His eyes though a trifle bloodshot
Were mellow, soft pools up close
And though his hands shook a little
They were smoothly strong in repose
Now, his laughter sounded brittle.
As he lifted the silver teapot.
And I, watching through slanted eyes
Was cruel. Hurt lashes out unforeseen
Fragile love can have a cold touch
When it thinks of all that could have been
"You know, you shouldn't drink so much
Your truth gets shadowed by your lies."
He looked up quickly, the tea had spilt
Onto the bright, white table cloth
A dark, spreading stain of darkness
He picked up tissue, no sign of wrath
Instead, he suddenly looked helpless
Dabbing broken-heartedly at his guilt
His words felt like the calling sea
In my ears. "I will not apologise
For who I am and you know I love you."
And yes, it was there in his eyes
Through whiskeyed haze, shining true
And then I let him pour my tea.
© anindita sengupta
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Anger
Don’t play your game again today.
I thought
The warmth of tea
Those unending cups
Sipped in companionship,
The extended arms of acceptance,
And understanding smiles
Creasing the faces of close friends,
Volleys of rapid-fire words
Unceasing, to parade your depth;
Had soothed your attention seeking ways.
You must have been happy
Having abdicated your throne.
You chose to disappear,
Leaving me the companions
You despised vehemently
And always fought with
To gain my equivocal allegiance.
So why did you reappear?
Why do you singe the shimmering silk of happiness
And make me fear again?
These games of yours
Do I have to play 'em again?
I thought
The warmth of tea
Those unending cups
Sipped in companionship,
The extended arms of acceptance,
And understanding smiles
Creasing the faces of close friends,
Volleys of rapid-fire words
Unceasing, to parade your depth;
Had soothed your attention seeking ways.
You must have been happy
Having abdicated your throne.
You chose to disappear,
Leaving me the companions
You despised vehemently
And always fought with
To gain my equivocal allegiance.
So why did you reappear?
Why do you singe the shimmering silk of happiness
And make me fear again?
These games of yours
Do I have to play 'em again?
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Redemption
Each castle now stands stark alone
Reigned by men who rule by greed
Dreaded shame plagues each aching bone
For all our thoughts, for every deed
For children cry while houses burn
The earth perishes without defence
Can we dare hope that we shall turn
In these times of manic decadence?
But the rooted tree must find within
Some unusual love for the creeping vine
The cheapened cry, the aging skin
Must each find some redemptional sign
For in the bad, there must be good
Heaven's redressal for all the blood.
© anindita sengupta
Reigned by men who rule by greed
Dreaded shame plagues each aching bone
For all our thoughts, for every deed
For children cry while houses burn
The earth perishes without defence
Can we dare hope that we shall turn
In these times of manic decadence?
But the rooted tree must find within
Some unusual love for the creeping vine
The cheapened cry, the aging skin
Must each find some redemptional sign
For in the bad, there must be good
Heaven's redressal for all the blood.
© anindita sengupta
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Planes of Existence
Planes of Existence
Vasudev Murthy © 2006 blah blah
There it was again. A peculiar dream, and, like all such dreams, strangely vivid and incomprehensible. With events and people floating in and out, connecting without reason, dissolving before you could focus on anything. And of course, like all good dreams, finishing before you came to the climax, whatever it was.
I remembered the details even though I couldn’t see why I had to do that. For one, it was in color. The background was a surreal, light blue with a throbbing life of its own. The characters themselves were either bright red, almost crimson or just a slate gray. I never felt repulsed by the automatic assumption that this signified blood or the pallor of death. Everything didn’t need an explanation. It just – was.
The men seemed to have tears, heavy tears, almost viscous, which never dropped to the ground. They never seemed to wipe them away. None stood erect, all slouched as though their existence had ground them to the earth. As though life had defeated them and their existence was part of a grand master plan of torture.
The women seemed to be always moving. None were beautiful and yet the eyes of the men seemed to gravitate towards them and keep them in focus constantly. Were they important? The women were not feminine – rather, boyishness marked them as also restlessness, as I’ve said before. Their eyes were hard, yet with life of a certain kind in them.
The children were always shrinking away from them and yet being dragged along, almost as though trapped in a vicious magnet. Fear was written all over them. In their eyes, in their limbs, their gait. It seemed obvious and not surprising that they would occasionally play a game of snooker before returning to their relentless orbits around their mothers. Dreams, in themselves, are obvious. The analysis, afterwards, rejects them.
The animals were all dead. And they appeared again and again. A dead dog on the road. Another in a jack-knifed posture across a bench in the park. A calf rotting in a ditch with its tail oddly lifted and hanging limp just over the edge. All their eyes were open. They were dead and yet, they were crying. Preposterous.
Whenever I awoke from these recurrent dreams, I noticed that my heartbeat was abnormally fast. I would not be sweating. I would look around wondering if I was still in the dream hoping for the story of that dream to come to its conclusion, whatever it was. And, as you know, one never does reach a climax in a dream, unless it’s of a sexual kind.
The morning was unusually heavy. A lack of freshness marked it. Or perhaps it just reflected my own state. The sounds of birds just outside seemed harsh and mocking. The ceiling fan moved slowly, laughing at me with its deliberate clack-clack. A gecko darted across the wall, stopped and stared at nothing. Without warning its tail fell off. I remember thinking that their tails were supposed to fall off only if they are being pursued. So that they could escape. The gecko just stayed put. I saw its tongue flick out lazily and grab an insect that flew by, too close.
I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, following the set pattern of years of existence. With half closed eyes, I looked towards the mirror as I put the brush and toothpaste together into my mouth.
It was not my reflection that looked back.
A young boy stared out. His eyes open, as in shock. I remembered having seen him in my dream, though I could not recall what his role had been. He wore a green shirt, open at the neck. The shirt had no collar revealing a thin neck with purple veins. He was unremarkable in his looks, with a weak mouth and eyebrows that met in the middle. He had that slate colored pallor which I remembered distinctly from my dream. I could only see his bust, of course. I did get a feeling that he wasn’t of my time. He seemed about 15 years old with a moustache that was struggling to emerge. He then seemed to look down at his left hand and I saw him raise a violin to his chin. With the other hand he raised a bow.
I saw that the violin was very old with curves and tracings from a different time. The dust of years of rosin was sprinkled on the ebony and the wood near the bridge. I saw that the strings were of that same crimson color from my dreams.
I saw that the bow was made of bone. A very unusual one with intricate geometrical carvings. Hexagons within squares inside triangles. Lines that seemed parallel at one end of the bow and converged at the center and then diverged again at the other end. At the end of each line was a satyr each of whom was looking at me and smiling. I remember these details.
With his right arm raised, he started playing. Music came out from the mirror. Pathos, indescribable emotions, serene lonely notes pulsating for completion while they extinguished the previous ones brutally. The violin itself changed color, moved by this extraordinary display of beauty and ugliness, of hate and love, of venality and tenderness, that it had helped bring to the world. The world as it was.
Then he finished and lowered the violin and the bow.
For a wordless minute, we looked at each other.
Then he seemed to shrink slowly to a point, while at the same time, another figure grew slowly from a speck. And that figure was my own reflection. And that reflection was smiling.
While I was not.
Vasudev Murthy © 2006 blah blah
There it was again. A peculiar dream, and, like all such dreams, strangely vivid and incomprehensible. With events and people floating in and out, connecting without reason, dissolving before you could focus on anything. And of course, like all good dreams, finishing before you came to the climax, whatever it was.
I remembered the details even though I couldn’t see why I had to do that. For one, it was in color. The background was a surreal, light blue with a throbbing life of its own. The characters themselves were either bright red, almost crimson or just a slate gray. I never felt repulsed by the automatic assumption that this signified blood or the pallor of death. Everything didn’t need an explanation. It just – was.
The men seemed to have tears, heavy tears, almost viscous, which never dropped to the ground. They never seemed to wipe them away. None stood erect, all slouched as though their existence had ground them to the earth. As though life had defeated them and their existence was part of a grand master plan of torture.
The women seemed to be always moving. None were beautiful and yet the eyes of the men seemed to gravitate towards them and keep them in focus constantly. Were they important? The women were not feminine – rather, boyishness marked them as also restlessness, as I’ve said before. Their eyes were hard, yet with life of a certain kind in them.
The children were always shrinking away from them and yet being dragged along, almost as though trapped in a vicious magnet. Fear was written all over them. In their eyes, in their limbs, their gait. It seemed obvious and not surprising that they would occasionally play a game of snooker before returning to their relentless orbits around their mothers. Dreams, in themselves, are obvious. The analysis, afterwards, rejects them.
The animals were all dead. And they appeared again and again. A dead dog on the road. Another in a jack-knifed posture across a bench in the park. A calf rotting in a ditch with its tail oddly lifted and hanging limp just over the edge. All their eyes were open. They were dead and yet, they were crying. Preposterous.
Whenever I awoke from these recurrent dreams, I noticed that my heartbeat was abnormally fast. I would not be sweating. I would look around wondering if I was still in the dream hoping for the story of that dream to come to its conclusion, whatever it was. And, as you know, one never does reach a climax in a dream, unless it’s of a sexual kind.
The morning was unusually heavy. A lack of freshness marked it. Or perhaps it just reflected my own state. The sounds of birds just outside seemed harsh and mocking. The ceiling fan moved slowly, laughing at me with its deliberate clack-clack. A gecko darted across the wall, stopped and stared at nothing. Without warning its tail fell off. I remember thinking that their tails were supposed to fall off only if they are being pursued. So that they could escape. The gecko just stayed put. I saw its tongue flick out lazily and grab an insect that flew by, too close.
I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, following the set pattern of years of existence. With half closed eyes, I looked towards the mirror as I put the brush and toothpaste together into my mouth.
It was not my reflection that looked back.
A young boy stared out. His eyes open, as in shock. I remembered having seen him in my dream, though I could not recall what his role had been. He wore a green shirt, open at the neck. The shirt had no collar revealing a thin neck with purple veins. He was unremarkable in his looks, with a weak mouth and eyebrows that met in the middle. He had that slate colored pallor which I remembered distinctly from my dream. I could only see his bust, of course. I did get a feeling that he wasn’t of my time. He seemed about 15 years old with a moustache that was struggling to emerge. He then seemed to look down at his left hand and I saw him raise a violin to his chin. With the other hand he raised a bow.
I saw that the violin was very old with curves and tracings from a different time. The dust of years of rosin was sprinkled on the ebony and the wood near the bridge. I saw that the strings were of that same crimson color from my dreams.
I saw that the bow was made of bone. A very unusual one with intricate geometrical carvings. Hexagons within squares inside triangles. Lines that seemed parallel at one end of the bow and converged at the center and then diverged again at the other end. At the end of each line was a satyr each of whom was looking at me and smiling. I remember these details.
With his right arm raised, he started playing. Music came out from the mirror. Pathos, indescribable emotions, serene lonely notes pulsating for completion while they extinguished the previous ones brutally. The violin itself changed color, moved by this extraordinary display of beauty and ugliness, of hate and love, of venality and tenderness, that it had helped bring to the world. The world as it was.
Then he finished and lowered the violin and the bow.
For a wordless minute, we looked at each other.
Then he seemed to shrink slowly to a point, while at the same time, another figure grew slowly from a speck. And that figure was my own reflection. And that reflection was smiling.
While I was not.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
With vivid shout
With vivid shout the newborn annum
cries in the phrase of the biting wind
she's coming out! she's here by damn!
uncork the bottle! let's begin!
Let rise upon the raging air
the pull of joy in oral scream!
for silence loves to feel her hair
constrained by fresh & vocal dream
This responds to Arka Mukhopadhyay's worthy poem.
cries in the phrase of the biting wind
she's coming out! she's here by damn!
uncork the bottle! let's begin!
Let rise upon the raging air
the pull of joy in oral scream!
for silence loves to feel her hair
constrained by fresh & vocal dream
This responds to Arka Mukhopadhyay's worthy poem.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Somewhere...somehow...
There’s a smile hiding somewhere,
I just need to find it…
Sometimes it disguises
Itself as a little teardrop
that falls with a big splosh….
I chase after it on big red buses
and sometimes just about catch it
on the corners of little gift shops
or lovers’ lips kissing in bliss…
Sometimes it won’t come to me
no matter how hard I try….
perhaps I could find it in a friend
perhaps all I need to do is try…
Lingering over a glass of wine
raising my knees and resting my chin
I stare at the flickering candle
and somehow it slips through the chinks
when I am not even looking for it…!
Happy New Year!
A leaf glistens
shiny with hope
Tremulous but sure.
A gelato burst
of dew at one spot
Tiny but momentous.
A flower opens
large as a mouth,
Joyous as morning.
Butterfly song
stops you mid-thought
You begin to wonder.
A rakish moon
twirls his whiskers,
cavorts with clouds.
The benevolent forest
looks on, indulgent
It is older by aeons.
Night turns prettily,
flags a passer-by
to ask for directions.
Intensely fragile,
the new year falls
gently upon us.
© anindita sengupta
shiny with hope
Tremulous but sure.
A gelato burst
of dew at one spot
Tiny but momentous.
A flower opens
large as a mouth,
Joyous as morning.
Butterfly song
stops you mid-thought
You begin to wonder.
A rakish moon
twirls his whiskers,
cavorts with clouds.
The benevolent forest
looks on, indulgent
It is older by aeons.
Night turns prettily,
flags a passer-by
to ask for directions.
Intensely fragile,
the new year falls
gently upon us.
© anindita sengupta
Friday, December 23, 2005
MEDITATION
I like to think of divinity
not as gods or demon shapes.
I find it revealed when,
in five exquisite steps,
Euclid with his Attic ken
sees his primes to infinity.
***
not as gods or demon shapes.
I find it revealed when,
in five exquisite steps,
Euclid with his Attic ken
sees his primes to infinity.
***
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Low-technology [sonnet #2]
What is it I presume I might be seeking?
the joy of meeting or the pain of absence?
the universe conceivably in presence
is grounded but it's not as if we're peeking
behind the famous screen (opaque & deep)
whereon the film's projected low-technology
by what perverse (indeed macabre) ecology
our little life is rounded with a sleep
the body we embue with daily waking
this instrument for focusing the vast
entirety of everything at last
we loll about & feed it are we making
full use of so preposterous a tool?
a lens for wise a haversack for fool?
the joy of meeting or the pain of absence?
the universe conceivably in presence
is grounded but it's not as if we're peeking
behind the famous screen (opaque & deep)
whereon the film's projected low-technology
by what perverse (indeed macabre) ecology
our little life is rounded with a sleep
the body we embue with daily waking
this instrument for focusing the vast
entirety of everything at last
we loll about & feed it are we making
full use of so preposterous a tool?
a lens for wise a haversack for fool?
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
On a Writers' Forum
Bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune
In this rendezvous of writer and bard
This enchanted space where we commune
The muse sometimes smiles; each poem is a boon
In the ideal poker hand, the perfect card
Bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune
Rhythm, metre, character joyfully hewn
An anguished love of style, all strive to guard
This enchanted space where we commune
What if the humming birds never sang again
What if the Sistine Chapel melted to a shard
Would bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune?
I would light you a candle for your moon
And sing you a flock for your boulevard,
This enchanted space where we commune
Bcause nothing must stop the flow of the loon
When it throbs among rushes just beyond the yard
Bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune
In this enchanted space where we commune.
© anindita sengupta
In this rendezvous of writer and bard
This enchanted space where we commune
The muse sometimes smiles; each poem is a boon
In the ideal poker hand, the perfect card
Bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune
Rhythm, metre, character joyfully hewn
An anguished love of style, all strive to guard
This enchanted space where we commune
What if the humming birds never sang again
What if the Sistine Chapel melted to a shard
Would bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune?
I would light you a candle for your moon
And sing you a flock for your boulevard,
This enchanted space where we commune
Bcause nothing must stop the flow of the loon
When it throbs among rushes just beyond the yard
Bacchic words dance to an ecstatic tune
In this enchanted space where we commune.
© anindita sengupta
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