The Moon
A hand of miracle has put an ivory
in the blue of silence.
Under the pine trees I stand
like an awe-struck male deer
Flow
Oranges fall apart this steel knife.
He and the fallen angels walk
along this un-footed path.
The jungle gradually darkens,
gradually deepens like the soul of a doe.
I look for the lost kaleidoscope of a yellow bird
and ask God: Weep this twilight to the dead night
Mirroring
Mirroring is a flight of birds,
blue oozing in silence.
Kash-flowers
bloom in the rain-washed field.
Rebirth of sparrows
in the memories of green orchard.
The more I try to forget
The more it flames
in front of the mirror.
Grey hairs slowly
appear on the head.
Sound of broken glass
walk along the dark corridor of silence.
Dreams
I dream of returning to a sunset canoe,
my own shadow.
An apparitional mirror walks along a wire.
I read and decipherer conversations
of a struck donkey and the melting moon.
I try to run away again and again
from my shadow, my own. How can I extricate
myself from the dance of the magic mirror
in my head?
Time
I unroll the thread of clouds over the mountain.
And a bahal-tree emerges out of nothingness.
Nothingness is such blue which can dye even the black.
Reminiscing the past childhood
brings back a roll of thread,
plant-gum and a flight of parrots.
Time wipes everything as if our life is a walking fool.
The Gold Ring
The gold ring comes down
from the blue of eternity
as a gift to me.
Shivering bones
stretch them
into the ether of dreams.
I surrender myself
to the moving mirror
as if water
moves to the estuary..
Mandu
Stones melt into moonlight
and the owls hoot from their nests in the palace of Rupamati.
The myths of the river Narmada creep into the marrow of bones.
Baz Bahadur makes music out stones, this anecdotal Mandu.
The former incarnations of mine come back to memory
Silence
Fish moving in shallow water
look cheerful mirrors.
Bird-shadows get mellowed
in silence as if mangoes in the castle of the green.
Me waiting on a wooden bridge
over a small river named Gurjoyani
feels nostalgic for the stripe of home-yard
where my naval-root has kept buried
under a pomelo tree
Puzzle
Spiders are sunlit on yellow leaves.
Mirrors reflect
a large fish eating up a shadowy body.
This poem does have no meaning.
It only has a journey towards meaning.
An oriole makes a hole into a dry wood.
Water falls from taps.
I wait, I have waiting.
Lily
Two lilies have bloomed
in the centre of waters.
A tall excited fish dives deep
into the open tunnel.
An immeasurable joy
overwhelms waves.
Red grasshoppers make shadows
of their own bodies
on the crest of waves.
Manisha’s Stone-Forest
(For Nigel Hughes)
Manisha moves
along with fossilized darkness
to the hot water spring at Bakreswar.
A journey of a bird,
to the eggs of eternity
get rivers waking up
within the embrace of love.
Love is our religion,
no spirituality is beyond that.
Open your embrace,
the earth grows smaller.
Silence is the language
of eternity.
My friend, speak silence
before the flight of birds into the blue.
Note: Manisha is a character in a Nigel Hughes’ juvenile novella
on fossils in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal.
Autobiography
Pure wine drips down
on rice-crops, extending their aspiration to the blue.
Words, my dear words
reveal if there’s anything to be sacred in life
but this light of the evening clouds.
Wind blows to the distant land
over our dwellings, our bird-incarnations,
the red and the blue.
Is this my motherland, blood-smeared, worn out?
And I remember my memory of an Inuit life
which I’ve left in the soul
of a dog, pulling a sledge.
I call the old woodcutter and ask
if God weeps within the rings of a felled tree?
The Charmed Boat
The charmed boat moves, snails
from the depth of water listen to the music of paddles.
Churning of water wipes out
the reflection of the bird, sitting on the oar.
Darkness deepens on water, songs gradually grow faint.
The moon looks like an ivory in the silent blue.
Memories of lost faces, as if
fragrance of now-harvested rice-crops soothes the mind.
Is it a journey at all? They say: it’s a homecoming.
The night wind blows in the ghostly silence.
Blossoms in the Spinal Tube
I opened the letterbox
to find yellow leaves
a brownish cat jumps down
from the mossy wall
the bell of the new church rings
and two small tales come
out of this ringing
I wait for zero-light
that can make
my spinal tube bloom
like a lotus-bud
The Gardener
Wait still for the bird’s return
to silence in the evening.
Wait still for the buds blooming.
You water, you care
and love like a fool this spidereric world.
Who cares to look at this waiting? Futile.
Haste forgetting is a clever palimpaste.
While weeding out the rhizomes
you ruminate Ramprosad.
The Language of Silence
Late shuli flowers fall
thick on the dust.
Yellow leaves of hazy memories get stuck within
the cracks of the mossed walls.
The next autumn will come
with fragrant gifts
for her supplication.
Still the barbet will make
the language of silence
overwhelming with a sense of no-where loss.
For an Oriole
An oriole emerges
out of a small nest,
letters of a mysterious language
I decode it all by myself.
A wintry evening,
mist and chill
from a distant land
a loving soul remembers me,
I like it thinking.
I see the bird, its fragrant shadow.
Who do you stand there in darkness?
Someone weeps somewhere in the woods.
The Wheel Chair
Don’t fly away to those cruel arms
I’ve been waiting for you
for several ages with my soul looking like a pea.
I’ve no hands to touch upon.
Only two eyes feast on your sudden flight
in the ethereal blue.
How does this wheel chair embrace
the castellation of your stars?
Be Happy
What things should I share with you?
These failures of words, tentative galaxies?
And roots that anchor me in your dream.
How can a bird that lullabies
the winged fantasies look
into the dark whispers in the soul of Yajati?
Be happy. This is my prayer when the sun
walks over the footbridge
of the reminiscent Gurjoyani river.
The Bird of Ether
The dark bird of ether
that cured my wounds
with its magic of soothing balm
visited my dreams
.
After so many ages past
it came back to my garden
with its ethereal body
I couldn’t touch it,
I shouldn't have done,
as it could get its fragrant feathers
drenched or melting.
In the dream of a silent bridge
I play with the rough stones…
Farewell
My dear soul, get prepared
for another farewell
Farewell into silence,
never to be broken again
Silence can best express a long journey,
walking over fire, braving the volcanic Jatinga
Dews get collected on the wings of nilkantha birds
Don’t trespass
into the world of gods and goddess,
an outcast, an asura, you are,
no elixir to be churned out from the depth of seas.
Her sharp trident for you always blazes.
First Love
I keep flowers on this piece of stone
in solitude of this woods
a bird hides a seed somewhere
I don’t think I’ll return
again along this road
life is such a riddle,
the bird comes out of darkness
I read its silence,
as if an inspiration
on the shadow of a half fallen tree
holding fasts to interrogation
Should I say this to be
the second burning brazier?
Every love is the first love
with its own chalice…
This Meeting
Should I trespass into her charmed world,
an island of clouds
A mere hoopoe bird, acrophobic stays close to earth
This archetypal fire opens the unending travel
from one birth to another
in search of fifty one pieces of her divine body.
The Divine Red
You’re sitting so close, yet it seems
Seven seas and thirteen rivers between you and me
What’s this perfume that evokes my childhood lullaby
Does it ooz from your rained-washed hair
Does ir come out of my stirred up soul
Depict the divine red …
Red of fire
Red of the blood of a butchered beast
A demon bleeds eternally at her feet
Whom people worship as the allkin…
Your amnesia to be broken
A waiting hatching bird…
Jingle Bells
Silence needs noise, noise of many failures misunderstood
A bird of dream falls on the collective leaves, withering and yellow.
Jingle bells musicise solitude
Woods of noght have dinctict ears for my stories
Song of Sparrows
( a tribute to Majid Majedi)
Sparrows stitch the blue