R

It rains tonight
My longing bounces forth
Like droplets off the puddles,
But never reach you,
Nor your dream.

I imagine your soft breath
From an evening of love;
Your eyes, comforting
Like the nest of a bird at sundown,
Remain closed now...
Oblivious of my distant gaze.

If I could visit your dream,
Would you remember in the morning?
May be the brow shall carry
The memory of a kiss.

I love you; no love is ever too far.
All shall be well, as you read this...and forever more. :-)

LAST LOVE

I did what I had to,
You did what you could.

Did we say goodbye that wintry morning?
Memory fails me.
Is it Time's mercy,
Or my usual forgetfulness?
Imploring all my senses
To capture each moment
For eternity,
I had lain awake all autumn.
Yet so little remains,
Except a distant ache.
Now the leaves of summer
Glisten by
A thumping rumbling vector
Hurls me to new destinies.

You did what you had to
I did what I could.

(First two lines courtesy Shreyasi Bose)

DREAM

The storm abated
Moonlight on my bed
Let's make love
Hesitant and soft
A nocturne of Chopin
Peace

Complaint

You have spoilt me for others
O Malady, suggest a cure.

MISSING YOU IN BENGALI

As it ticks and it tocks and it inches along
There will be no my side of the bed or the wardrobe
Somewhere sometime soon you shall no more
Miss me in Bengali or in any other tongue

INSOMNIA 3

I feel you sleeping by my side
A softly heaving silhouette
Of dark against dark
Curled and wrapped in a blanket

I presume the usual frown
Is frosted with sweat beads
The familiar twitch around those lips
travels down your limbs

The heavy breathing needs
an adjustment of the pillows
But sleep on my love
And let us rise to a new morning

S&G&R

A glance used to float
Up a flight of stairs
And vanish round the corner.
Often a smile, a nod.
"I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you"

UGLY

Look in the mirror
That is not you
You would never love him
Sour cigarettes and heartburn

Mottled leaves in green bottles
That was home sweet home
Heartthrobs and heart throbs
They shall cut this tree too

Rain, rain, pour

ON LIVING A COMPROMISE

Thirty makes you think
Thirty makes you wise
30 allows fooling yourself knowingly

Confusing love with habit
Cohabiting without love

Thirty turns you moody
Thirty gives you whims
30 gifts you blues: to paint your toenails

In ever-changing hues
Ever-changing ruse

Thirty brands you tired
Thirty says you’re spent
30 gets you sick: throw up on mush

Only to live again
Only to love again

Remains of the day 2

There was music, there was light
Eyes twinkling, smiles bright
A champagne flute lay broken on the floor

Buy cheese, buy squash
The carpet needs a wash
More lists more chores more life

Remains of the day

The gusset plates of lust
Are all rusted, spent
But, unlike love, still real

Now I sleep not too well
With funny scary dreams
Disquieting images of
Bonfires in catacombs

Lady T

She shadows me everywhere

Waiting and watching

Shrewdly whispers in moments

Of weariness: hoping to reap

Her harvest

I laid in her arms once

We were almost one

Anti-peristalsis

Thus I jilted Lady T

But she be patient

The end is soon and she

Would surely bed me in

The END

NO DREAMS FOR AN INSOMNIAC

Because you have no comfort in dreams
Because you see no reason
Because you realise...

The sooner the better.

!

Love knows no reason
And Reason knows not love

Early morning, rumpled bed
Taking stock of life
The dawn of an age of reason...

POTOMOI AND ALL HIS FRIENDS (aka WHY I LOVE GINGER ALE aka THE NONSENSE SING ALONG SONG)

Potomoi! Whoa! Whoa!
Ink and books and boa
But it’s not easy when you turn me on

Lilly in the valley, goes she
Down the murram road
Pitcher full of ale

Tincan whines Tincan’s woes
Tincan, yes can, goes
Tin can full of ginger ale, he knows

We-we cheeky, We-we drunk
We-we topples on my trunk
Ouch!

Imzy distant, Imzy far
Imzy on a topless car
Imzy on a parcel box with ribbons on the floor

Figgy whimpers, Tony sings
What the heck! O what it brings?
Ridge and Ridgey, there they come…they go

Puffy Ronnie ginger ale
Grapes are sour, grapes are pale
Downpour on the windshield, fresh yet stale

Cosy blanket, treasure trail
Now we triumph, now we fail
O! Will I not won’t I not can I not, Now!

Crazy fat-boy suffers so
Southern sepoy wants to go
It was not to be: she sees the snow

Sunshine, ebony, sugar sweet
What a pain, what a treat
What a time, O, it used to be

Cans and cans and cans of ale
Same old story, same old tale
Enfin.

ADVICE TO A YOUNG LOVER

Darling, if you love me
Never tell me so
Words of love are tedious
They lost their meaning a while ago
As I woke from my noontime siesta

No better than caterwauls
Or screeching chalks on blackboards,
Declarations of love are annoying

Grapes are not sour;
Post-glut, I am hyperglycaemic

MONOLOGUE

*PROLOGUE*
I thought I had seen it all,
Heard it all
But you prove me wrong yet again

I agree I owe you one, la vie

*I*
Mercury-vapour lamps with halos; cupric ripples in jet black puddles; lonesome croaks in dark thickets; purple sky and violet billows…
It is drizzling in the provincial roads and by-lanes

Is it the same now, in a distant city of students and steaks? Or in that bumbling metropolis, which stifles me, where dwell the lovers and the fools?

I entertain myself with nouvelle dresses and dishes
And paperbacks to devour
And iced drinks to gulp
Ashtrays urgently waiting for refills
Tangling unsuspecting victims
All unexpected trysts with bliss

*II*
Let us go then you and I, where velocity dwells upon the sky
Like a Windows’ Starfield screensaver
And I shall confess how I love you no more
How I love no one
How I can not, any more
And may you witness the spectacle of
Boiling blood bursting like bubble gums
Erupting from my ENT cavities
Grass green bile
Oozing from sundry lacerations which
Decorate my drain-board abs

*III*
She waited, in vain
It was stupid of her
I waited in vain, equally so
But now I wait no more

Confused, you say…
Been there, done that.
Survival is 42
I danced in the rain all evening
And I never felt like crying.

*EPILOGUE*
Thank you for all the fish
You owe me one, la vie

Tagore: PRAKRITI 118

The night reverberates with the monsoon’s drone
As I string the aching memories all alone
The door to my room, dark, is kept ajar,
I wonder in what oversight
I suppose my companion is coming:
my friend for this plaintive night
With his coming he renders music to the rain
And the Kadamba grove shivers in pleasure
Even if he never arrives, I shall hope in vain
Placing our mat on the dust for good measure

MEANING

I ask you: ‘Is love still there?’
‘Don’t know…think so’, you say
Meaning: there is none.

Then why do you call me so,
Talking of life and us?
Meaning, there is none.

DREAMS FOR AN INDIAN SUMMER

By the window, pretty mauve
Flowers quiver in the breeze
Now you place one in my hair,
On my forehead: a moist kiss

The mauve blossoms have withered
To traces of sickly pink
The bleaching glare of summer
Leaves colours in dreams alone

The heat, the haze, the fever
The wakeful dreams in stupor
Long are these days: never-ending;
The nights, sleepless and sweaty