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.