Calcutta is a dead weight on my heart:I must destroy her before I go.I shall seduce her away to Haldia portand feed her sweets spiked with arsenic—Calcutta is a dead weight on my heart.Calcutta counterfeits moonlight, and has learntto mix thorns and gravelwith her kisses.She forgets to add sugar to tea like her tearsand has…
by writing a poem though I may not be elected PresidentI shall demand my fistful of earth:for eons this world has been indebted to the shepherd’s song.By writing a poem I shall claim Scotch, premium brand, anda leg of chicken cooked in unadulterated oil, nothing less—for this poem I shall demand countless odalisques—or a woman…
From the horizon before me, like an exile, you advancedwith hesitant stepsYour body covered with a white swan’s feathers, garland of gunja seeds round your neckI was afraidThat wasn’t a time for sightseeing, it was a time of banishmentThen the city was burning with hate, the knife in the human hand was being plantedin the…
The froth of the impassioned wavesswept away my spit.Yet sometimes I am embarrassed, after so many years I can hearthe sea curse me.On the mail train’s body I once chalkeda woman’s profile:no one saw me, no one knew—in fact even the stars in her eyes were not there.Before the train could cross a single station,…
Her nipples two bared switches,- switches? Hands tremble at their touch.This hand has touched worms, pillows bound to chest, blood,In a greedless drowning to death in the blood’s mucus,This hand has touched the shriek of tearless eyesThis hand has touchedThis handA tunnel-like alley- running through it lightning-fast,small change clutched….sounds of boots behind, a cigarettein the…
ever again?In the late evening glowswathing the hanging balcony,a ‘daring’ light had fallen on her face,and like a telegram,had instantly revealed Neera’s grace!A hint of a smile had mergedon her brows and eyes,or was it the shine of mica-fines?At such times,I so long to call that lady, just a ‘babe’.I raise my right handand with…
In a passing whim I blow out the moonlight(Remember that moonlight?) or the sunlight (remember that too?).Don’t believe a thing my detractors say.They might say that I am a child or a fool,or a magician, —Ragged tents, broken drums, patcheson his black coat, but look what a deadly dance he’s dancingon the pupils of her…
than even the day I was born.You walk alone —in the autumn-woods.The rustle of leavesunder your tender feet,fill the air!The mountains, sloped like a bullock’s neckmeet the horizon,and the evening sunresounding its victory-cymbalssets behind those hills.All these, Neera, seem more distantthan even the day I was born.Sometimes, when I’ve looked at the sky,I’ve seen a…
