a pop up

"pop" - when the primordial bliss got disturbed,
"pop"- when i almost ODied over this idea of big bang,
"pop" said the corn inside the microwave,
"pop" -- said a bubble on being launched to the surface from the bed of a distant marsh full of methane,
"pop" goes the seed mistakenly meshed between burning strands of the sweet leaf because this moron was desperate,
"pop" -- the sound of the last drop of water released from a sarkari water supply connection, "pop" -- on the junk tapes bearing the 'philips top ten' label,
"pop" -- is what a puff is called in assamese,
"pop", a consumer degradable grade for everything else that wasn't so popular,
"pop", said the husband to his wife on the morning after,
"pop", goes the cork when sparkly wants to set herself free for your thirsty throats,
"pop", is not about Karl Popper,
"POP" -- nightmare for the fish waiting for idols.

(Screen grab: Panicware)

The Tamarind Tree Replacement

They ran for Krautrock,
they ran for hymns,
with calibrated consciousness,
replacing this hazy wakefulness.

They purchased cars,
Origami cards, mud lamps
for their concrete hearts,
replacing the haunted Tamarind.

They looked at the East
By the West -- a hollow transformation?
If they wrote blank papers,
they drew blank drafts.

They made love,
in their imagined vineyard.
Shouting, as if believing,
once again.

Pagemaker's Panic Poetry

Moot now!
Else grind
No! churn,
Enough! just burn.

Throw?
A three letter word?
No! just trim,
we need a paper tiger.

Ponder?
just say KISS.
page heavy,
but sight dim.

Glottal stops?
Speech therapy
to face a mic, and
achieve accent distortion.

Paste it, no time
for word carpentary,
suffer slip tongue,
so just say KISS.

(pic: www.boyet.com/Articles/FixingEzdslForUnicode.html)

KISS: Keep It Short and Simple

God in exile

Nightwalker or Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke


On a fine morning, my god was assaulted,
bruised and battered, he
surrendered his will to science,
they found his secrets,
told everyone about them.
My god stood naked and defeated,
no chirping of birds, no rainbows,
my land of mist slowly turned into a coal mine.

The defeated God was locked in a temple or
may be at a mosque, but mostly under the veil of reason,
his statues -- replicated, recast, resold,
his songs were now were written and recorded,
And his messengers bask in his glory,
while he was imprisoned in time,
by an urgent need of ours to exceed ourselves,
to defend us from ourselves, and to save us from us.

My injured god is exiled now,
when reason of man took over his throne,
the rulers praise my god, praise his creation,
and tell us how miserable we are in his glory of greatness
Our rulers did speak the truth,
for it was the cause of our devotion.
Some of knew while others fought,
as we were supposed to be mute spectators.

After eons, by a waterfall in the heart of an ancient mountain,
the exiled god perched on the last tree of the forest.
A forest spirit, as they called him,
lived amid the beings dressed in the light itself,
danced around him -- the glowing honeycomb of a million fireflies.

Tiller's song

spill the bean,
let the sprouts grow,
earth needs fire,
but fire needs fire alarms,
just like cows need bells,
and cats become mothers,
we go round and round,
and almost rotund,
till o of the val turns into an office,
and the hubris descends down

Avenger the scavenger

a life spent on avenging,
the mangled remains of our tribe,
meet me sans my mistaken laughter,
behind your favourite scrapyard.
A ruthless desert road, countless skulls,
robbers and lepers, the ills and wrongs,
consuming all for this appetising triumph,
the lonely scavenger has arrived.

I stay inside a box of rain,
Filled with charms and essences,
In the overlapping groves of memories,
As moments testify their presence.

No! These are not archives of my thoughts,
For they are breathing droplets,
Consistent like rhythms of my chaotic heart,
Alive and dead – but only for this moment.

If I were to pen down my thoughts,
Like the way it rains inside this box,
A flood would consume you, and me too.
Shall we just keep it quiet then?

You are welcome to my box of rain,
You could get your raincoat
But I sit naked, and I dare others to lie beside me,
To know the warmth of these globules.

hypothesis

if i am in two minds,
one has me in my mind,
the other is my mind,
settled in a subset,
of agonizing similarities

and you say instant coffee tastes like mud...

In instant fame we drown,
And between instant love and hate,
Riotous thoughts tear this being apart,
Into a friend, a foe, a lover and a god,
(I wish I knew the others)
But conflicts are now harbingers,
Of this new consciousness,
Of the instant being,
Apparently in disguise
Of a crooked fate,
Predicting storms,
While others believe and seek,
This instant association,
With gods and the good.

Terse in verse

Jacques Andre Boiffard, Big Toe series, Untitled, 1929

Pride of the cartel,
Was a lost cause,
He swerved to his right,
Fell for the gloss.

Blank noise from the sun,
Blackened her hopes.
She stuck to the pole,
Like silhouettes of gods.

The bride loved her mother,
But She fell onto their arms,
The wolf and his other,
Half brother, the lover.

The prisoner smelt freedom,
Died an instant death,
Poisoned air, they say,
Is free and easy, these days.

Feral

Your brilliance will never cease
This unease in the equilibrium,
Your potent countenance, fiery,
Oblivious of the veils of myth,
Yearning to cover your face.

The spirit disowned you,
The day universe exploded
Like a sun starved by its own force,
You fell from grace,
Into a loop called time.

You, now on the threshold of light,
Traverse through this twilight,
Like an urgent nomad,
An impulsive streak,
A forgotten truth, a persistent lie.

autobiographia

Listless, but he survived the odds,
Eager and wanting to believe,
The line that blurs the fate,
Of a child lost in a storm.

Aspire, she said, and she
Walked out of the room,
To become an elusive mean,
for an amnesiac inside a maze.

Lament, but he fought them,
With a half hearted smile,
In defence of the weak,
Between the lines of print.

Shy, he wrote in bold,
Of his own death,
He punished himself,
With a tear and a poem.

Untitled

Rustic bliss I seek you,
Soil smeared on my palms,
Shrouded by the rough-uncut,
Face of the earth.

Trees, undergrowth, the misfit in me,
We are all one today.
One of the same,
For you it’s a naming game.

Linguistic cannibal

A cannibal called language,
Feasts on my tongue,
As I hang upside down
From the tree of life.

This drudgery of speech,
Should it exist, it
Will send me to the last dungeon
Of unfathomable feelings.

Now I am a thoughtless traveller
Lost in the last fold of knowledge,
And beyond it lays the bliss of death.

But If I eat your words before I die,
You can still smile at me.

For the Grapevine's trail

I am not a poet,
There are no verses,
No rhyme or reason,
For me to exist.

I do not have a heart,
To write and wail
all the good words,
For the grapevine’s trail.

Dragonfly

Her billion eyes burnt in rage,
She had died many deaths before,
When violence of her wingspan brewed a storm.

Somewhere in distant time, we were swimming in the air,
Kissing the floating anthers and sleepy fireflies,
As if they were fairies from our past.
Our union caused amazement,
Followed by shouts and murmurs,
Another poet died of his prophetic lust.

Freedom of spring followed,
While she was locked up in winter’s prison,
She raced down a stairway,
Her wings buried beneath her coat,
Made of her velvet dreams.
An open window had cast its spell,
She surrendered her wings,
To all the blue of my sky.

Heart of the matter

They shouted and screamed,
Arrested Causality from her bedroom,
Locked her behind the bars of reason,
Charged her for deviance and treason.

They poured boiling blood on her that night,
demanding the confession;
about the double murder of Space and Time.
But how would causality know?

She is a tool of Knowledge,
and Knowledge is absconding,
Driving a nail inside Causality’s fingers,
They asked: “What’s your modus operandi?”

The judge pronounced her as guilty,
No eyewitnesses, except Guilt himself,
Dressed in black and white, this time
In front of the blind Law.

“What a joke!” cried the beggar,
Displaying his wounds for alms.
Space and Time were alive.
While Causality was lost in pages of Crime.

Sculpture by Melodee Loyer

Falling in Love

So you came and conquered,
You saw what you wanted to see,
Invading me, keeping me awake,
Like how mothers stay up.

You named me the overbearing child,
Trusted me but for your plight.
Now that you are leaving with a smile,
Should I close my door?

Burdened, I am with your pithy little messages,
Shall I keep them close to me?
I won’t bury them in my backyard,
What will I do with my demons then?

So love is a sign,
For a fortune teller,
For a fool, it’s wine.
I am such a fool.

Warning

This house is jinxed,
Don't come around here no more.

The Swell

A river runs through me,
She caresses me, and takes me in her arms,
She keeps me afloat, awake, cleansing me like a mother,
Caring yet oblivious to my presence,

The days when dark clouds surround her,
She twists and turns,
And finally she smiles as she swells,
Breaking a million hearts.