Last...at last.

Desperately coughing all day today,
Losing my breathe, gasping for more breathe....
How did I end up here?
I was supposed to be near the finish line by now...
How did I fall so far behind?
The crowd was supposed to be cheering for my victory...
Bitter memories now,bitter sweet memories.
I am here now...I must turn around and obey...
The ridiculing faces, the disappointed facades.
I must accept I have finally lost.
There is still time...on the big clock...
So my feet don't stir, though my eyes are faced back.
I have faced worse than this...
I have coughed worse than this.
At every finish line, I have felt more out of breathe.
So I run the last minute...
As the crowd glares on in shock.

I smile and take my place at last...
Well,somebody had to finish last...
Right?

Thin lines

Hunger strikes faith,

Beauty dies in labor,

Rivers rotting dry,

Glamorous, lonely stars..

Here I am in my selfish whims,

In so much of cold, soft skin,

My ambitious fake handwriting---

They’re all for you and for him.

With love...or not...

Umbilical disparage,

Look-alike strangers,

Misnomer last names,

And unsigned 'sorry' letters.

These are my eloquent white lies,

Inside such perfectly dirty thin lines,

Truth is I'm lying and not why

I am everyone’s little miss perfect.

Not Yours Only...

Here is how my faith is finally gone,

And why my grace is torn,

I’ve run out of paper…

Papers to burn,

And words to loan…

Some meaning to this liar's syndrome.

Thin dirty, scrawling lines…

Etched in my clammy palm,

I take the stage and clear my voice…

And I tell them…

Everything.

I talk all day into the night…

Till I know I’ve crossed the thin line.

When it’s over, I could breathe

Again.

Blurry thin lines, bind me tight

And never let me do that again...

I'm caught by the cold of late November

Spurning out cold rage to the new year

Blindfold me,gag me and bind me tight,thin lines...

Thin lines, never let go of me

Again.

I

Kol-75

The disparaging glare of the midday sun,

The tired yawns of midnight moon

And the coveted squirming through

Overcrowded,overhustled,overwhelmed rooms...

My room in my home,in my kolkata.

3 A.M.now and they are still awake

Feigning sleep,some sleeplessness...

Humming,or smoking,or musing

Out the windows and windows break away

Flying across terraces,visiting each other...

My lovers,my soulmates of my kolkata.

Morning weighs heavy down on us,

Blanketing the smell of last night's burnt rain.

Obliging reminders,slower cellphones---

Hello,my ironies and my cynical friends,

Will my feet catch in a pothole

Or will a rickshaw curse at me again?

And will they make me smile again...?

At my mirages, my addictions...my kolkata?

Waiting to escape your clutches for one day...

Waiting to hear your thoughts break surface...

Waiting to clot, and to fade...

Death by the tea-stall and eroded streets of accidents...

I pray that you survive that day.

Thieves

The foul-smelling ghost of a breath left

Upon the glass, proof of some theft

Will live on to relive the stealthy night,

Stories of missing treasures to find…

Ghouls of darkness will whisper no lie;

It will scream and shriek their might!

And I will merely mumble my fears

And crumble under the wearing linger

Of the omniscient fallacy called disguise…

But who will they weep for upon my demise?

Lies demean before your eyes,

They shriek with the living

And plead with the dying…

They reveal your secrets underlying

The professed sanctity of your Life.

Yet you forsake your only time,

Your second chance, your last trial…

Death shall only erase the triumphs

Of your vice upon the scars…

Never will it redeem your hands

Of the blunders that taint your chance…

Your fear remains in the confessions…

At the end, your single lone possession

And by the time your life whirls away…

Your only breathing and gasping prey…

Their treasures, your obsession,

Their loss and your cremation.

The night stands too still…

While a sage sings of Heaven…

The wind cleanses their sills

While we reap our ashes...

My Life by the Hours

Nostalgia---
Sleepless the sound of nostalgia
Down in the chalets of remorse,
Folded the November pages of school diary
Leftover of battles, witness of war…
Humor me now, my articulate friends,
Reframe my flaws through my remains…
Leave nothing behind, for once, of this day,
Leave nothing behind to follow the sunset…
Nothing….

Regrets---
I am all yours today at own will
Never mind the penetrating pills…
The surrounding haze will soon pass forever
And I will wake up to dry grass…
Mesmerize me, hypnotize me…
Kill me, shred me, vitalize me…
Then turn the tables around by the hour,
And pass me the salt for all I can scour…
All I can scour…

Aging---
Simmered afternoons in the waking,
Remember the gladiators’ swords…
Fighting unto the wishful demented finality-
Death- the worries fade to the end…
Burn everything when death does apart
My body and my ever-hovering past…
Save nothing for my grandchildren to contest
Save nothing for them to ever detest…
Nothing…

Hours----

Nothing is forever, I learnt early.

I live by my rules for my uncertainties…

Are in nobody’s hand but my own

Like dust clinging to the hour’s hand

And hour hand takes me back

Down the same winding path…

Time and again, the hands await…

Randomness Thoughts about you

First rain of the year...or so it seems...
When was the last time we got drenched before today? Its been days i guess...
I saw a grasshopper flying out of the lake into the night...didnt you see?
Its 12:30...and I'm waiting for your call. I smoke this one...
I smoke this one to stay on longer with you in hell...just in case something happens in this lifetime.
Forgive me.

Hold The Thought

Hold the thought
You won’t live beyond.
Surface granules
Linger over the duels
And I callously hold it
The thought I mean;
It licks my exposure
I boldly come clean…

Have I lost you yet?
Haven’t I lost you yet?
Innocence converses
With all my differences.
I’m cracking sideways
I can see the ocean
Its blue tints my face
And bubbles choke my jargons…

I fall backwards
The other half of me…
And I can smell
The earth defending
My touch, my skin
So effervescently…
The hue of the open flesh
Kills the mahogany…
So I revert to my stand…
Swaying viscerally…
And nothing makes noise
Nothing takes the breeze…
But I stand nonetheless…
This half of me
I stand looking ahead…
Where you left me…

All in a second…
The phone says ‘no answer’,
Only fifteen rings…
And I trip over.
The thought is splayed
And you disappear…across the floor…