To you or to me

Life is packing box
Emotions nailed on the board of presuppositions

Nails stick out at odd angles
Catching the fabric that life wraps itself

Fallacy of notions grumbles alive
Realises mistakes of presumed situations.

Misery burrows deep in the cracks
The maliase stretches into the corners.

Ants start chewing the heart out
Nostalgic leftovers on a wooden platter.

Wooden frames hang in repose
Fraying pictures look lost within

Faces stamped on the stricken brownscape
Fading recess or a charming enclave.

In the cuboid, time looks
Trapped in a jungle in existence no more

Mind creeps on parallel grooves
Searching for the end in the box of wood.

The organic shrieks out in mental friction
Firing the emotions hovering at threshold

The tongues of flame leaps within
Sucking up the O2 in the claustrophobic surrounding.

The burnt carbon prods the soul
The ego starts pricking the piece of wood.

Blank lives etched over the wooden face.
The road had lead, but then, it ended too.

Copyright: Anirban Sarkar
Circa: 25th July 1999

Letter to my best friend.

You are the tiny slivers of light
                                   To the lone star in the twilight sky
Gathering the dying bright of the day
                                   Spreading orange at the rim of horizon.

You are the soothing fingers of hope
                                   To the mortal wounds of the broken warrior
As he watches the wisps of life
                                   Escape through the cracks of his shattered armour.

You are the showers of morning rain
                                   To the cracked brown earth on parched land
Opened up in the agony of thirst
                                   Scorched dry in the months of drought

You are the spectrum of colours
                                   To the blind man's midnight dreams
Painting a reality he will never see
                                   Cursed to darkness in the waking hours.

You are the winds of luck
                                   To the born loser of many a years
Whose wheels of fortune like still with rust
                                   Having never moved since his birth

You are the long forgotten tune
                                   To the mind saddened with grief
When nothing can perhaps lessen the pain
                                  Of a loss, which will stay forever.

You are the songs of friendship
                                  To the lonely poet within me
Waiting forever to shower my feelings
                                  On the women I have married.

Copyright: Anirban Sarkar
Circa: 2000
                

The mounds of venus swells at my touch
As I trace the curves of the horizon
My lips slips over the smoothness of the contours
Licking the raindrops off the virgin land
Trying to suck it dry, and my heart
Expands in folds and envelop; nature
showering plenty on the parched desert
of rolling grains of silica shining with
brightness of reflected emotions.
Starlight twinkles in the corner of her eyes
when I dissolve in her lips
Trying to discover the passion
tucked snugly in the corners
of two boughs of a treee, entwined like
Siamese twins. My staff pars the
nether lips to gain entry into the wet rain
on the green blades of grass, laden in repose
with the water droplets clinging
in a tight embrace to the undersurface.

Copright: Anirban Sarkar

Acrid!

Acid in the mouth
Burning raw down the throat
mind shreaks a crazy banshee
Incoherent syllables escapes
from the splitted hair ends
revealing nothing in
The Black Nothingness.
Mind tried pulling the plug
lodged tight, stopping
the flow of peace
of satiation
of sleep ...
And the eyes open
to the unhurried world
Moving or still
as perception varies
Cloak of reality
hangs askew
allowing the mind
to float out
In the space beyond.

Penned 14th Dec 2008
At: New Delhi, India

When Dreams Take Wings

Spread your wings, far and wide
Catch the breeze flowing beside
Soar up and above in the sky
Deep in a realm, where rules don’t apply.

Far away from your drab existence
Up and above the thoughtless motions
Bend the sunlight around your feathers
Cocoon yourself in a million glitters.

Learn to dream, for that’s the key
To remove the darkness & be free
Let your imagination take its flight
Over mighty mountains & goals out of sight,

Spread your fingers, & touch the unknown
Discover places you had never known
Open your mind, to roam the wild
Regain your innocence & be again a child.

Shatter the chains that had bound
Encapsulated your soul to the ground
For to dream, is the real freedom
And none can take away this mighty weapon.

Through your dreams you will know the path to take
Of future actions to follow in its wake
Our dreams are unique for everyone
So grab the chance before it’s gone

If you dream, you can do
Those impossible things you never knew
Were possible enough for you to do
By opening your eyes to a broader view.

Circa: 1998 © Anirban Sarkar

A Song of Release

A man stumbles over a fallen branch
His head hung low in a broken hunch
With wild eyes roaming the yet unseen
Searching for reason in the days has been.

Catches a creeper and lifts himself up
Tries to wipe his face but soon gives up
The mud sticks on, all over his face
A plaster of much across his haggard visage.

Looks at the branch lying on the ground
Twisting in the effort and groans out loud
Must have hurt something deep within
Where fingers don’t reach and mind fails searching.

Somehow he stands on his own two feet
Caressing the support till his fingers leave it
The wind starts howling among the trees
And swirls in a cloud of dry dead leaves.

He opens his mouth and shrieks out loud
To join nature in similarity found
Both crying for the dead in them
As life has leapt away in a bound.

Slowly he starts to sway with the wild
Picking up the rhythm he can find
The search for meaning he no more cares
Of feelings he thought were close and dear.

The sky opens up in droplets of rain
As an electric flow sweeps away his pains
With lightning coursing through his veins
Removing the misery, he had tried to make sense.

He leaps in joy at his newfound release
Freed at last from the age old miseries
The wind picks him up and moves him on
Over a region of space he never before gone.

Stung by curiosity he glances down
Sees the rooftops stuck to the ground
Moving their branches in a farewell bid
Symbolizing the reasons he hasn’t carried.

As he had embarked (in his journey) with the slate all clean
Flying high above the low lying green
He greets his rebirth with a smile.
His release into the Eternal Life.

© Anirban Sarkar

The Bride from Bengal

The shy bride peeps truantly
through the parted palkee drapes
At the lazy paddy fields swaying
soft to the silent breeze.
To the smooth horizon
bordered in muted green.
The deep hum of the bearers
‘haiha ho! Haiha ho!’
Mingles with nature and blankets
her softly
against the early morning chill

So ‘cozy’ she feels, reminds of
her mother’s lap
Where she would lie, in sadness
and tranquility
When a sense of bliss would
descend on her.
Filling the empty spaces,
and driving the fears
away from her virgin mind.

Allowing the glow of warmth to
spread over her
Till her body and her soul
would throb in unison
And she would feel the life force
wash over her
In wave after wave creating music
of her innermost rhythm.
Now, her hand wanders to
her cheek
And finds a fresh rivulet streaming
in earnest
Over her face, which she thought
had gone dry
With her tears spent as she
hugged tight
Turning her mother’s aanchal
Into a soggy night

As if the monsoon had
arrived
And drenched all who were
caught unaware
“Maa, Maa go” a
tiny whisper
escaped her compressed lips

As she tries to keep her emotions
bottled within
But her heart wrenches in
pain untold
With her mind flying to the
days now gone
Searching wild for the
comforting zone
Missing the coolness of her
touch

and the softness of her fingers
to the inner peace she had felt
as she had laid on her mother’s lap.

Penned Circa 1999 © Anirban Sarkar