poetry

Zuvelu Dozo

2005-06-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

My colours

An awareness is realized;
That my shades are slightly contrasting from the rest in the large canvas.
A rebel backing my own terms,
And so retorting to the rigid routine,
I requite a desire,
Born from a remembrance that nature ushered serenity.

Look! The daisies.
Do you perceive any beauty in them?
They smile gleefully as water sprinkles on their lithe petals
Bubbling water,
Excitedly gushes out from the mouth of a fading tube,
Which slithers idly on the solemn ground.

The unimportant daisies has unveiled a wonder,
The smell of the crude brown soil awakening my senses to another miracle too,
Like now as I water them;
The daisies,
I am alive,
Beauty befalls my spirit.

Deep within I am aware that my hues are a little off- beat;
For all around me are in a hurry,
Yet time makes no sense any more,
And my restless heart is calmed,
As I commune with mother Earth,
And marvel at her splendor.

-Zuvelu Dozo
zuve[at]rediffmail[dot]com

Nikesh Murali

2005-05-31T22:17:00.000-07:00


Tonight I feel lonely

Tonight I feel lonely,
Feel the night's chilling arms torturing my soul with its cold fingers.
My eyes search for comfort in the night sky
From where the chill descends
And conspires with the blades of grass underneath my feet.Tonight I feel abandoned,
Lost in a dream that is bitter like winter.
I do not see snow on the trees
Or white carpets on the streets
I cannot hear the harsh moans of the wind
Or the crackling complaints from the fireplace
It must be poverty? Or is it lonesomeness?
I rub my hands together,
The sound wakes me
And in its warmth, I seek relief.

-nikesh muralinikeshmurali[at]gmail[dot]com
www.nikeshmurali.netfirms.com

Chirantan Chatterjee

2005-05-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

Flames, Pauses, Despair and Truffles

I don’t know why I am doing this again

Perhaps to relieve a bit of my pain

Perhaps to replace the fact that you won’t call me tonight

Perhaps to give myself some company in this lonely night

When all that shares my solitude is the music

And the peering light of the lamp which

Gives a halo over the keys on the board

You won’t ever read this poem I know,

How I dream of adding a ‘perhaps’ here too,

But this one I want to keep to myself

My love, today I want to confess to you, and so

If there is any pretence, even an iota of falsity,

Rise up and bury me in your fury,

I will love the warmth the flames as they rage in their act of decimation.

We are now into almost the tenth month of knowing each other

Last December, when you were in the city

Would you not have wished that life take a better turn?

You getting a good partner for life, one who loves and cares,

Not too much perhaps like the one love you lost,

But surely as much to keep the strands of living flowing

Another year has gone by

Nothing has changed, life remains at those same origins,

I am sure when I have not been at your side,

You would have shed your tears, silently,

The ones which are the remnants of the floods

That used to usher through maybe some years back.

Life has taught you enough, hasn’t it?

How you wish you hadn’t been this eager a learner,

Picking up the shreds and yet marching through

With smiles and gallops that are so much a part of you

I don’t know why I am doing this again

Perhaps to relieve a bit of my pain

Perhaps to replace the fact that you won’t call me tonight

Perhaps to give myself some company in this lonely night

If there is any pretence, even an iota of falsity,

Rise up and bury me in your fury,

I will love the decimation in the warmth of your flames.

Where do I start this writing, I even don’t know how to end it,

If there is an end, that is written for us,

And for once I don’t want to construe up a story here

Not this time even if it means that the written word shall remain incomplete,

For your face’s sake, that face, which the last time I saw,

In the station waiting for me, trying to hide

The likeability that ushered in on seeing me,

With a surface dislike as if it was ‘me’

Who made you wait for the next train!

That is the face I will dedicate this piece to,

Lips clenched with teeth, eyes glittering

Just the slightest bit despite the sadness,

Occasional strands of hair flowing through,

And you in crumpled cloth, that’s the face that I will dedicate my flames to.

Perhaps to relieve a bit of my pain

Perhaps to replace the fact that you won’t call me tonight

Perhaps to give myself some company in this lonely night

If there is any pretence, even an iota of falsity,

Rise up and bury me in your fury,

I will love the warmth of your flames of decimation

I don’t know why I am doing this again

Well, whoever has met you has found in you nothing

That might be a good enough reason for me being shaken so much,

Either eyes they lacked or you my hideous lady, Kept it only for me to see,

Why did you open your curtains in front of me?

Yes now I don’t have any sentences to write,

But perhaps desperate tears, an ululation,

To give you back, right now. Are you listening?

My lady of yellow polka, muslin hair, and cotton touch?

Why did you take the onus on yourself?

To turn this boy into a man, Or is that you think your mission on earth,

To cuddle up to boys, with the small girl in you

And then give them ‘mother’s love’ and finally like the true mother

desert them for the world to grope with the man that

Came out of your womb, but I can’t forget the darkness there

Your neck which opened up to my first kiss

Comes back to me, your wide back

Draped with cloth that offered itself

To my tentative palms and five fingers of both hands,

My tired shoulders on the beach getting your soft massage,

I miss it all, my lady.

It is so difficult not to force myself,

Not to intrude and offer you my hand,

To accept that for this young boy all those pauses were just despairs!

If there is any pretence, even an iota of falsity,

Rise up and bury me in your fury,

I will love the warmth of your flames of decimation.

I don’t know why I am doing this again

Perhaps to relieve a bit of my pain

Perhaps to replace the fact that you won’t call me tonight

Perhaps to give myself some company in this lonely night

Truffles of hope, that’s all I have with me these days

That without me ever being able to get across to you,

You will come back to me

I never can be your first love, nor your last,

But I would be really glad with the in-between space

That your soul would surely have saved for me.

And you, the woman, as much an elder sister which I have none,

It’s been so many years now since I left mom and sis at home,

Searching for you, the woman of my life,

My little sis, my elder sis, my mother all in one,

And to add to that my woman of dreams

Do I call you my love, which sounds so trivial today?

But if there was a meaning to that word,

Perhaps it is you, for me it is you, you are you

Just once, once, dear come cry on my shoulders,

I will just run my fingers through your hair,

You can lie down and sleep, or keep crying the whole night,

I will stay with you I pledge,

Without you, ahead of you, beyond you

Life will not be so very difficult to live,

Yet such a different dimension to digest

That for now I will douse my flames,

My pauses of vacant despairs,

With hopes that comes to me in small truffles

Perhaps to relieve a bit of my pain

Perhaps to replace the fact that you won’t call me tonight

Perhaps to give myself some company in this lonely night

If there is any pretence, even an iota of falsity,

Rise up and bury me in your fury,

I will love the warmth of your flames

Despite they spelling my decimation

As they come from your darkness that was only for me to see.

-chirantan chatterjee (chiruchat[at]yahoo[dot]com)

Patrick Walsh - WAITING[ an ordinary day]

2005-03-14T00:21:00.000-08:00

WAITING[ an ordinary day]

We were never the Gandhi line,
Though my grandfather was nicknamed
"The Dandy" ...... an issue for stone-throwing
On country roads ...my mother said.
Yet prayer covered all like dust,
Just as these windows here

Whited,pinkybrown squat[is the devil inside?]
Of the old Vincentians , square out,square-in around
The cricket field view and March hedges like green-puffing.
And below the sleepy city awaits its summer dreams,
Distant car radio sums up the news
To harveynorman and football scorelines.
Somewhere someone dies suddenly,
Colors of a life escape like quarkthings.
Does anyone see existential arks waiting,idling?.

Does anyone know if the captain's masked,
Or the bosun's singing a strange shanty
About Lou Reeds seemingly unending
Cold dark sea / waits for me.me.me.

- patrick walsh
(2004 WORK IN FACETS AND MOONWORT REVIEW
published..author in UK AND IRISH LOCAL ANTHOLOGIES
patrickwalsh100[at]yahoo.co.uk )

Suraj Kamath

2005-02-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

Take

Take, my friend, take what you will,
I don’t need much for myself.
What did I work so hard for?
Only so that I could have something to give away.
Now you say you want nothing,
Then so be it, I shall wait
Till you tire of what life can give you,
And you search for what it has taken away.

Take, my brother, but have a care,
I'm not made of stone yet,
Be gentle, and take for your need,
Your greed I cannot withstand,
Though I have been greedy myself.
I too wanted to drink life to the last drop,
And I ran when I found that it drank me,
But I do not wish to run away any more.

Take, my love, even though I may be hurt,
That hurt is my blessing, and its understanding is my life,
But in your eagerness do not betray yourself,
Learn from the mistakes I made.
Someday, I will hold the pain in the palm of my hand,
And I will become like the sea from which life grew.
Then you may take from me and I will not lessen.
Forgive me, but I cannot be that today.
And if there are times when I must go away from you,
In fear that there will be no more of me if I stay.
I will return when I have defeated that little fear.
As I always will, haven't I always before?
Trust me, and know that I'll always be here..

-suraj kamath

( The basic facts are that I'm 24, an engineer, likely to be unemployed within 3 months, only
marginally tolerant of authority, deemed by most to have fallen off the tightrope into the realm
of insanity sometime around 2001. I read like crazy, do some meditation, work out intermittently,
have an eclectic taste in music, and have been writing on and off the last few years.
That, I hope, will be enough for an introduction. :)
Homepage : http://surajkamath.blogspot.com
)

Manjiri Desai

2005-02-03T05:34:00.000-08:00

The feel of muddy earth

The feel of muddy earth embraced by rain,
passing by of the first morning train
parched soul of the soul mate waiting to refresh
feelings that one can only once express...

Heartbeats of the child in mother's bosom
the first rays of the morning sun
the start of each day ending into the night
a refreshing dinner in the moonlight.

Beautiful breeze blowing up to a storm
peeling those thoughts already torn
and the tapping of rain on the roof
binding two minds seeming aloof.

Sound of the sea at eventide
spread of those waters seeming wide
feel of the newly churned coast
and a surprising evening toast.

Feel of his hand over my waist
and that brief contour of his taste
shine of love in his eyes or
those fake wanton lies.

Beauty of the rays of the setting sun
and that of rising emotion
that haste to bind two hearts together
in the wild wild coastal weather...

- manjiri desai (Manu)

neon chatterjee

2005-01-08T04:19:00.000-08:00

A Letter Too Late

Yesterday I got your letter;
the letter that you never wrote in ink - still,
I felt it - in my heart.
I read the letter in your eyes, I read it
in the brilliant glow of your pupils.
It was written on your face - with your tears;
it was written - 'come and take me'.

Standing on the road below, I could discern only those four words
through the iron bars of your window.
I never guessed that you were in such a hurry.
Today I heard that you have left - alone.
Beside the empty bottle of sleeping pills, you left no note.

- neon chatterjee

Charuta. K / suman datta

2004-12-01T04:07:00.000-08:00

Solitaire

It was a full moon night .. the moon looked quite solemn but beautiful.
During my late evening walk,
I couldn’t resist the temptation of looking up at the sky every other minute. Somehow, somewhere I felt a tinge of loneliness...a sorrow lingering in my heart,
even though I had my near and dear ones around me that evening.
Slowly, without me noticing it, a small teardrop made its way over my cheek.
It was a moment of mixed feelings. In the depths of my heart I was grieving
all that I had lost in my life. At the same time I knew life was much more beautiful than I could ever appreciate.
The moon was all alone in the sky with no stars shinning along . Still its loneliness looked beautiful and mind grasping to me. I realized the beauty in solitude and no longer felt the tinge of grief. I could feel myself reaching for my inner self and it was one of the most peaceful moments of my life.
It was a full moon night… and the moon kept shining brightly.

Charuta. K

On His Regaining Eyesight

That blade of grass,quivering in the cool morning air,
it filled my eyes with a joy ethereal.
I gazed at it, and then I found I couldn't hear
the breeze whisper as it brushed past
and while I used to say 'the grass is soft',
I learned to say 'the grass is green'.
I saw the flowers- red,violet and yellow
bathing in the heart-warming light
but alas! I couldn't hear them say 'hello'
as I used to even some days ago.
I roamed solitary in the garden
as I used to do days ago
and I said 'beg your pardon?'
and yet couldn't hear their voices low.
Thus, with joy and sorrow, was my flight
from the world of 'sounds' to the world of 'sight'.

suman datta