Angel of the dark

-1-


fear


smell of midnight rain


and sound
of her blue saree
in darkness


with cold lightening
the hunter finds the rose
behind the diamond curtain


-2-


white shadows of flickering breathe


the moon slides down
along the crevices
of my glass poem


and smears the ceiling
with her silver screams


abstract voices
encircle in the dark
from layers of slime
and mud


last words of dust
from the frame
of the unfinished painting


-3-


ice-anklets on her fairy feet


piano on her lips


her smile reminds me
of lost local trains


stare long
into the smoke
and symphony
of her eyes


travel down the lunar tunnel
of peace and time


and pause to hear
the music of the cold river
that winds and unwinds


to reveal sketches
of half forgotten beauty


-4-


predators in the night air,


the soft storm in her eyes
has the song
of silent blue cannon balls


prepare for the war of kisses


as her fingers,
silky like soft mercury,
slide inside my wet skin


and scan the nameless silence
of the night
for secrets


secrets hidden behind
the vortex
of the old brown mirror


-5-


moonlight and magic
on the white river water


I watch her sink,
painlessly,
into the deep hollow of the night


dark lines melt by the second


step by step
and
sound by sound


like a portrait of vanishing beauty


traces of fairy feet on snow


the blue prisoners
who sing to the moon
and speak a strange language,
once again,
call her an illusion


-6-


squint hard
into the periscope of time


hallucinate
with visual sounds
in your dreams


remember the martyrs
of another age


in silence,
the rainbow changes colour


figurines of smoke


the scent of mirages


speechless butterflies
retrieve the words from flames

Time-travel

1. Reflection



A red rose
on the mirror
wet with a symphony


beneath the falling rhyme
I have seen
silent
fluid-filled spaces


electric rivers,
silent white wings
flapping in darkness


travelling against time
in an age of miracles


what haunts you then
when you timidly explore
your own
reflection?



2.The City of Mirrors



-1-


In the city of mirrors


the streets shimmer
with pale blue prophecies


and demon poets
walk slowly with candles
in a confused silence


among the ruins
of voices
and dead cinemas


-2-


Beneath the metallic sky


the capsule moon may reveal
frozen lovers,
lost in time


or actors
rehearsing their sex roles,
amidst an enchanted
forest


with smells of charmed liquids


-3-


In the city of mirrors


you may find magic women
practising alchemy


or fortune-tellers
staring hard at their own
reflections


with guns and memories


-4-


Here every reflection
tricks the eye


and tempts you
with a sinister game
of the senses


and every word spoken
is coated
in a blue mist
of telepathy


or psychic cries


-5-


Sometimes,
as lightening-strikes numb
the tentacles of the city


and darkness fades in a holy trance,
to reveal signs of shock
or horror


blood-stains on the wall
or on an ancient rhyme


might tell,
you've travelled back in time


-6-


In the city of mirrors


every vain game ends in failure
and death


and as you run
through the blinding light,
every street looks the same


in a maze of reflections


until the mirrors dazzle
your sights and senses,
as if to say:


here you all are prisoners of pain


you may come only once
and never go back again

Dance at Dusk

her eyes
hide a thousand Arab prisoners
frozen with chilled lightening


when the moon seduce lovers
and religious poets


her eyes
throb with an ancient fear
when the street turns dark at the edges
and the pianola stirs ruined memories


as shadows begin to shine
and molten buildings rise to fame


a mystic trend creeps
into those battle-drunk eyes
that now burn with strange prophecies


behold and betray.......


hear the rhythmic beats
and the jubilant pain
as we create once again
with blood and music


the tidings of the day sink
into a tune from the creepy bowers
and metropolitan ashes


and salt ticks weary
in a scented hour-glass


thoughts torment me like busy war-planes


alas my hermit friends,
the time is ripe for another disaster


as silent voices quarrel over blood and silver
and my lips get poisoned with a prayer


I look for a place to hide
behind poems
or virtual pleasure


her eyes now shine
with a crusade for a hero's fall
and memories of a headless horse


follow the darkness
with the magi-cians words


who knocks on the silent door
between faith and death
on this cold December evening?


betray me with a kiss
and a coffin for metallic saints


gamble my body for drachmas


and when darkness shimmers
rise....rise again!


this night reveals a fresh smell
and bleeds a demon's wounds


cure me with a touch and holy water


baptise me O Lord
for my sins and sympathy
and awaken in me
those old Christian beliefs


and as her eyes now sleep
with a pagan verse


let me hunt with a mirror
and explore a few more
spiritual dreams



(The 's' has been omitted from 'seduce' in the fourth line purely for the sake of poetic beauty)

The Song Woman

"She was a phantom of delight
When she first gleam'd upon my sight
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament"

-W Wordsworth

you come,
in the breath of a second


amidst folk tales and forgotten smells


as your song-burnt hair jazz up winds
with a hue of purple whispers


when the nighttime raga lights up the breeze
with a rhapsody of aimless tunes


and the music rises like thoughts,
to conquer the moonbeams,
and carve a rainbow in the sky


I drench in your nocturnal smiles
beneath a twilight of dreams and colours......


are you real, my midnight angel?


so many night-pills,
and so many unfinished songs


poems grow like weeds on your skin


your lips are the sketches of snow,
your brows the music of temptation


make me a disciple of your holy glance,
who submits poems and prayers
at your doorstep


how long can you hide metaphors
behind your smiles?


cross the ancient river
that flows between us now,
with a scent of dead lovers


and show me the doorway to those secret empires.......


mother me with your dreamy kisses
and distant odours


on nights of sights and sound........


did you once speak of love


as we waltzed across the floor,
remembering witchcraft and Shakespeare?


my song woman,
did you not complain of solitude?


was it the smiles or an overdose
of cocaine?


your celestial eyes grow dim,
and you melt,
like the moon on the mirror


and those optical spies,
their songs wet with an eclipse,
still pray for a miracle.........


sex or supernatural?


I hunt for lost codes,
inside the entrails of a dead city


what happened to the songs and prophecies?


the senses,
now a motion blurr...........


who built the rhetoric on the tombstone?


a creaking door seeks a reply...........

Helen - in memoriam

so you think,
one death will move me
and take away all my remembrance?


my ears, even now, ache with metaphors
and ceremonies


do you still need an elegy?


Helen,
I have seen God in your eyes
when enemy ships decimated Troy


as I shielded you with my open arms


and I have scoured the sky for centuries
without a last trace.......


I never looked for you
in ice-buried museums


your skin still smells of holy wars......


and yet,
you talk of all the mirrors in the city


if you want to recreate memories,
then let all love end tonight!


a star sinks from the night sky
with a wounded apology...........


I wonder if any stars
are ever missed


do you still crawl along the busy crosslanes
and let your eyes cast virtual images?


touch me, for once, with your buttery eyes
and etch in me, your cold reflection


anoint my body with wax,
and reveal to me those ancient secrets
of love-making

beneath a canopy of whispers.........

can words ever recreate that silence?


let's explore ill-written poems
and repeat the jazz on Nero's flute


let's hide behind metropolitan lies
and cinematic fancies -


prepare the table for a last supper,
stack your pills with funeral songs.......


and let us, together, evoke the unborn prophet
from your next wedding -


as Troy goes up in flames.........


Note : (Though the allusion is made to the mythical Helen of Troy, she is, on a dual level, the 'snow girl' from my previous poem)

REMINISCENCE

narcotic screams

pepper the skyline with the flavour of sunset


and the gypsies embrace their misfortunes
with a trail of songs and rituals


let's not make this an afternoon
of empty caravans, silent cigar ashes

and black romance

poems don't come easy these days,
yet this one's been nagging me for far too long


the night air is pierced
with the cry of a solitary owl
moaning its lost love


your smile spins in the cold silence.............


snow girl,you still haunt me
in your ice blue salwaar
in my crystal mists of long ago

like the mirror haunts her own reflection......

are you still obsessed with my ancient
half- revealed secrets?


and do I still remind you of high tides

and half circles?

snow girl, I re-found you by chance
just as I had once lost you


things start happening only when you stop
expecting...........


let us hold hands tonight
as we remember the smell of cold sweat
beneath a brown moon


why do lovers always love the darkness?


is something wrong tonight?


have you, at last, found your God
in a tiny glass bottle?


or have lies freaked you out?


I have to say,
you got a bit too carried away this time!


the air is still corrupted
with a moist reminiscence..........


you almost stripped me of my manliness!

smile, my blue angel, smile

I have half solved your riddles of feminism!


snow girl, do you still search for a place
to hide my love letters?


I have long stopped pretending to be your friend


let's not talk about moth-eaten skyscrapers,
politics or glass mirrors


now is the time to get surreal,
let's twist words like it's never been done before


don't let pirate songs bother you tonight,
let it all bleed out through your blue intestines......


just ignore the clocks and old unicorns


let dreams take over now,
and lead us to a forbidden paradise


life now becomes the canvas of an unfinished
acid dream


please don't invite the ghosts
to the dinner party

snow girl

now it's only

you
and

me

PS:[every story has a beautiful beginning
it's the end that matters................]

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.