Thoughts spin softly toward the unsayable Impossible to resist like the city's dark glamour or a wicked woman's kiss
Each turn of her face an eclipse giving birth
Each cigarette a torch held high
Only to have died all gorgeous and sad
As the city and abyss stare each other down

glitter
sparkle
glow
the surface of
a star-shape
night
i know

A poem dedicated to all true lovers of Jazz.

TRIBUTE TO JAZZ MUSIC
      BY RAJ NANDY
I can feel its rhythm and beat,
Along with its pulsating pain!
Its music flows freely….
Through my arteries and veins!
Its beats always echoes,
Through the corridors of my mind,
As I get wafted slowly, on the wings
of mystic time!
Its music gets synchronized,
With my heart’s muffled beat,
As I try to keep time, -
With the tapping of my feet!
Each of its pulsating rhythm,
And all its background chimes,
With its syncopated lilts,
Jazz remains harmonized!

The piano players dancing fingers,
Caresses a rhythmic sway,
While the Sax’s deep-throated tenor,
Drives my loneliness away!
When I hear my old Jazz music,
And those golden classic tunes,
I forget I am getting old,
To time I become immune!
For it is then when I begin to feel,  
like the old King Cole;
As this music tingles my mind,
and rejuvenates my soul!
           - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

What? Are you HERE?*
She's on her phone, waiting for her suitcase.
Girlfriend, I live twenty minutes away from the

Airport. Now get your luggage and run out
Here before your roses start
Stinking.

She's through the arrival gates in five minutes.
Swapping flowers for bags and a kiss,
I cannot for my own life grasp

Her surprise. Not used to being treated
Like a woman?
She smells her roses, fresh from 7-11,

Click-clackety-clacking down the airport
Tiles with less to carry than
Ever, this day.

She answers, and I
Feel so ****
Giant.

What a drawf
World it has
Become...

At the end
of the path
to the top
of the hill
through cloud
and the crowds
coming down
from it still
to the
twinkling stars
lit by
neon below
in the dusk
as a rust
coloured moon
says 'hello'
and rests
on his back
reflecting
with me
at the end
of the path
on the world
we both see.