon
senses and soul and I exclaim: what is poetry?
the poem unfurls in corridors, dank and soulless.
What soul does poetry have?
Narrative blindness. Words express movements,
in time's warp. Clouded thoughts, one day the exuberant
poem will die.

The hills are quiet, meditating
when will it rain?
the cyclonic storm in a neighbouring
area has abated.
When?
Sun kissed hills you wait for fervour
even though you know soon, soon
it will be winter.
And streams will clear
with everything you hold dear
in the summer storm you see how
rains shackle men, women and summer time
wishes. How rains storm the hills uprooting
trees, houses and flood homes.
How people die.
How the government doles out some money
and platitudes. How in a neighbouring place
the thirsty river swallows.

But winter will come
and pine trees will shade hurt
and in the mornings  winter
finds a home in hearts.

It is anachronistic
doesn't know time or meaning.
It has wings to fly, teeth to bite.
It has flesh, but it belongs to me.
It lies dormant at times, awakens
when words crowd its being.
In infinite spaces it climbs and I
am its willing soul. My poem, heartache
do you spout the nonsense of today? Look
at the world, demented creatures are flooded
by time and merciless wish fulfilment.
Do you know Iraq or Syria, the Middle East
the Middle West?

Come, we can seek the world which does not exist here
in faraway moons, where only a poem sits on top of
the crescent mountain. Waves there will not torment
but will break shores in worded meanings of rhythm.

Rains cover   infinite glory
                     in their eyes  I see the gory

blood red axe on my neck

they seem to sing eternity.Rains forever come and go. In the ways they talk I must. Go.
Next year they will come I know washing these hills, as we lie supinely doted, in these hills that are coated with colours, demystifying sounds and odours of living.
   Hills stunted, hills demented, hills whose off spring unknown, give away fashionable truths. I live in their midst.
Their colours, traffic, people come and go. I must.