Newspaper cones of nuts

The stars a sprinkling of pale pepper

on the black salt of the sky
the moon’s a sliver of pungent onion
and hardly a tear in any eye
let’s sit here and share newspaper
cones of nuts and watch that guy
string hollowed out bones into a skeleton
that can barely breathe or die.


The earth is round like a roll at supper
and a crusted fruit plate pie
the sun’s a bun in gold and crimson
done to a turn when it gets high
let’s sit here all cosy and super
share the air, just you and I
they’ll be coming, that’s for certain
and we’ll join them by and by.


You can take the side of a pauper
but not all rich men can sprout a lie
the salt of the earth gets no cinnamon
and bread crumbles when it’s too dry
the stars are kernels for the popper
and moon’s butter to a gluttonous eye
or it could be a sliver of onion
rotting in the heart of a skeletal sigh.


Suns and moons, buns and dippers
change nothing, all rules apply
large ships sailing the high oceans
mean nil to small merchants, and fry;
eat the peanuts, dig no deeper
can’t get closer so don’t even try
and shred the paper, don’t smooth open
otherwise the headlines make you cry.




Shared for OLN @ dVerse

Wanderers

They kick at stones and wonder if they’re right

to think in rhymes that skim crusts and horizons.
The deserts slow step through shafts of moonlight.

 

The sharp edged dunes blur as they climb the heights

and fall back three steps for each uphill one;
they kick at stones and wonder if they’re right.

 

The thorntree grows without a stream in sight,

rocks flex their stripes on bare back mountains,
the deserts slow step through shafts of moonlight.

 

Pinprick flames burn at a distant campsite -

no-one can know who else is on the run;
they kick at stones and wonder if they’re right.

 

Small heaps of fleshless bones on flash calcite;

the kills pile up but the sands hide no weapons,
the deserts slow step through shafts of moonlight.

 

The fox walks with his bushy tail upright

noiselessly on the pitfalls of ant-lions.
They kick at stones and wonder if they’re right;
the deserts slow step through shafts of moonlight.

 

 

Written in response to Poetics at dVerse, but I got a few things  in my head, and followed where they went collectively.  Of course I wanted to do the Mad Lib prompt so I got my words - 2 nouns : stone, tree 3 verbs : walk, kick, fall  3 adjectives : slow, bare, sharp 2 random : tail (tale?), far; and I’ve cheated a little with that last and used distant instead, is that allowed? Anyways.  Then there was the prompt here, which I really, really wanted to do but missed.  And maybe because of IWD and all, the word “Song” just took me straight off to this.  






 

Preparing for the sale

Late in the day she decides to locate the silver      

and find the brass, and so opens the cupboards -    
a hodgepodge of old style metal utensils,   
worship-ware, plates faintly holy with sandalwood marks still           
and stacked, outdated candles for the water filter
who uses them now? how absurd!     
to keep them taking up space and possibly, time; 
and love letters from years ago! broken bird-wings        
of affection, handwritten line by line           
tongue-tied emotions hyperventilating        
in laboriously well-formed words.       

Some of the metal’s so discoloured, it’s difficult

to make out the material, its probable value
only gauged by the weight upon her wrist
she’s hardly planned for this. The sudden surface of tarnished
plates, hidden nuances of dulled
reverence, the decayed bones and sinews
of silver, brass; in secret closets of skeletal
houses whispered away long ago, an unflattering past stalks
the present, fingerprints on smudged metal
cracked ivory candles, panting words caught
undressed in love’s crosstalk, vaguely violated taboos.

She can hear the cycle chap on his weekly rounds         

calling out to no-one in general “Repairs?”  
the silence babbles; there are no coherent replies.
On the opposite terrace, the retired clerk sighs     
for the gaunt work years; cars abound        
two to each parking slot now everywhere              
only the children possess posh all-terrain     
machines of predatory aero-dynamism, whose parts       
never need mending; anyway they don’t deign
to use repaired things, they just discard.
Cycles, filters, skeletal houses. Tarnished silver worship-ware.




Shared for OLN @ dVerse

Of farewells

 

 

We cannot be sure if we’ll meet again -

who can know beforehand which one is final?
and both of us have learnt to say this farewell
many times over, without the groundswell
of emotions, dramatic formats of love overdone;
her smile’s still radiant, eye-sockets hooded with pain,
her voice rock-steady without a tremble,
“It’s done me no end good, my dear. When
do you come back?”  My voice too is strangely even,
“Maybe next year? I really can’t tell.”
I leave without looking back, and she remains
unyielding in her chair by the window as usual.
The cab-driver knows from my face the terminal
and drives me straight there where they end and begin.






Shared at dVerse where the prompt today is the art of letting go.




 

Comfort and Karma

Image courtesy Dina M. Ramadan. Used with permission.

I too will find my comfort somewhere

treading these virtual hamster wheels.
There are spokes enough for people in despair -
a moment’s fragile foothold made in steel -
that bring me around, endlessly spiralling stairs
and I climb forever, blindly follow the spiel
of a final happiness that’ll always be there
just because I’ve bought into this deal.

 

Outside in the world, minute by minute

the old lamps are switched off one by one
other brighter bulbs are tentatively lit
and already some splutter, and some are done.
And circling is easily bent into habit
wherever it is that I might choose to run
and despair equally impossible to quit
it has its own headiness of addiction.

 

Not every night explodes into a dawn,

the flare of dawns can likewise be a curse
the wheels might turn, the roads go on and on
with nothing worth tugging into a verse
and comfort itself so brief that it’s gone
before I’ve raised my head, or even worse
it’s just like despair, its face wan and withdrawn
and even as I look its outline blurs.

 

Each chipped beaker that I stop at and sip

whips past so fast, before I can make out
its contents or its level, just touch my lips
and swill and swallow the stuff in my mouth
and then again get back on that doped trip
the spokes and the bespoke roundabout,
the treadmill and the wheels of pain and hardship
the routine numbers of despair and doubt.

 

My small world within worlds within worlds

each nested into others and the infinite;
Tiny fists of events eternally unfurled
and analysed till they splay and fray to bits
despair seeded deep in them and pearled
and strung into the same lines and orbits
that grain of pain preserved and never dulled
though the nacre vainly tries to cover it.

 

But I will find my comfort, never fear,

in the vastness of the universe, its splendour;
in the microcosms that my life here
tries to replicate fitfully and so render
them meaningful, yet meaningless too; in spheres
of unreality, where I grasp the slender
rim of that wheel, though I can’t feel or steer
by it; though all I do is, in the end, surrender.



Shared for OLN@dVerse where "each week we connect to share our words, our hearts, our hopes and dreams…linking up with one of the most awesome, vibrant, poetic communities on the web"…

Back to school

The new term starts tomorrow,

the children go back to school
a different kind of peaceful
will warp the day, almost semi-sorrow.

 

While they were home, they woke up late,

ate at odd times, played with screens
kept hours that wouldn’t be allowed in
your days, but you didn’t remonstrate.

 

Two weeks of merry upheaval -

young voices in the living room,
weird music played at a hiked volume
you can barely call civil;

 

thank god, the neighbours can’t complain

because their children, home as well
make enough noise of their own, cancel
out yours, but it’s still hard to entertain

 

sudden demands for junk food,

cola, rides to places, movies, malls;
your day’s routine scrambled by it all,
your days of ordered solitude

 

now they’ll lie blankly tranquil,

with precise routines of nothingness
tomorrow a sterile silence, less
noise, politely low music, time to kill;

 

leisurely prepared and sipped coffees,

unbroken quiet hours to yourself
minus all turmoil, but you can’t help
wonder if it really makes for peace.



Shared at Poetics@dVerse where the prompt today is "peace".

Pirouette

Another year comes and pirouettes

twirls once, twice, and then leaves the stage
without making time for elaborate
recaps, without the clichéd, set
speeches that fall grandly off the page;

 

the last of the mornings draws to a close

behind an amorphous mist of rooftops
behind the naked trees, and winter shows
of merry red blooms, and jingling radios
and pushy red signs in the malls and shops;

 

somewhere the leaf-drop of terrible news;

the scream of a shell fossilised into stone.
Soft mollusc insides of lives torn, the livid bruise
of blood in stinging brine, the wounded queues,
the bubbles of pain, each cruising alone.

 

But the vicious trickle of viscous black despair

still gets stoppered by the crumbly cork
of shaky hope, and love pricks it everywhere
and breaks the quick-formed crust over its layer.
The new year comes in with its turns and torque.

Which side of the border? and fence? and angle?

 

 

 

All your shapes are drawn into paper

as jitter-quivery as brains;
your limbs flared out a little
for balance on the water;
someday no-one will bother
to ask what it all means,
someday all the borders will smear,
and where  will cease to matter.
I ponder the asking of questions
that really have no answer - 
the lift of pig-snouts in and out of  
the muck and melees of rains;
the blinks of streetlights climbing into dawns.

 

East Bengal or Mohan Bagan?

which of the narratives, dialects
do you speak at home, oh none?
yeah, your accent’s wrongly clipped -
where did your foremothers come from?
where are your descendants going?
what do you mean you don’t know
when our lives are being ruined
by borders drawn long ago?
how do you take your riverfood?
that’s the wrong recipe entirely!
The silver fishtail thrashes in the bowl,
the nib gleams in a sad chuckle.

 

An ad banner for a photo club says

to focus on the bigger picture
and then choose the smackro-ed details
to rub into an artistic blur;
someone like me in her status updates
has “control” paired with “gun”!
Somewhere a man holds aloft a banner;
near home the march of a million.
I ponder the building of echo chambers
that have no other options
except to return the same last words.
The domes and arches of your minds
fade away into the shadows.

 

Why do you worry about the murdered

halfway around the world
when your sisters are gang-raped
and your brothers killed
bloodlines can neither be erased
nor can they be re-drawn.
Sister, who do you call brethren
and which side are you on?
Specify your birthplace here,
and where is your deathplace?
The forms crinkle their eyes at me.
The ancient bones of pyramids crack
before the secrets spill.

For my readers who are not Bengali/Indian, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are football teams.  Bengal was partitioned into two separate nations based on religious lines during the independence of India in 1947, and there was massive displacement of people on both sides and horrific casualties.  The Hindus by and large came to India, and many Muslim families left their homes and went across to the other side.  Bangladesh has subsequently fought Pakistani control and become a sovreign nation in which struggle India too played a role. They celebrated their Victory Day on Dec 16.

The Partition is an event that Bengalis regretted then and some continue doing so now, it is artificial as the heritage and language and the culture is common. Even now, where an Indian Bengali has his roots - "this" or "that" side of the border, is an important part of his identity.  Signs of i.d. compliance, adherence to the correct protocols, supporting the "right" football team, cooking with the "right" recipe etc are given undue and sometimes quite ridiculous significance.  And we as a race elevate nostalgia to a fine art! Probably a little like the Irish from what I've heard, but then I wouldn't know firsthand :)

 

 

This week has been eventful in a bad way, too many terrible headlines right round the world, Sandy Hook, a young woman gang-raped in Delhi, political unrest in the ME, where to start or stop? Expressing in a poem is the best way to cope sometimes!

Shared for OLN @ dVerse

Will that be enough?

 

 

 

 

I see you sometimes now,

your spectacle frames through mine
your eyes of dandelion;
your voice rasps a little
against my inner membrane
a feline cough and purr
against the nap of where I hear;
stick figures of memory march
in the convolutions of veins,
have I loved you enough
before I let you go?

 

I tend the same gardens

cook the same hot meals
in the same dented saucepans;
yellow sludge of lentils
the same wooden utensils
with their edges broken
in all the same places
and each grain of your faces;
did I grip you hard enough
before you left my table?

 

The milk of the afternoon

curdles quickly into evening;
my hands fumble at switches
you let go of your knitting,
the sacred incense somewhere
lets its unctuous fragrance wisp in
trailing the bells and conch
doing the jangly rounds of temples,
the moon with a pointy beard
waxed stiff at his chin.



I touch your chicken-skin forehead
without having an inkling
did I touch you gently enough
when I saw you out to the darkness?





Shared at dVerse where the prompt this day invites us to to sweat the small stuff and write in technicolour 3D HD...

Honest things

 

You summarised our time together with ordinary phrases,

“Enjoyed that time at Zoe’s, didn’t we? And those other places?”
The summing up itself was the closure, though I didn’t realise
the purpose to your conversation, the frustrated half-sighs
and a refusal to meet my eyes till much, much later;
and when I did, the whole thing had almost ceased to matter.
Nothing really, just a pang that leave taking was so concise,
a vague disquiet that honest things can also end in disguise.

 

Often the wounds are made and healed, a scratch here or there,

and farewells said in strange formats, while we remain unaware.
You could have shook me by the hand, looked straight into my eyes.
But you didn’t. And taught me that not all untruths are lies.
For one of the pair things closed that day, for the other nothing changed,
one still kept her weekends free just as both had arranged.
But no-one came back to knock.  Many days and many goodbyes
had to be flipped to understand what a summing up implies.



Shared at dVerse where we are exploring poetry written in the second person this night.

The Matriarch's Admonition

I return your greeting of peace, my son

but you and I know we can hope for none
I foresee a long period of strife
that will mar the twilight years of my life.
We must always be canny and cautious
the enemy is  subtle, ferocious
and you know that, then why do you let
the reins slip thus from your loose hands and fret
me so? The vultures circle, peck and pull
but does the lion give up his kill? Careful
now, you mustn’t allow others to dictate
the policies and running of the state.
I have heard disturbing news, and stranger
accusations, we are in grave danger
one misstep and the entire edifice
will topple, how could you be so remiss?
a leader must know when to delegate.
This is the time to hold tight, no debates
or internecine struggles.  Don’t spell
out who gave those orders, I know it well.
That’s wholly unnecessary.  You lied
about the arrests, the children who died;
you told me lightly that no-one ordered
them tortured and then ruthlessly murdered.
I am no silly sentimental fool;
far from it! I know that the ones who rule
need iron fists; even steelier wits
but children! that should be off-limits;
they can turn into PR disasters
and I’m afraid this surely will.  Faster 
than you can recite the sacred First Verse;
nothing could be less opportune or worse
now than the negative publicity
that’s sure to follow.  It is a pity
you can’t, or won’t, control your siblings
and all this petty relentless quibbling
over how and who; it’s time for a council -
they must come to lunch here.  And I will
have that special Tuscan, white goat cheese flown  
in, that my son-in-law has strangely grown
to have a particular preference
for. You must try and bridge the difference
if possible. If not make clear, henceforth 
children are not to be singled out, both
adult men and women targets are fine
and of course any child that’s in the line
of fire by mistake, that’s not our lookout.
Matters should settle, I must think about
the food too, what would you prefer? Chinese
or Russian? I don’t care. Though Tuscan cheese
is a misfit in both cuisines, a waste.
Why must you all have such conflicting tastes
from food to vital nuances of state?
I am too old, I tire under this weight.
If that man listens, good; or things get cruel.
It’ll have to be that, I’ll keep the ampoule
ready at hand, it’s lucky only he
likes his cheese platter brought from Tuscany.
This your father gave me and departed.
Such long days! Go now, love, don’t be faint-hearted
and remember, my leader and my son -
it’s a grave error to touch the children.




Shared at dVerse where the prompt this day combines poetry, first person narrative, and acting. 

This poem plopped into my mind as a response, lately surrounded by the upheavals in the Middle East. I have always wondered at the family dynamics behind the one-man shows.  I have also wanted to try out a dramatic monologue, and this prompt was the perfect opportunity to write my own version. 

The situation here is a mother talking to her son who is President, a somewhat weak man surrounded and swayed by his bossy relatives in high positions.  The mother is disturbed after a particularly harrowing episode where some young children have been targeted, tortured and killed for the first time during the uprising.  She is trying to recover lost ground after widely publicised media reports of the same.

The son-in-law holds powerful office and has different ideas as to running the country, and the mother plans the council to first try and persuade him, and failing that, to eliminate him.  Obviously drawn from reality but the individual characterisation and conversation are both completely imaginary.  Assad incidentally means lion in Arabic.