Saturday, October 29, 2011

Autumn Sonata


Hands unextended
Cringe,
Beneath the weight
Of that still second
And gape at the void
Where meanings are jumbled in pain.

I’ve stuttered in halls of sepia-coloured pics
And peeped beyond edges that are frayed.

Crouched in the hollows I hear
Echoes of yellow in green,
And measure in an incomplete scale
Topos of absence and loss.

Monday, October 24, 2011

The Dark Passenger


Rocked in the tremors of night
I glance
And shiver at the shadow
That pulls those oars,
And battles with waves,
Steeled among pillars of roars.

~Do I steer or drown?~

Shackled in rings of fissures
I strive
And jab at his jaws
Or dope him into ropes
And count for the punch that’ll knock
Half of my horror into light.

[Written in the Puente form, as explained at the Mini-Challenge for Sunday at Real Toads]

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Epilogue of Abinash C. Halder

'I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be'
                                              - T.S.Eliot    

Glimpsed in the strips of light
That creep
And plate into corners as
Twilight julienne,
I've caught that scent
Of times that have seeped
And trickled through my fingers in vain.

I've fired my shots
And tried my spears
And gambled with harpoon in sling -
Drowned in the ocean
Of dried brown hours
These, my cultivated weeds that sprawl
And cover my walls of silence in gloom.

Trimmed with sounds
Of neighbours in soaps
And deafened with bombarded ads
I slouch in the couch
And text Ross and Guil
And lock my Denmark of Shame.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Stars That'll Constellate in Hope

Throbbing on the waves
Of silence of night
I pierce into dark
And search for my stars
But clash instead
With comets of loss
That hurtle my being
Into orbits of doubt,
Flung beyond telescopic gaze.

The streets now surge
And storm into rage
And claim their futures 
From coffers of fraud.

Sealed into chambers of shuttles of self
I gaze beyond windows and long
To plunge into streets and fuse
With stars that'll constellate in hope.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Vacation

Lost in cushions of acres of grass
I find my voice in streams that ripple
And winds that rush
Through forests of teak
And soar with cranes to realms of blue,
Dappled with petals of peace.

Shorn of the clamours of routine and tasks,
Tuned into crickets as fireflies dance,
I soak in with leaves my unhurried sun
And bask in the silence that sheds
This, my week-long isle from stress.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

My Roots have Branched beyond Lines


My roots have branched beyond lines.
Creeping in peace beyond Kolkata and desh*,
I’ve locked my heart in tendrils of love
That blossom through my texts
Of Shakespeare and Keats
And beckon my being
To Boston and Rome,
For I might travel, with Eliot and Pound
And sing with Heaney and Faiz
Ghazals of loss and newly fashioned hope
That branch beyond lines and soar to the sky
And splatter in a canopy of light.

Spilled beyond boxes of bureaucratic forms,
Mine is the uncompassed sail into storms.



* A Bengali word meaning land/country.