Seen it somewhere
a coiled snake
fanning for thirst
and respite
behind the fluttering
wind had stories to tell
in a cyclonic storm

This is being on a verge
not a void
void is not verge
but sitting on a hedge
or on a languishing hill
I tether, get gooseberries.

All outside is loneliness.

I cower before the ordinary
the extraordinary, the effete.
and the gorgeous. Cowering
is matter of fact
heart and tact.
I cower before the mighty
the Almighty
the mammal and the animal
cowerinng is a way of life
full of rife.
We all cower.

I cower in front of the altar
walk the ways of the Tartar
cowering is a way of life.
full of rife, full of rife.

You want a country to return to the past?
You won't get it.
What you will get is debris
and mounds of earth
soaked in blood and tears.

You want a free country?
You will get a country ensnared by primitivism
and gory shades of belief
the wind and rains, smell of blood and medicines.
In Hospital.

You want a country to speak of secularism?
You will get benightedness and worrying things
like high blood pressure and heart attack.
Bury the wind, the smells and sounds.
Bury the hiatus- fugitive truth.
Break utterances, break the truth
shackle the mortal spirit. Please.

Now my country is in hospital
now in the ICU
doctors are on prolonged strike.
What will happen if the country
dies?

In this festive season
the goddess has embarked upon a new task.
How can she redeem this country from a war
of hatred. And a war to campaign for the ever
so elusive peace. The goddess with her cohorts
is ready for an onslaught against doers of evil.
She is now an embattled witness to the myriad
devils hidden in society.She will not only attack
demons, but human beings who have petrified
her with their demands of a racist ridden country
where history is frantically re written.

Yes I know that whatever you have said
is the truth
the unblemished truth
truth of categories
truth of untruths
so I walk ways that are the same
for I am a votary of truths
I am your acolyte, want to be poisoned
by your truths. I want to dive nose
into your world
of poisonous, venomous truths.
And then the coiled snake will bite
into your truths-
and mine!

Now it is not a question of wanting
what the dead wants
or the slum dweller
it is not a question of poverty
it is that of living, on the bedrock
of what we call living.

Mount your ways, of sordid expressions
clamp down on them, with a heavy heavy hand
beat them till they pant- for breath
set goons and police after them.

It is a question of living. Call the living
invoke the dead, create paltry fires of death.

It is a question of living.

The warmth of summer in this town lingers
like the smell of damp places or dank houses
but I have grown to love this syndrome.
What do you do when you don't love
do you hate?
The smell of summer seasons beats the rain
which can appear any time. But the clouds disappear
with alacrity, and old wounds fester.

Nearby the mighty river bears fangs- sometimes
otherwise it can be as lukewarm as water, but it has
an ancient past, and when the monsoons strike terror
it plants a mysterious death wish.The people in the villages
know it, and the river island also feels its breath, cover for love.

The days of childhood are over, but this moment
reminiscences like these will talk. Will speak.

And I will weave once again dreams.

There is sadness when the poem does not appear
on print. The sadness outgrows the present
and escapes drudgery.

There is sadness when silences of evenings
weigh heavily on times that are hurt.
Hurt because of what is happening.
What? When a child sees the dead of a road
is swallowed by breathing water.

There is sadness when a country re writes history
indefatigibly, unerroneously. A country which shares
burden of colonial discontent.

There is sadness when a friend's jealous looks at mine
when the poem is finally published.

The poem is actually published.
Sadness persists in aftermath.

Summer greys have disappeared
taut silence, heavy tighrope walking.
Autumn's charms are here and winter
serenades. Down the abyss a little bird
is hopping mad, and a country held at ransom.
****. Blood's lust slowly takes over silences of past.

Don't abrogate freedom, don't. Country of disdainful
dreams, let us perish before you do. Angels will lament.

Evening's soul rests on dark, light, shades
even as shadows fall on streets
even as the drunk starts ululating.
Evening has a soul, and in it impinges
past.

In Evenings I just want thoughts to saunter.
Nascent. And in evening the ghoul starts talking
and the owl serenading. Dogs and ******* give moaning
catcalls, to signify their presence, that they are living
like me and you.

Evenings do a turn around as darkness spreads
into my body. I weave unbecoming fantasies.
Taking a blank paper for my mind to write.

Evening stares at philosophy, monotony
and rush of vehicles stampede thoughts.

Evenings go berserk with street lights
and quiet bonhomie.

Legerdemain with words you are poet
but you are blind to the blood, or the Middle East
Storm. You write of your love, but not love of a beleagured
cosmos.
You are frivolous in many ways, publish or perish is your
encrypted symbol or motto.
You smell the whiff of flowers and write a poem
not blood. You lap up what is shown in television
and ape the developed, shopping malls and the Prime
Minister's latest philosophy. So you will do anything '
to attend a lit fest, won't you? Yes, I did it, but now the ephemera
of events bore me. But secretly I tell you given the chance,
I will attend, so that my washy face appears on television.

Poet, I will tell you one thing.
There is no point in writing if it doesn't
move the wind, the trees and charlatans.
Don't expect rewards. Look for awards
by hobnobbing and then protest. It is very simple.
People like protests, especially from poets and writers.

Do some homework. Go back to school
and take teaching lessons.

Reading poems is the way of discovering
that people  write for fun, they write of
the very things that you think preposterous.
They write of love, and you write of hate.
Poetry is in many ways charade of indiscipline,
even gross indignity. Gives you joy rides and goose
bumps. Why do people write- poetry?
I deliberate and out of it curse people, write a poem
send it for publication. The laptop creaks. The editor whines
when flooded by my irksome mails.

In the streets of the city, and there are plenty, I see a rag picker.
I see the *****.
I see the blinded with begging bowl, but singing. Chanting.
I see barely seven or eight a child pleading for coins and mercy.
I stalk away. Walk away. My hauteur a new demeanour.

Why do people write- poetry?

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.