INCOGNITO

(In memory of the soldiers who passed away in India's 9/11)

-1-

Morning meanders in the breeze
like the crystal tongue of a thirsty serpent

I can't quite confess,
that this is my next poem........

not that I hate poetry of late
nor have I given up writing

but when parasites peck at your existence
silent bells toll in empty churchyards
and wet voices cry for a rebellion

poems become a bit too inconsequential.......

-2-

An asphalt dream wakes me up
on a cold January morning

the lines are always fake
between truth and transparency

each dawn is a bringer
of false promises

and the moon,despite her silence
at times,has a story to tell

-3-

Three days have passed
since the occult movie first began

channel-surfing on the television,
the news of a sudden genocide hits me

Nowadays,
newspaper headlines hardly change daily!

-4-

Night has a soft hunger
that is also found in the plasma
of werewolves and whores

Tell me,
don't you gain a strange sadistic pleasure
when you ransack a grasshopper
and pull out its testicles?

some guys have a mandate to murder
even in the name of religion!

and sometimes,
protectors are the worst offenders!

-5-

A winter day finally breaks
into a mock peace and silence

(I fear that the clocks have melted)

They tell me,
the war has ended, at last
but another one has just begun

-6-

Every good orator is a potent politician

They spoke till they spat
and thought words would conquer all

How long will democracies
be just an excuse for paying taxes?

and does our anthem never remind you
of fractured pride and false promises?

-7-

Nothing perhaps is as frustrating as
waiting for a phone call the entire evening
when the phone never actually rings..........

man, sometimes, is just too obsessed
with sex or his solicitor

stock markets are more unpredictable now
than the cloud laden Kolkata skyline

and with corporate sectors
fast closing down

our very own backyards are often plaqued,
these days, by young, jobless assassins

-8-

I remember last Christmas
when we all held hands
as we sang our carols

my dear enemies,
the time for petty catfights has long been over!

my conscience frozen,
my defenses ransomed,
I writhe in my inner civil war

(every masked man has a face inside)

and he who never ever complains,
never ever really understands......

-9-

There are times I wonder
if bribery is anything better
than legal burglary

does the elite still take refuge
in its pamphlet of secret lust
and forgotten lies?

my temples throb,
and even rock songs sound a bit sore tonight!

may be,
some questions are best left unanswered......

-10-

A rush of adrenaline drags me out
of my winding reveries

I realize its time to hide
in the disguise of my mask once again!

I hope I hadn't been dreaming......

for the reality,
can only be even more shocking!!!

MUSINGS

-1-


Men, sometimes, are so intoxicated
with love, poetry or idle dreams
that not even the oldest fear of death
could coax them out of the addiction
to convince them that they have a life besides

-2-


I wonder how it feels
when the greatest artistes die unnoticed
and the finest pieces of plagiarism
are auctioned in the most famous museums


A poet died last night
but there was no one
to mourn for him


Not that it would have mattered more
if an assassin lay dead in the circus


and it’s not a bad thing either
for the world now
has too many poets

-3-


I wake up at dawn
to the smell of coffee and cold kisses


Every poet
has a girl in his life


These days, I don’t read newspapers
for fear of corrupting myself


and even teenagers
hate the burden of boredom
or bachelorhood

-4-


Nothing sounds more fucking
than the alarm clock on a cold Monday morning


I ransom my thoughts to the reveries
and pray for the renaissance to resume


On vacant Sunday afternoons
my ears jar to the misty symphonies


I confess,
that, at times, I miss you


Perhaps we were ever too close
to be called just ‘friends’

-5-


I wonder what life would be like
without Elton or Enrique


or even without you!

-6-


How long can one argue
over Obama or McCain?


How long does one worry
about Saddam or Singur?


How long can a man live
without God or his girlfriend?


And tell me,
how long does it take to know
if someone is too nice to be a friend?

-7-


Last week, I never even once
dreamt about you


and I checked my cellphone
twenty times a day for your missed calls
but there wasn’t any!


Yet I don’t blame you
for these little disasters


Such odd tragedies
are quite common in a love affair

-8-


Tell me,
do you remember my pain
of being forgotten?


Will politicians, for a change
stop declaring impromptu holidays?


Will you ever understand
each line of every post-modern poetry?


And will you,
yes you,
still remember me the same way
even ten years later?

-9-


Life, at times, is painfully predictable!


Yet, I am not like Saktibabu, at least
who frequents Maddox Square during pujas
with his tenth live-in girlfriend


The first two were secretly killed
a third died of an unknown illness
while the rest are missing

-10-


Princess, we have talked for hours
but have never spoken


Sometimes, it’s easier to talk
than speak, like we did
last Halloween


Linkin Park and Fossils
are fast growing old


and so are you,
think twice before you lose
the cuteness of your girlhood

-12-


Nowadays, when I think
only scarecrows smile at me
and the rustle of soft seconds
mock the fake silence


My poem falls in the translucency
and fractures into shreds


No poet will ever call a poem his best
until he has given up writing forever


At least, I won’t
call this my masterpiece


But, what about you?

STRANGE PLACE

A decade has passed
since the second cold war began


the spider still weaves malignancy
in a vial of frozen time


and this is a strange place
where strange things happen


The symphony of stagnant winds
bear a morbid fragrance daily


you feel the lullaby flow in your veins
and call yourself ‘learned’


Vampire in your breath
you steal the curse of life
from a wriggling foetus


and you let a vamp swear
your burden of virginity


The dusk is en-lightened
with the odour of morphine vapours


and the dagger is a museum
of cold crusades or fractured altars


The shadow of the paranoid
haunts your blood
like an endless epidemic


and you sell your knowledge
with yourself for soft drachmas


tell me,
do you still call yourself ‘learned’?


Slay the guitar
Kill the poet
Burn the peace
with your cyber avalanche


This is a strange place
where sick women compose pop songs


and you teach a toddler
to play with toy bullets


The river swells with guilty eddies
to sink the cries of silence


This is a strange time
and I am in a strange place
where strange things happen


I want to un-learn the ethics
I was taught by honest men


Yet you may find your coffin someday
in a lifeless universe


and wonder when you passed away!

ACID INVASION

spring ebbs in your breath
like the fragrance of torture


and the sky turns purple
with the colour of crumbled confessions


i secretly look for myself
inside a broken mirror
only to torment
fragmented memories


the tree outside my window
pours the acid of time
on your skin


and I watch you sink
in the painful corrosion
of acid-invasion


i remember the dead man
who waited everyday
for the red letter
that was never posted


and the night air is purged
with the smell of infectious cries


your health flickers everyday
like a waning oil lamp
in the winter snow


electric storms boil my nap
with their weapon of lies
and tannic dreams


sleep till you dream
of God
or of me!


the lights are unpredictable
and
I walk the line


between your breath
and your body
I walk the line


few people worship
a dusty calendar


life alchemizes
into the dreams of men
who think they are long dead


in this acid-invasion
remember me


world
falls
with the sound of dreams
on corrupted crystals……..


sing me one last love song
before you drink the darkness


and darkness drinks me……………

Bones and bullets

from the slums of Calcutta

to the towers of California

there are only the cosmopolitan cries

of beggars and bastards

and the clock is ever counting

on the third flank of Waterloo

in my city of bones and bullets

warships wreck the winds

and astronomy dangles

from frozen clock hands almost everyday

the messiah comes at midnight

to build an island of false promises

and the vermillion rings of Esplanade

are an unscripted altar

for bandhs and bull-fights

not every man

is a poet or a politician

but the epics need one badly

every hermit

is a hooligan at heart

Caesar or Hitler

no longer humble me

and Mozart or Milton

humour me no more

for blood is the latest calligraphy

on cyber cenotaphs

I search for a place

to hide my history of nuclear robberies

from the breathlessness of New York

to the pacelessness of Nandigram

there are only the sickening scowls

of unicorns and eunuchs

and the clock is ever ticking

even on the mantelpiece

of your drawing room

Land of the Scorpions

-1-

last night

i dreamt of scorpions

and they hung like broken cries

on the tangents of darkness

till they crawled into my vein

and i smeared their poison

all over my lines

-2-

i saw the scorpion in your eyes

when i first met you

in a land of dreams and demons

but they are everywhere now

blocking my sceptic visions

with their watery screams

as they build walls of dark love

between me and my reflection

-3-

tonight she may declare war

or make love with gods

and rule an island of symphony

with fangs of the scorpion

or i may write the most electronic poem

that will seep into the insulation

of her heart

or i may even die another death

in the land of the scorpions

-4-

from my neolithic embryo

to my cyber grave

i am grave-digging

a humus of lost memories

for the scorpion of the scorpions

may be someday

i shall be-numb the fangs of the scorpion

with the poison of my blood

and god

i shall forgive you that day

tonight

-1-

tonight

i smeared my screams

on walls of poetry

and the words were smothered

like drops on crimson dreams

-2-

from the broken winds

to the demon of the moons

i have smelt the skeletons

with broken skulls

broken bones with fractured emotions

that stink in my closet of memories

-3-

i was the poet from pluto

blood-painting the woman of mythologies

till she came alive

to kill me with her vibration

my lyrics got spilled

on the tired dynamo of your extinct heartbeat

till it trickled down

the song of your eyes

-4-

was i then counting the sabres of time

to tighten the noose of glory

as i now burn on the mirror

that plays psychedelic videos?

in the womb of my decayed fortunes

time grows like hungry tragedies

tragedies of love and wars lost………

-5-

in the tempest of your face

poets die everyday

as ghosts and gods duel for paradise

on the poison of your lips

till your tears are the obituary

on the unfed death nail

-6-

tonight i killed your whispers

from my whining universe

hold my hand for once

as you travel back in time

into the land of mythologies

you will be breathing forever

on immortal walls of poetry

tonight i have frozen you

from space, time and mythologies

and you are mine forever

on the weeping words

that i have engraved

in the grains of time

tonight.

rose for blood

hygroscopic gods

hate the odour of my dreams

in the symphony of my bone marrow

your hypochondriac whispers

are bleeding dreams

on my red rose petals

i was the wizard of the winds

etching metallurgy in the land of my dreams

till your dark art became a vampire

at the auction of fermented fortunes

i fell a martyr

to the calligraphy of your eyes

your intricate delicacies

lured my rush of adrenaline

your beauty was my apocalypse

and then

the future was a mere excuse

to forget your past

in the labyrinth of lost faces

your feelings will be stained forever

with blood and memories

i wriggled out of your cobweb

with your smoky words:

“will you for once

stop being a lexicographic joker?”

in asphyxiation of emotions

if words are not your blood

this rigmarole was never meant for you!

witch of crimson cacaphonies

music of blood

stains alkaline cracks

on poison glands of her skin

in the cauldron of dark winds

she is the witch of crimson cacaphonies

her eyes are a jazz of smoke

that smears the broken geometry

on her volcanic lips

in the whispers of her curling capillaries

melanin is a diluted temptation

my heart was pure poison

till it drank the alkaline blotches

in her bloodbath of pheromone

i am now but molten wax

smothered in the incandescence of her desire

in the cauldron of crimson cacaphonies

she is the witch of dark winds

in the mimicry of misty vapours

sweat on her poison glands

is her weaponry of revealing fantasy

sweet violence of silken seduction

wait till you taste

her salty catastrophe……….

bridge of words

my life

is a fistful of smouldering sediments

floating on a rivulet of time

you cast vibrations

on the splattered glass pieces

that dilute into the resonance of the mind

too deep to be touched

by time

your words

are a drop of shimmering ecstasy

stagnant in my trembling grasp

that drips down the pendulum

across people and places

to be a frozen bubble

of eternity

my pen

is a bridge of metaphors

across the rivulet of the time

that coerces the present and future

on the eternal pillar

of your words

i am but a tired traveler

walking into the broken miles

of a sleepy horizon

along a bridge of words

yet

sometimes i pause

to smell the decaying sediments

in the rivulet of time

below the bridge of words

can i ever hold on

to your heart burnt tears

that now seep into undercurrents

of the past?

every moment lived

is a story of the past

i am a tired traveler

time-travelling

on a bridge of words

till it crumbles

and then ………

i am a fistful

of smouldering sediments
lost in rivulets of time ........