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Fourteen paces apart
They stood face to face
The place was Belvedere
In death’s close embrace!

It was morn at half past five
Air thick in rivalry
On stake was hung two life
They were bitter enemy!

As it lies all evil’s root
False ego and vain pride
Squabble and dispute
Demons men can’t hide!

That hour was eerily lull
Birds stopped to chirp in trees
As glistened the two pistols
And none could afford to miss!

Damp was the August clime
Time perched on rested wing
Zeroed in the scheduled time
Broke out the starter’s ring!

Francis fired first
But preordained was fate
Though loud went the burst
He badly missed target!

Pierced his powder’s stings
This time was there no miss
Found his mark Hastings
Fell to the ground Francis!

He muttered I’m a dead man
Hastings ran to the spot
Uttering as he ran
Good God I hope not!

The day turned golden bright
Mist of smoke dispersed
Revealed the glorious sight
How his enemy Hastings nursed!
In August 17, 1780, the then Governor General of Bengal Warren Hastings fought a duel at a site near Belvedere, Alipore, Kolkata with Philip Francis, a Council Member to settle their personal enmities and disputes.
Ever so silent in pain
Dour in death’s anguish
Called dumb by us men
To have their strength I wish.
Dumb yes without a remedial mean
No succor for them no medicine
In my backyard under open sky
These mute little fluffs quietly die.
I feel remorse a passing penitence
To have never been able to bridge the distance
Act in time for the help of a vat
Can’t count my humaneness, it’s just a poor cat.
Poor yes but with a strength underneath
To brace death the way they do
Uncomplaining till their last breath
Leaving me a lesson or two!
The mother and child
In strength with us no match
Fading remnants of the wild
Struggling on the last green patch.
Eat baby you have to grow fast
Sometime more in the marsh roam
Before you fall prey to our lust
Before fast disappears your home.
Vanishing sure and quick their green
From god each day they borrow
For fighting a battle they can’t win
For a space that won’t be there tomorrow.
When they take the last bow
These birds from their shy nook
Them our children would know
From the pages of history book.
the vanishing water hens from the shrinking marshland around my home
Dark night, dumb fright, furry foxes howl
Shy moon, hides soon, barn owls sharply call
In thickets, chirp crickets, mew nervous cats
Above meadows, paint shadows, low flying bats.

From soiled bones, rise the moans, of souls buried deep
Clothed white, in low skylight, you hear a spectre weep
The cottage light, now out of sight, the dark is denser still
You want to run, to safe someone, but frozen is freewill.

A few furlong, but seems so long, now turning back
Your heavy feet, can't do the feat, finding the right track
You can't run, you'll be outdone, and it's not a myth
When you move too far, break the bar, winds stop their breath.

The hood of dark, makes its mark, you're nomore seen
It's too late, to change the fate, not let the fear win
You forget fright, dive into night, it's turned a good game
A foxlike howl, a hooting owl, you're happily one of them.
I strolled to the park after a long time
In between passed some seasons
Hunted there for meaningful rhymes
Give the ink’s flow some reasons!

The place didn’t look exactly like before
The trees seemed to grow taller dark
The buds had flowered fruits now they bore
New lovers had arrived in the park!

The faces I knew were not passing by
The poets the revelers and the crooks
A despair grew I let off a sigh
Had disappeared my frequented nooks!

Old pairs were gone surfaced new teens
Wind carried raw mango’s scent
Mowers had changed known faces of greens
With only a few seasons spent!

Nests up the trees were clearly redone
Peeked out from them new pairs
Children that came to the park for fun
Had must now grown long hairs!

I searched the park from the seasons rolled
And when I reached her quiet stream
My face told me though I had grown old
remained clung to all the past’s dream!
A time was when
Nothing short of my deepest ******
Once and then many times more
Would satiate me

Then quietly crept between us
The hiatus

When I learned new ways to play
Chanced on a week a golden day
Then over a month or more

I had found the key to the secret door.

Now at the most heightened end of the affair
Satiates me a strand of her hair!
You could not ask for,
And I dared not offer you,
the small inglorious flower of cactus.
Instead I brought you tulips and roses,
to fill our lives with transient happiness.
In the darkness we hid our face.
Thus passed years,
Times we shed silent tears,
For having not dared the most precious -
A small inglorious flower of cactus!
November mist wraps a wet blanket
as I walk the falling day’s labyrinth
beneath neuronic trees of a waking forest
along a river dying in hyacinth!

the boatman sings a home going song
floats happy at the end of the ride
the river is narrow a few furlong
and his home is on the other side!

oil lamps flicker from the bank huts
winds carry their laughter and cries
grow darker tree barks as darkness shuts
all but the sky’s heavy sighs!

I hasten to escape this melancholic gloam
an alien in this forbidding night
the boatman must have reached his home
and the river is lulled in starlight!
Hovers ever so thinly in the air
a frail woman the fragile December
With the burden of building on the gone by's residue
New times beckoning in the year that is due.

A perpetual question haunts the December
What for to look back what to remember
From all the treasures scattered on her miles
Heartbreaks and sighs friendships and smiles.

Come floating in her eyes scenes of happiness
Blurred by grieving tears that knew no redress
Hearts aiming high but dying in no gain
Aspirations withered dreams cruelly slain.

December she knows times will have her shred
She has to take the call snap the last thread
And before her fall she is destined to ferry
All shades of tints to pass on to January.
A friend is a safe shoulder
to rest your head on
an assurance a sweet reminder
you are not alone.

A friend is a hand to hold
on stormy seas a guide
a commitment writ in bold
to be ever on your side.

A friend is a treasure store
a precious find to keep
forever ready on your shore
with his sparkling ship.

Friendship is the greatest need
to lift the spirit high
and who for that would sow the seed
if not you and I.
Happy Friendship Day to all the poets of HP.
The plump moon lights up my room.

My mind is now a flat graph
no desire no lust no dream

the cold winds from the rumbling sea
make no dent on me
I look at my palms
and see the cracked floor
gnarled roots of mangrove on the wall
blend seamlessly with all I have
like once I had her in this room
love together
taking wingless flight to the moon
but now I more like sitting here
prospecting no words to rhyme
not angered at the blankness
for in this vacuous moonlight
I wait without a hope of gain
without a despair of loss
unconstrained for time
contoured by fireflies
alone
recounting a new beginning
from the end.
Declared at last the choice
Disperses the mist
No more blaring noise
Hangs there the list!

Foes made so are made friends
Flow in bursts of congrats
There’s no making amends
It’s either bouquets or brickbats!

The winners they must rejoice
The losers there surely is none
If something went wrong with the choice
Take it as life’s another fun!

It’s bidding for vote could be a coin’s toss
To determine who could garner more popularity
Whatever, must not suffer loss,
Poetry, for that would be such pity!
when the winner by popular vote is declared
she plays cat's side
i of the mouse
there ain't a place to hide
in my small house!

knows she the places
she can hunt me
knows all the traces
of where to find me!

she knows where to look
easily can guess
my favorite nook
below staircase!

it isn't hard to seek
knows where to raid
dimly lit attic
below bedstead!

merrily play in bliss
in the small house
end the game with kiss
the cat and the mouse!
She looks at me with that ***** youthful smile
Happy to be hunted out in daylight
From her permanent abode in the treasure box
Fully enjoying the remorse shimmering my eyesight!

She looks unreal like an alien from a land too far
Frozen in that mocking smile in prime’s full vigor
Proud to have made her place in forever love’s mime
Occupying a chunk of me a part of space time!

A wave of desire passes through me bleeds anew the scar
I let her go couldn’t possess her **** I still love her
Or is it that lump of fire still burns alive inside
That years cannot extinguish time’s layers cannot hide!

She lives there in full moon’s glory right beside me
Shining light of a dead star in old album a galaxy
That in June sky on the meridian waits for my eyes
Wakes with the grass flower blooms with the sunrise!

Young lovers I beg of you once you love never dither
Before summers pass you by come winter the leaves wither
Hold hands tight not let them go travel in love that far
Where you rue not like me in blurred eyes **** I still love her!
in that lane least trod
by light glaring broad
up the window evergreen
never outgrowing her teen
shaking waves of her curl
waves merrily the girl

a little bit surprised
i look deep in her eyes
and oh what a joy
find there a wonder boy!
The easiest way to the heart of a woman
is tea-sing her.

Make her a tea
Sing her a song
And yours she would be
For lifelong!

If you think I fable

See me making that
At the tea table.
Each goods is hundred rupees
Screams the mobile street vendor

Doing perfect justice to his sale
Each item weighed in the same scale!

It doesn’t matter if it’s plastic or steel
A *** of water or a kitchen utensil
No gloom of loss or elation in gain
Each hundred rupees and no bargain!

There’s no item without a use
For each one is an excuse
Would not rust with time nor would stale
Made in strong mould weighed in same scale!*

The mobile street vendor goes door to door
For hundred rupees one couldn’t have it more
The wisest man with his wares of justice
Brings to all hearts good bargain’s peace!
I felt the transience
when the blue-green sea
sprayed me golden,
and there on the shallow reef
I sank in the sifting sands!
Above me towered trees
sculpted on the shore
for years not known
rooted to the copper-bronze landscape!
Awed yet knowing,
my intrusion into this art,
I dreamed to turn
a gravel on the beach!
Since when
we have agreed
to agree all the time?
Set your aim well
narrow your eyes to see
where hatreds dwell.

It's everywhere in the land
with guns in our hand
we are fighting a war
brother against brother
a battle without cessation
nation against nation
settle with the bullet
more right is which faith
decide with gunfire
which race is placed higher
for centuries the same story
battles make bulk history.

Races raged cities burned
but we never learn
to build one world city
one humanity
only aim further well
narrow our eyes to see
where differences dwell.
The feeling I got when I held and aimed the gun.
(Cover photo)
Time is running out and what a heck
A few moments from now, they'll break my neck.
A shiver down my spine, I'll be no more
The noose is ready, and so is trapdoor.
Here they come, for my last statement
Going through rituals, it's my predicament.
Someone asked if I would make a will
What I would like to have for last meal.
I'm so scared, dimmer gets the light
There's no way I can have an appetite.
My head is jumbled, my thoughts in a mess
The hangman is ready, they give me my dress.
My feet are so heavy, it's hard to stand
Not wasting time, they drag me by hand.
The gallows looks ominous, I'm dead pale
Just a few steps and I'll be in hell.
The world is so alive, I'm in no mood
They pinion me tight, put on the hood.
The lever goes bang, tightens the noose....




Down I go, hang limp and loose.
In unity should life be spent
Brotherly, sober, benevolent
Making live let live the testament
Remaining ever non-violent!


The lesson above is mine hard learned
Cats in my house their ahimsa be darned
Not exert once in hunting prey
Let roach and mouse grow by each day!

They have too keen a poetic sense
Don’t maul the mice suffer them pains
Believe in peaceful coexistence
Keep from the prey a safe distance!

Mice no more in fear run by
For with such cats no chance to die
They look thankful with cats so good
Making our home a friendly neighborhood!

I find it a wonder it baffles me
How cats find mice cute friendly
Shun bloodshed make idle claw
Keep blissfully wrong side of law!
While the raging fire burns down the earth
I cocoon myself beside an imaginary hearth
Dreaming of rains to douse the fire
‘It won’t be there’, my hopes aspire!
While the tides sweep lives away
I imagine I can forever stay
Hidden from the tongues in lashing motion
Beneath a placid and protective ocean!
While the storm roars and the gale hisses
I pray for God’s grace and good wishes
To save me come what season
‘I must live whatever the reason’!
Living thus in an imaginary land
Building castle in the drifting sand
I turn a ***** selfish and mean
A hollow nothing beyond bone and skin!
Just some walls
doors windows
moonless roof

mute aloof!

Close at hand
reach not found
drifting island

melting ground!

Drawn curtain
dark grey shade
hiding pain

of un-warmed bed!

Rich in style
no substance
rings no smile

sings distance!

No goodbyes
no welcome
dim-lit eyes

echo glum!

It’s so easy
to be a family
but they forgot
what a house is not!
The dream hangs heavy in the air,
Heavier still is the burden on his back,
The child trudges along the dusty road
His mother in tow –
The sun rises and sets on him
A child, a boy, a man
The burden shifting between the back and the heart!
They try desperately to reach out to light,
Before the darkness wears them out.
Did there a shadow move
a stealthy feet
upon darkening bush?

The deer's woof
races heartbeat
before silence
closes like noose.

Will the pool
that beams the moon
draw a trunk
to the lure of cool?

And upon the wind
without a word
was it a streak
of a passing leopard?

The peacock cries
you're close to the ground
presence is aloud
in the slightest sound.

The jungle glows
in silver light
there are eyes
that spot you right.
Dooars
They go around rag-clothed filthy
Born in the gutter trampled in dirt
No expectations no tomorrow
A population of the living dead!
There are more of them on this soil
Than the ones on whose mercy they live
Yet they're aliens to their own kin
Alike only in their human form!
Still you ask me to believe in god
Believe that justice reigns in his abode
Believe in an order amidst all the mess
Believe that everything happens by god's grace!
Hurrying to my work in the untimely shower
Caught my ears the mews but it was rush hour
Must be another kitten born with no luck
Abandoned in the shrub dying on sidewalk!

The day soon rubbed off the mews from my mind
Till my feet trudged home leaving the drudge behind
Once upon that sidewalk in twilight’s grayish hues
I heard it from neath of grass pain’s plaintive mews!

Must be an angel possessed me I did find it out
Picked up took home put warm milk into its mouth
My lady unpleased said our hands are already full
Here you bring another like you isn’t another fool!

But she was the first one to make it a cosy bed
She was the one worrying how it to be properly fed
Yet filled the air its agony’s mews all day and night
She said your taking it here wasn’t all that right!

Its ma must have left the baby in the bush safely hiding
Picking up and taking it home was quite a wrong thing
She must be now crying wild searching everywhere
The baby wouldn’t stop crying till getting back mother!

So the cute kitten I placed back in the hideout on sidewalk
With the prayer it gets back ma wishing it good luck
Leaving it with heavy heart I walked away for day’s work
Sighed the silent sidewalk on my way home after dark!
sometimes the dividing line between wrong and right is too thin.
If only I had loved more
than write about it!
From the deepest alley
I dust out the album.
Faces that look out
Seem distant and alien,
Selves that yearn no more,
A time that cares no more.
My wife prettily raw,
Our son of a new world,
The cat with wondrous eyes,
Gone before I could touch them.
On each frame pose shapes
Frozen ageless happy
With nothing but the present
Radiating a forever goodness
Breaking through dusty ages
To stand here now in my eyes.
I feel a pain well up in me
And before my eyes gather mist,
I put back the album
In the deepest alley of my heart.
From the honks of cars and smell of fumes
I slip into a small green patch
with birds and their wafting plumes,
moments I would die to catch!
A calm that filtered the noise
let me listen to the rustling leaves,
the birds' chirping and such joys,
in their briefness the heart grieves!
As they frolic and in air dance,
I softly trudge as an alien,
one who is there perchance,
and can't for long remain!
over death we ponder too much
or none at all
but not upon the landmark most difficult to touch

living life well.

am i living my life well?

no, money can't help achieve
nor a good career of success

you know it too well not to believe
they do any better than robbing happiness.

then is it a nice wife and a loving family
kids to hug, comfort you generously?

no, not really, they still aren't enough to ensure
fullness of life as may only briefly endure.

then what is it that makes life lived well

a good sleep to tide the night
a roof over to dwell?

doing just what you like or minding the other's wish
let your desires run wild or hold them under leash?

to me it's a mystery getting answer to which I fail
the parameters of a life, having lived thoroughly well.

but over time I've realized, deep in, its echoes ring,

living life well has a lot to do
with being contented with smallest thing.
If you pause awhile and look into their eyes
You would find sadness tinged with surprise
These sentinels of trust, with themselves at peace,
Need your love a little, but you hardly notice.
None really knows what goes on in their head
As they forage in the dirt for a crumb of bread
If they chance upon a scrap in a dingy by-lane
They wag gratefully in the shadow of men.
Food is so scarce though so often they waste
The men are too miserly to share with the rest
Yet they bear no malice as they flock the dustbin
These loyal creatures never know how to be mean.
Today on the street if you see one of them
Don’t just pass by its emaciated frame
Ignore not and notice, it’s there on the street
Waiting for your love in the dust and heat!
Stop awhile and look deep into its eyes
Step out of the shadow and reach it sunrise
See how it returns the love you warmly lend
And rewards you with truly a lifelong friend!
I am borrowing from you everyday
I am over head and ears in debt
Is there no way I can repay
Or I leave you with an empty slate!
O there is so much I can do
Cheer a heart bring a smile or two
Reach out to where I could
To do this world a little good!
A little of me I left in mother’s womb
A little I left in her heart
And now that’s gone with her in the tomb
I feel it’s no more my part!
A little of me I planted in dad
A little I left in his eyes
I wonder now if I ever had
What’s gone when he closed his eyes!
A little of me I left in first love
A little I left in her mind
Flew away with time that little dove
With what I’ll never again find!
A disintegrated me is what I’m now
With so many pieces lost on the way
But truly I know, I can avow
A little would survive and stay!
Days are busy, so are the nights
with endless struggles, clashes and fights
time ticks away, quietly flows the tide
pining for love and one joyous ride.

Days are busy, so are the nights
a little pause would have taken
happiness to great heights.
I waited for the poetry to come to my life.
Meanwhile the spring came and went
Flowers blossomed and wilted
Fragrance lingered and melted in air
Autumn brought a golden azure sky
Winter came from faraway land.
They all tried to stir my soul.
Poetry was all along there in my life!
Today I am doing everything for myself.
I am feeding the stray birds and animals
Giving alms to the stretched hands on my door
Watering the sun-perched plants and saplings
Helping the blind man to cross to the other side
Picking up things from ground for her
Plucking flowers for her dark scented hair
Offering the seat in the bus to the old man
Acting friendly with all at office and home
Teaching a child to learn alphabets
Pointing at the constellations in the night sky
Telling her stories at dinner and wishing sweet dreams…
So much I have done for others,
And so much more for myself!
Dishes served full are well laid on the table
prawns are glittering adornments
though only yesterday
their tentacles were tasting the river
not knowing they would be in another water
in the river of saliva
grinded and pulped for a tasty moksha.

The rain falls unabated from last night.

Who'll go out to feed?, asks a voice.

Does never being hungry feel the same stress
as being hungry most of the time?

The answer is in the clouded eyes
watching the eyes
joyful for one more chance.
Today I didn’t see those ever-so-close couple.
In the lonely forenoons
When you could hear the leaves fall
They were there
Like two devoted doves
Whispering in each other’s ears
The wonderful nonsense
Only lovers can indulge in.
Then they laughed like rustling leaves
Drowned in their own twitting
Without caring a fig for my presence.
But today was the day
When wrapped in my own aloofness
Walking alone in the rain
I sought those two.
Like the empty bench
I missed those tweeting two
Warming up a desolate space,
Scared they’re lost in life’s aridness.
For a long time I’m alone, a long time
Other than the birds on my window
Tweeting their melodious rhyme
Or the pussycats warm and sweet
Licking my hands, cuddling my feet!
I’m alone with the sky that seems so far
Alone with the stories the winds whisper
The broken pieces of sunlight
That dance on the leaves
I’m alone with the rainbow the sky for me weaves!
When the day dawns, a dark liquid
Yet to be grown, yet to be read
I’m alone with the dewy darkness
Alone with the hope that’s born on my face!
Sixteen's glow
now the river's flow
I love to swim

tepid and soft
she holds me aloft
I float on moonbeam.

Love to hold close
snuggle my nose
between her *******

they aren't as high
but I mustn't lie
found no better rests.

No way I would hide
if not by my side
life feels a dull stuff

the unwritten rule
is she makes me full
so I'm never half.

By a simple glance
in a million one chance
we happened to meet

love I wouldn't call
not to make small
this undying habit.
If you have to be at a loss

be it fat.
Obesity breeds life diminishing diseases and needs to be fought with determination.
I don't mean to offend.
We never wrote here your name
Lost ourselves in the rush
Because maybe we remained the same
Love never changed us.
We never looked deep enough
Got stuck on your face
Because maybe your flirtatious laugh
We construed as happiness.
We never really got to your heart
Captivating was your lip
Because maybe we never made a start
The surface was all we could keep.
There was so much that we never did
Busy as we were in the game
Because maybe we didn't want to read
And write in our heart your name.
I had told you about Hengloo
I was fond of feeding him
he was fond of me.

I had told you too
Come Saturdays
returns the pain
of not seeing those waiting eyes.

Now you ask me
why I write these all over again?

For at the grocer's
came a brown cow
his dangling head
his storm-cloud eyes
signing to me
feed me
I too am hungry.

So this Wednesday evening
with my socks still worn
a love is born.

I hear a voice say
Here I send a new friend
find me in him.

My socks still worn
I dip my hand
deep into
to find more friends...

Saturday is just three days away.
A for apple B for ball
You're cute baby beautifully small
C for cat D for doll
You baby is the sweetest of all
E for egg F for fish
Baby you're my fulfilled wish
G for goose H for hen
I look at you baby forget all pain
I for ink J for jar
You're baby my brightest star
K for kite L for leaf
Baby you're my strongest belief
M for milk N for nose
You're baby more fragrant than rose
O for owl P for pea
Baby your smile makes me happy
Q for queen R for rain
You're baby my richest gain
S for sun T for toy
Baby you're precious be girl or boy
U for umbrella V for van
Loving you baby is all I can
W for wool X for xylophone
With you baby I feel never alone
Y for yak Z for zoo
Rule my heart baby only you
A childish poem, for Lady RF, prompted by my comment on her poem Tree House.
A B C D E F G
for my own comfort I’m busy
H I J K L M N
I give a **** for others’ pain
O P Q R S T U
‘I’ is more valuable than ‘YOU’
V W X Y Z
but the world is not just for me made
A C E G I K M
if I a little differently aim
B D F H J L N
not just live for my own gain
C E G I K M O
but care for the other fellow
D F H J L N P
feel good when the other is happy
E G I K M O Q
not just mind ‘I’ but mind ‘YOU’
F H J L N P R
know how precious also you are
G I K M O Q S
and love to see your smiling face
H J L N P R T
share this world you and me
I K M O Q S U
its wealth and beauty ‘I’ and ‘YOU’
J L N P R T V
love all life as I love me
K M O Q S U W
give each one what is its due
L N P R T V X
thus save me from the ‘I’ complex
M O Q S U W Y
to take my life to a new high
N P R T V X Z
where I can hold high my head
in a world that’s not just for me made.
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