In the eyes of Banalata Sen

A lost wind I am seeking a path undismayed
Along the narrow lanes of life.

The Pressure fluctuations that mothered me
Or, the hurricane haunting hopes
I am meant to merge with,
Nothing really I have on my mind,
Except a mania for motility.

Every path I pry
Ends up becoming a part
Of a long asphyxiating labyrinth.

Yet, when the sun undoes
Its cloak of invisibility,
I wrap up my world of words
And embrace the road
With the only hope that one day,
Like all my predecessors denied salvation
I too would seek an eternal refuge
In the cosmic eyes of a Banalata Sen.

*Banalata Sen is a famous poem of Jibanananda Das
-punya

Death

By the bedside of bereavement
the mourning stand, stand-alone
like the far-away lights on alien lands
he- the one death bereaved and she-
the one soul-scattered to be the air
that would, now on, caress his hair
And abandoned, for both, in the space in between
giant grief that sounds like what you would
call a hollow moan or a broken bone or a pain overgrown.

-@Punyasloka,2016

Death 2

Death- 2

'If I should die,
And you should live..'
you would bring this up
in a moment of pure bliss,
the old argument we borrowed
from Emily Dickinson’s,
and i would hurt you with my honesty
(ha! the only way i know how to hurt)
and turning your face fumed (with an emotion
known only to those who get hurt too often)
putting a pillow in between
that would grow up to be
an undestroyable Berlin wall
on our flowery bed
in a minute for a night.

In a minute for a night
All the daisies and daffodils, we long nurtured
Trading our egos, ethos and emotions,
would vanish from the bed
Just like the fishes freshly warned.

As empty as a desert night,
The bed, a sickbed now,
With a pillow indented with otiose emotions
And I would be a weak winter sun
To whom no snow surrenders.

I would survive the night, so would you,
but the ones slain would be
our unborn babies.
And now I would start it all over,
Again I would repeat
'If I should die,
And you should live..’
.
@Punyasloka,2016

The Brothers Karamazov and me

when the mad man melted
He mothered many tributaries
Feeding each a part of his long-cultured madness
As colostrum

The soil and vegetation they flew through
Gave them their colors, disparity and eyes
To look through: Dmitri became sensualist, Ivan- a rationalist,
And Alexei, a committed theist, and they all chased ‘truth’ in the paths of their own.

Along with the mad father, I too had melted and flown through,
Quartered and corrected with them: when I exchanged a long glance with Ivan
And remembered feverish nights, sweating with my forehead against the cold window of my room,
Cursing every stoned statue I bowed down to, thereafter.

Along with Dmitri, I chased mirages and was cursed for the constant culpability that fell around.
And in a good day, I forgave every sinner, like Alexei and sang along with Kafka
‘They’re not all lunatics – just "incidentally mad", like the rest of us.’

A castle on cloud, just like the Brothers Karamazov
I was in the end.

-punyasloka

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Four hours into sleep
and the morning sun
 teases me with it's false golds

the westward wind
coated in a wintery-chill
whispers my name.

The deal is to
to wake me up,
to make me move,

I am more than
just myself

my dreams are no more
mine alone

The road ahead
knows my destination.

I am already a part
of a motile maniac on auto

that the universe is in real.

-Punyasloka

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Guilt sits cozily between them-
he the one with sun-stained cheeks
and forehead furrowed
and she, with eyes full of arctic winter

Wind, a de-winged bird
dying once after every helpless hop-skipping
and the moon, more penumbral
than real (call it the curse of you moon-marred men)

all that's green has gone on hibernation

only monotony of concrete prevails

-punyasloka

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let me take away
tonight a twisted fabric
from our rough-cut
reality and weave it
with a fantasy anew

let it begin with you-
a simple incantation of
a long nourished name
striking madly at my
vocal cord since forever

and end with desires
that wear more hunger
than the biggest black-hole
and in between well-placed
silences. 'Open Sesame',

when i say, consider that
all the dusts of disturbances
have now long settled down
and it's time for final move-
to wear the night's dark

mantle and morph into nothingness-
uncommon threads ahead
of time's course- naked, free
unformed, just how
lovers are meant to be.

let me do this once more
(what i always say)
my best trick ever-
let me make us whole
right from this rubble.

-@Punyasloka,2016

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Setting sun leaves
lasts of its angers
on winter trees
bonfire bodges from
branch to branch,slowly
like a truth unveiling
If looking inside
is awakening and
outside, dreaming,
in me a dream awakens every time
only to fall in to a deeper dream;
contrary winds-the only constant thing
The setting sun inside
is you abandoning a world
we once built for ourselves
and the winter trees that
undo all learning is
the 'ús- part' in me
That the night
resets everything
@punyaslok,2016