Silence and Self

 Life is not just in bursts of noise.

It throbs within silence as well.

In sighs that are dewed in letters of love,

In incense that floats to stained opaque glass

In sketches that ripple with unceasing waves

In fragrance that wafts from an orchard in bloom

In dreams that are way beyond words.

So why then this clamour for 

Conch bell and shrieks

From those who seek refuge in pause?

Rather I'll soak the quietness of nights

When no festive howls are heard

And fuse within veins some lavender and oak

That bear the still centre of time.

Perhaps

 The effort wasn't lacking, you see.

I tried all the lessons

and danced to all tunes,

But somehow or the other

Nothing ever clicked.

Instead I am stuck  

As a bell that won't chime

A buyer without dime

A machine without time

A line that won't rhyme

And only some dollops

Of malodorous slime.

Be that as it may.

 

Perhaps this is where I'll bloom.

Boom

 I jump through the hoops and vault over poles

And trapeze in the air over moth-eaten mats

Hoping for at least some perfunctory claps

To tide over dull barren days.

But each long night new hurdles conjures,

And throwing a sack over unprepared eyes

Stuffs me in a canon and lights up the fuse

To heave my skin over gravel and thorn,

All to eke laughters from crowds.

Hobbling and stumbling with torn tattered rags

I roleplay the loon and tighten all cords

And wait for the detonating boom.

Scenes of Blight

Dry leaves waft in the lengthening shadows of day

As I gaze at the moss, the cracks 

and the walls that have all turned gray.

Here in the morass of glimmers of past

The rust on the shutters of long-locked shops

Have fused with the layers of dust.

The hoardings are down, the neon lights gone

The flags and the festoons are vanished or torn.

No crowd no light no cheer from a herd

Under these roofs will be seen or heard.

Only the walls, splintered and peeled

Will stand and witness the weather worn streets

And mourn what is missing and lost.

Such too are scenes you might find

In some human ties that bind.

Twilight Trance

The muslin twilight spreads over skin
And reawakens in pores
Some memories of falls
Blurred and worn
But fragrant with nicotine and sandalwood soap
That plays on the breeze some sonata on flute
Which chimes with the rhythm of your touch
And lulls my whole city to a sleep.

Till screams of headlines on channels intrude
And dash us into earth as we drown.

Abinash C. Halder Muses on a Suicide

When someone your age
But famous and great
Plunges in the darkness
You longed to embrace
Halt in your tracks and ponder
On life's many blessings and wonder.

Veiled in his tower
He vainly had sought
A sympathetic heart
A pat on the back.
But robbed off of succour of validation craved
He shut himself in and finally he caved.

Whatever the notions others might nurse
His voice in your veins still pulses as verse
And behind features of people you know
His shadow does lurk and sway and glow.

Bid him farewell as you cherish his smile
And don't let the world either kill or beguile.

Abinash C. Halder in Lockdown

"Mephistophilis: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris"
                                                           - Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

Inch by inch I slip into the crack
And find myself caught in the chaos that breeds
Deep within skull's Hidden caves.

Restless, enraged, it thrashes and snarls
And growls with gnashing of carnivorous teeth
That reek with the stench of all filth.

No words, no tunes no shapes can tame
This beast beyond language and shame.

So I switch off all the lights
and lock up all the doors
And burying my head within hands I pray
For a time when others can suffer and stew
In a world where each of my nightmares is true.

Andrea to Proserpine

Our poems amid stars exchange their codes

 And send to my soul the seeds of new odes.
 So I read up my Keats as you hone your Plath
And hope someday for a crossing in our path
Where free from the shackles of history and age
 I, in your eyes, may turn a new page
And write new lines of an autumnal hymn
To heal those wounds so deep and grim.

Meanwhile my lips a parched spring endure
 As I hanker, a fool, in silence, unsure.

Excuse for Rhyme

A black and white face
with slant little gaze
tugs at the heartstrings
in unusual ways
and croons a new ballad
of soft purple days
tinted with twilighted rays that'll lace
my prayers with the incense of grace.

My lines that'll lilt
with such juvenile rhymes
on which neither muse
nor cupid now shines
are fit but for irrelevant sighs.

So gather your tickets and fly;
I who just deal in sarcastic words
will neither lose sleep or cry.

Longing

In the silence that clings,
I wear your words
like a scarf around heart
and brace for unwelcome winds.

Choirs of our trees are in mourning by now
and blossoms are in indefinite strike.

I've left your address to migrating birds
whose elegies in south
will bring to your heart
the fragrance of my fallen leaves.

Be gentle when you listen to their lines,
my veins I've lent to their notes.

Other Shores

I know there are circles my friends
where you cringe to be joined to my name.
A misfit for so long, so well
I wasn't saddened or stunned
to know of your intents concealed.

Yours be the dances and drinks.
Yours be the groupfies of joy.
Chosen, I only could make
a grey little corner all blurred.

Unwell in brightest of lights,
I'll flicker as I do
in a dim little niche
and offer you a chat without guilt,
provided you call me at least.

Zen-like I walk along quays
and gaze at the untiring waves,
which yet sing of stillness of change.

What service in bringing too close,
currents that are meant to diverge?

So I float to the rhythms of heart
and leaving apart old sullen ways
search for new kindred points
glimmering on yet unknown shores.

Confessiones Ignorat

When the canopy of illusion is lost

The torrents of truth batter hard.

Ringed by the circles of distrust and scorn

And titanium shackles of hypocratic oaths

I am lost in the dungeons of solitude enforced

With too little light in my view.

I know I have built up these walls

But hoped there are souls that’d feel

A thrill for all they concealed.

All that remains are fragments of a soul

That no longer hopes to be heard -

Only the whispers in corridors of self

That roam through the chambers of skull.

To a lost friend:

I know I’d breached your trust

With deeds that cannot be undone.

If only you dared to forgive...

O what wonders we would gain!

To a classmate:

If only you knew the power of a call

And reciprocal gestures of faith!

In all of your trials I stood;

But lost when you found your bliss.

To a mistake:

I pity that the best of my past

Is tainted with your brittle words,

And antics of operatic stunts

That still keep on scratching my walls

With signs of desiccated pleas.

Memories in dialogic mode

Mingle and mash up in medleys of loss

And open up a canvas of inadequate lines

That yield only angles of shame.

But here are no great blessed eyes

That’ll scan my being to the core

Or with visions of multifoliate rose

Will uplift from dust my constricted soul

To rivers of sanctifying waves.

Here on the shores of waves warring rocks

I search for a flute that’ll calm all its rage

And gasp amidst currents untracked.

To another lost friend:

You were right when you said

I have too much that is locked

And too much with no access left.

But why didn’t you dare to batter them down

When you found all the hammers that I hid?

I know I am not sunshine on plains

Or a plain little frankincense dawn:

But aren’t there those who’ll warm to a chase

And pick up the gauntlet I left?

To an admirer:

My moralistic self is too much of a bore

And can be all brutish at times.

But still do I feel

The pulse of your dance

And marvel at the honesty I missed.

Bogged within rooms full of too many in masks

I’ve cowered behind armours of pose.

 An extended hand is taken to be cut,

A soft spoken word as sign of distress,

Modesty in speech as arrogance imbued

Lost within books as narcissism rife:

Such are the ways of life in this world

Which only knows opposites of good.

Yet on the overcast mornings of spring

With birds all aflutter in trees,

I gaze to the horizon of light dappled clouds

And feel in my breath a moistness of breeze

That blows from the seas to my shores.

And all of my cloaks of loneliness and loss

Lift up and leave with lightness of dust

And awaken the prayers I was taught:

“Let me be free within expanse of light

All beneath canopies of sky

Let me be free within branches of leaves

And atoms of dust and grass

Let me be free from vanity and lust

And all else that gnaws at our heart.

Let me be free from the nets of this world

And search for the peace among stars.”

Dastaan-e-Kashmir

A TRILOGY YOU WOULD LIKE....

Poems in Prachya Review

Footnote

Her lithe lissome figure
had flashed as a whip
and stirred all my senses ablaze.

But one little turn and gone -
as a footnote in eye's varied page.

Stranded,
I pondered on a fact
that few of our sages have taught:
depending on angles of sight
a footnote is greater than a tome.

Paris

The city of love has fear in its air
and winter has bled dire red.
The cafes along banks now murmur in grief
as laughter with hatred is sheared.
Poised on the edges of unforeseen dread
Seine too has halted its waves.

But no more the silence of lambs to the blade!

Let petals of love now sharpen as steel
and blaze into fires that save
and multitude of free thinkers march
to the ruin of barbarian hordes.

Silences

As I unlock the door, they peep
from the corners and wait.
Then tiptoe as shadows
and knowing that pills nor potions would help,
curl up in bed
with coffee that is salted with tears.

But I have no laws to expel
cohorts of silence that roam
all through my empty little rooms.

Holidays

Life's all aflutter outside:
busy little feet are rushing along streets
as wheels keep on moving
and engines still bustle,
all towards throbbings of life.

Coffee in hand,
I spectate and chuckle to myself -
the holidays, the holidays are here!

Moment

Evening; around eight.
Screeches of hawkers and wheels.

she slipped off her hood and crossed
As a fawn from a thicket in dark.

The sun shone bright in our eyes.

Truant Eyes

Hazel eyes framed, with bright brown locks

Glow as if pearls in sleep-sullen shells

And matched with the radiance of alabaster skin

Startle my long finished brushstrokes in veins

That rivet me at once on my spot.

My truant eyes curl on stripes of her coat

And turn towards buttons full of mesmerised hope

And latch onto that necklace with despairing claws

As a drowner would cling to his straws.

Glimpses in neurons now weave

Valleys and hills full of bloom.

Farewell, my winters of gloom!

Heartstrings in ecstasy now leap,

With lush, little leaves in their loom.

Zone beyond Words

There should be a zone beyond words -
a space beyond fences of bruised little selves
no trenches of guilt
no papers to settle the scores you'd kept
nor even baggage of problems unsolved.

A zone beyond words
where desire will dance
with rhythms of our hearts
and breathe in an ecstasy of limbs.

A zone beyond words
where lips that would kiss would part for no words
and the script of our eyes would clearly suffice
for a rhapsody of light in our tides.