Poems about a single moment
In the evening there was exquisite pipe music
That flowed smoothly on a silky winter breeze
With burning torch ahead, duly abetted by oil.
As God went out with his wives on palanquin,
A bamboo stick went musical in circular holes
A goatskin went into fever long after its death.
Pig-tailed men carried their God on shoulders.
A torch burnt night till it smelled like flowers.
At midnight, the wall strikes her head
For it to grow accustomed to the dark,
Away from pure whiteness of the day.
The wall holds her pearl white memory
Hosting leggy creatures tiny presences
Eating shadows bit by bit , from its light.
She would rise from bed to bang head,
A challenge to a living memory of wall
Dreaming away its sonorous shadows.
Now that professor has hypothesized
And arrived at Alzheimer’s crossroads,
She better get accustomed to its dark.
My existence is temporary to the train
With gravelly things hitting its bottom,
Sparks flying off its wheels as tangents,
Temporary things but real sleep things ,
Light sculptures in a night of the train.
Sleep is light sculpture in night of sky.
A train’s light beam is sleep flying off,
A temporary thing waking from night.
At the start of the walk the fly
Danced around a pugilist nose
In clear geography of gray sky
With no rain, only a promise.
It seems raining in other sky.
Will clouds turn rain like flies?
In the sky is a swarm of doubts
That will soon turn flies, flies
Buzzing around walking nose.
But now the sky is other sky.
As I reach the end of the walk
Nose is fighting rain like flies.
The women took turns with the shoulders
As they went in and went out a stone hole.
The afternoon resounded with their thuds.
All we closed our eyes in a pretended nap.
Where we sat there was hardly difference.
All our husk turned out to be life’s content.
It seems fate has preserved us for another death
As debris was deferred to fall from house dance
Even as the market bench was shivering intensely
On evening of shoe purchases in certain hill city.
Beautiful people cried phone to kids in big eyes
By frightened mom’s love away in a market place
Wondering if it was good bye to a world , to kids
Husband fights, boss harangues and cloth shops.
Shoes might click away on tarmac,to plane flying.
A falling to another death was remote possibility
If the earth rumbled second time in after-anger.
Later ,fate said , preserving us for another death.
Kash flower is once again in bloom
On the river bank and leisure park
With stricken plane nested in trees
Amid flowery fountains in twilight.
A train is yet to chug in to this boy
With the clackety echo in the hills.
The train is making in steel factory
By a white engineer ghost burned
In his fluorescent time as a Martin.
We wait till he finishes a blueprint.
The little boy waits in grass flowers.
A tongued goddess is in marigolds.
Like every year we wait for the train.
(Referring to a scene in Satyajit Ray’s film pather panchali where the little boy Apu runs between grass flowers to see a train)
A white wall stood firm all the way up
To the blue sky , from where we stood
A breeze blew against our body gently
And our eyes would snake up the wall.
The rain fell on its other side smelling,
Grass and horses gazing calmly into it,
In steady rain that brought turd smell,
A turd smell of horses from rain drops.
In between, horses snort for breathing
Or for overwhelming flies around tails.
Flies overwhelm brooms of horse tails.
Tails swish flies as the feet stamp grass.
It was clearest day this side of any wall.
If only we can go up to see how many.
Before dark the bridge may be asked to span
Vast distances, unaided by supporting pillars
Only by the sun going ,going and gone below.
A slightly ocher and yellow thing hangs there
To somewhat disappointment but the curve !
There is surely a woman’s curve ,of the river
At eye’s end view with another bridge taking
The horizon’s place, in many words and now
There is a click in your throat and sun gone.
Where is the bridge light of your old waters
In the shimmer of sun’s smooth dalliances
With tree shadows tingling breezed ripples?
Come other day, other dusk,with pure light
In the camera’s eyes and heart closely held
In throat , love gathered in wondering eyes .
( On a visit to the pretty Coronation bridge in Siliguri for sunset)
Almond’s fall is here now
In the corners of the road,
Underwhelmed by a drab
Declaration by the plastic .
Almonds are a sun’s eyes,
Fallings of maroon leaves
With litter of puppies left
By the dog in the last love.
Momentary poems 