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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.