The April Solace

#1 : Gentle

Sunsets are gentle, I only noticed them by colours, Hues of yellow turning red; I loved the red, I embraced the twilight shed.

It was supposed to set me free, From the bright, demanding daylight, Which concealed my fears, To a time when fears looked bright; A relative sight.

I could watch them settle Tender on the still waters Of acceptance; Like a dangling leaf after a storm.

Acceptance, was not demanding, It gave me so much, Directions, some warmth and A sigh.

A sigh of predicted treachery, A sigh of failed insight, A sigh of lot more.

But the sighs were heaved then.

They are now shut inside Cupboards of inhibitions; And sucked into The suffocating attics of doubts.

Fears are now darker, I give them a coveted sight; For now what to be scared of - Me or mine; there's a fight.

I don't like sunsets anymore, They make me watch, Everything that is out of place, Like people after a drink; Like red can never be pink, Yet sunsets are still gentle, And I watch them now with awe To paint stories of what I saw.

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#2 : Patterns

The metal bar is rusted away, By the sweat of his grip; The sweat; every drop of which, Is a sigh , Like the one which is heaved by A weed, when it's plucked out of A glebe of crops; crops which progress.

There's a faint glimmer that flickers, As his anticipations of Seeing a bright sunny day.

There's also a wall, made of umpteen bricks, That now looks like a textile with patterns, Not the weaves or motifs, But four straight lines, and a slant one cutting through.

He's been the tailor of those, While knowing the count could never tally with his felonies.

These designs are on the cusp of changing His regularities from dejection to Hope.

They are not just lines of coal, Scratched out of his inner strife, Tally marks are patterns of prison life. ============================================================

#3 : Distance

An impassive voice in me, Talks to me about autumn, A season we are going through; When I feel like crushing The dead leaves and twitching the twigs, To make the most of them, For they have shed through Effortless seasons, forming a trail, I'd like to walk over and over, For nothing seemed enough for autumn to show up;

This makes me crave for a green tea, And trees bordering boulevards That resonate to us singing Bob Dylan;

Amidst conversations that I recollect As poetry, for they were magical; I believe things are always intact between poets, When I am on a lookout for words, Laced in a poem; That talks to me about you, And I fiddle with a poem now, To make it through to you; And I know words have power to scale the distance. ============================================================

#4 : Unsolved

If the sun don't shine on me today, And If the subways flood and bridges break, Don't tell me about them, I am having my own unsolved crisis, Which isn't getting better by Scratching head, biting nails Or crumpling that evil stare of the blank sheet.

Paperclips are holding on, so am I, The room looks as shrinked as my ideas, And the walls are coming closer.

Only if I could know; How Shakespeare penned Antony's speech, Or how Frost could see diverged roads, How Daffodils, did Wordsworth embrace, What made Bronte find her Evening Solace?

Did they have their own blocks?

Or were they shaken by the hardships, Instead of surrendering to them?

Crisis is central to art, be it social or personal, Art is made in times unusual.

If the bridges break, let words build the hope, If the subways flood, let brushes heal the bruises, If the sun don't shine, let art give out the light If things remain unsolved, let art have you resolved; After all, Plight is an artist's delight. ============================================================

#5 : Home

when dark skies made you mumble, i could not decipher, but i have never tried to grasp what orion meant, or what a centaurus looked like; i would like to believe they are as charming as you make them sound;and, if i ever tried to paint a constellation, i would only be able to visualise the patterns of your fingertips; that usher me to them; you told me about obstruction; how it blackens the vision of our thoughts, every once a while; if i ever write about an eclipse, it would be about you removing those blocks; to light up my world; it's mesmerizing how all our conversations make me wander, around spaces unfathomable to half the world; yet you are the centre that holds me together; this is where we giggled; when you thought you successfully put the idea of the solar system through my head; my mind is cratered with the impacts, of the asteroids that hit me whenever you start building a concept; for me to understand you better; but you don't have to worry, one day, all of them will find a place in a universe of feelings, that will talk as much about celestial bodies as about you; Filled with a warm grief that isn't woe, To which I'll keep coming back, For, be them far away, they'll always be my Home. ============================================================

#6 : Suddenly

If suddenly A thought of guilt, Sheepishly comes and Sits like a cuckoo On your nested mind, That you couldn't guard today, You cannot help but raise What it left for you, Along with your own Melancholy, Only to know after Feeding the guilt for long that, It flies off in the form of Atonement, And it never comes back, 'Cause it was given by someone else, Without you having noticed; Unlike Melancholy, Which is yours to feed And yours to keep. ============================================================

#7 : Advice

Blurriness; is what I read about, Some advice you gave?

To find empathy in indistinct times; How it gathers all pieces, Hideous and sanguine; Arranging them into a whole non entity; I lay there comfortable nowadays, Not meeting your eyes, Trying to catch moments made of icicles, Like running behind pretty butterflies; That could bring me back to focus; Without you, I seek a warmth in your advice. ============================================================

#8 : Lines

The world today, survives On telephone lines, Hoping to hear stories of well being;

Some lines won't get shorter, As the belief of people stuck in them, Battling for amenities; But lines formed in search for home, Have seen the most fears.

Railway lines lie alone, With no one to make sense out of The criss-cross; While scratched are the lines of anxiety On walls of hopelessness;

We have always drawn lines, To disconnect, But I write some today, For a hope to get laced. ============================================================

#9 : Silence

I'm searching for silence, Throughout the day, From the crass laughter club That muddles my sleep, since 6 am; From the ting-tings of doorbell, Brought by the maid, paper-wala, dudh-wala, laundry-wala; From manjeeras striking in A bhajan at the society temple, and; The honks of school buses that carry The vibrant tumult of the noisy children.

There's no finding silence, amidst the Long beeps of the rush hour traffic, Pissed pedestrians, and on top; The loud cab radio, where your earphones give up.

Next, I am at the office, seeking silence from; The tick-tocks of wall clocks, Out of tune click clacks of 700 keyboards, Creaks of doors and thuds of windows; All coming from impatient and dejected faces, Forced to sweat and shed their unproductivity, By tapping pens on the table, adding to the hullabaloo; The lunch hour clicks of disappointments, Delivered in tiffins; Then the pointless clatter of escape talks In the cigarette room; The give-up thuds of closing laptops, Pulling shutters; and 'In 600 metres turn left'; the GPS tracking voices; Silence; still not found, is trying its best To arrive at me; I feel, amidst, Rattling of coins while paying cab driver; Breaking of glass panes by a kid's football; Clanking utensils in a household flight; Screeching of cloth to wipe sweat in the elevators; The lift sounds of announcing floors; The tucks of opening locks; The stories of answering machine; The chewing of dinner, then again a whooshing drag, and; Snoring amidst cheering audience of a stand-up; Running till I wake up again; When my drunk neighbour knocks my door, by mistake; Clicks of switching lights off; Voices of a disrupted sleep, unachieved targets, Engulfed in a roaring headache; Silence can never meet me in sleep!

The noise is getting to me; I begin my quest for silence; A mountain top, with swishing winds, Long calls of eagles and a bleak rattle of a nearby spring, There's no silence still; I shout out of dejection, That too echoes and hits me ten times harder than my own voice; Surprisingly, that feels like relief, As if I had run and jumped into a stream, Going deep inside, unnoticeable to the world; I realised, I had spoken up;

I was looking for silence, while being silent all along the search; On this quest; I discovered my own voice; For silence was uncomfortable; The provoking raspings, throughout the day; were nothing but, Voices easing themselves out, Sounds releasing what the sources feel; My silence had attracted them all; Silence, when settled, is difficult to be found; I was deafened to the silence that was settled in me, I looked for the illusion of solace that silence is believed to create; and not silence really; When I found out; Your solace lies in your voice, Add the melody of your joys, The ranting karaoke, The low dragging Melancholia, The beats of enthusiasm, all; Into the crass cacophonies; In which rhythm of the world lies; And not enveloped in silence, Suffocating somewhere deep within. ============================================================

#10 : Yesterday

Someone gifted it to me, All wrapped up with golden papers, Crackling in my hands, that couldn't wait To tear it apart and look through; It's that simple that surprised me.

I opened it to witness the Yesterday of my life, It looks like an antique piece; Putting itself out there, Thinking of all the beautiful things I could do with it; But I don't know where to start, Should I first remove the cobwebs of embarrassments, That is holding me back?

Or the dirt of toxic conversations, That is all over the place?

I keep looking at it in hope of some answers; I keep dreaming of the yesterday, To look unblemished through glass doors, Of the showcase of my life; Perfect as the crease of a flawlessly folded bed sheet; And I am unable to even brush it's surface off, I can barely touch it, except for the touch of my Aggravated sight.

Let me work on it later, I just start thinking; As my hands take another golden paper, Start wrapping 'Today'; snatching it away from me; I know someone is going to gift me another yesterday; tomorrow, That someone is me. ============================================================

#11: Comfort

A bellyaching laughter causes Contraction of fifteen facial muscles, Dissolving all that effort of carrying an impressive look, Into a puffed red balloon that lets out A short vowel like sound incessantly; Making me curious and not conscious, While passing by a mirror; Bellyaching laughter exploits all my desires of existence; As I fight and gasp for every breath; Which is ironic; When existence is what I've been feeling all along; The laughter makes me aware of a hidden purpose; That my belly serves, when the ache it holds; Cripples me down rolling on the floor, Serving the pleasure of stamping on etiquettes; While otherwise, I don't want to be made aware of the belly; I believe, before they learnt to talk, Humans would only laugh when they met; As laughter, especially a bellyaching one, Makes socialising, my cup of tea; It's a symbol of trust, that exists beyond sharing secrets; A getaway from the compulsive fiddle.

It can be described as offloading a cart; Watching an unleashed pet; An escaped spurt; Bellyaching laughter is my couch's comfort!

#12 : Poetry

Isn't it wonderful how, dewdrops like fragile beads, Shed all their transparence Over grass that is green; or How warmly a falling feather Rests in an elegant relief; How spoon scoops out the The cream puddle on tea, How a piece of cloth absorbs countless tears; How butter twirls around and melts on the pan, Like we freeze and trip on a rink; How a tong holds the vessel; Be it boiling red or pink.

I give poetry a cathartic glance, Poetry for me is Acceptance. ============================================================

#13 : If

If I ever get to see, The broken tiles again, I'll breathe a little slower, Put my tangled legs lower, To feel what the rain has brought in;

If the backyard wall, Succumbs to the pressure, I'll think about the lichen on every brick, Run around splashing waters in a flick, To sob over what the rain has brought in;

If we are told to evacuate, With minimal possessions, I'll get anxious about what to leave behind, Submerge deep in a quest to find, Everything that makes me forget what the rain did bring in;

If after all this, Clouds ever turn grey someday, I'll contemplate and wheeze with the air, Complaining how this isn't fair; When what the rain has brought in is a heavenly sight elsewhere;

If the downpour is ever kind, Bringing aromas of wet sands, I'll gaze at the droplets hanging at the roof cliff, Step out holding paper boats stiff, To embrace what the rain has brought in! ============================================================

14: Summer

This one is different, There's an unfamiliar list of precautions That doesn't specifically include Being grounded during afternoons, Scarfs or ice cream restrictions; There's no coming home, All bathed in sweat, 'cause there's no going out; The stocks are unsure about mangoes; Spells of dry heat have lost it, To the spells of fear and uncertainty, This Summer is different, Or maybe it's not, We have stopped for a while, Aloof to personal goals, We are patient, more than any other season; We are thoughtful about intricacies, Putting it all out there, Trying to put it all together, We are in an attempt to be sure About what we feel beyond our performances, Understanding what lies outside the arena; Wasn't summer all about this?

Didn't it tell to instill hope, Procure a grip on life's pace, Summer has always been synonymous

To a break, a pause; This one is no different, It's effect is everlasting, And will stay just like, Every other summer That has stayed. ============================================================

#15 : Mother

Aai once asked me whether I remember Our conversations, while I'm writing poetry, I stood there thinking where do words Originate in me?

I read her one of my pieces then, and She, being a mother, couldn't stop smiling, But I could see a struggle in her, To break linguistic barriers; I got the feel of it, she said, A grief lurked in her smile, But there was a sprinkle of content too, Which she contracted through my eyes, As I narrated; Her mind is capable of seeing much more, Than I could ever have an insight about, This is who aai - my mother is. ============================================================

#16 : Green

Flowers of Shiuli (that's what they're called in Bengali), called Parijat in Marathi, Have remained dearest to me, For they are always a part of conversations, At home; often brought up by baba To tell me how aai gets her name from them; 'Fulrani' or queen of flowers, as he likes to call it; We even had a tree of night jasmine (common name of shiuli) in our courtyard; Which I dearly miss after moving out; For it is reminiscent of a fragrance That is symbolic of nostalgia and desire; There was a chain of these trees on my way home from coaching, How I wish I could cycle again through that prolonged, wistful smell; That left a trail of longing in its wake; To put to words, it was pure bliss; The fragrance caused an itch on the nose, That tickled playfully, leaving an impact; The sight of those orange and white creatures, Brings down heat, painting your life with unnoticeable changes, Just like October; when they bloom; With the festivities of Durga Puja and autumn's dryness; Autumn fades into winter, that soon welcomes spring, which melds its way to summer; But the scent of Shiuli never leaves you; "These flowers don't live for long" I still recollect the courtyard hidden beneath a hue of orange, Complemented by early rays of the sun, When thousands of them lied down, Turning the tree to its original GREEN ============================================================

#17 : Window

Just like,

• the sunlight that brushes through the bars forming a chessboard on my tiles; in which I search for vitamin D • the breeze which flips pages of my book aggressively, not letting me stick on one for long • cooker whistles from the neighbours, helping me keep a track of time • those refreshing droplets, cut tinier; sprinkling the essence of rain • the bulbul that flies off as soon as my camera is set for an aesthetic click • the plants that accept water through square holes, on some days, to let me be inside, • the leashed dog, to which I make weird faces, getting aggravated barks in return • the various shapes of moon empathising with the various shapes my anxiety takes up in the dark • the strangers, I impassively look at, forgetting them quicker than the vehicles that pass by

Windows bring you a therapy; when four weeks feel five, when you have these kind of long nights and bad diets, Just sit by a window. ============================================================

#18 : Normal

How convenient of us To incorporate the Measuring and marking facilities Of a carpenter's square; To cut sharp edges, Off the never to be said aloud planks Of Sexuality, Religion, Gender, Opinions; For the love of 90 degrees, That could be viewed Through 90 different perspectives; But we conform to a standard, Making acceptance a wooden frame, Structured to include rectangular photographs, Which looks normal, Less straining to the eye That waters only for its own grief, Disregarding others' under banners of Eerie, shapeless, bizzare; Words that cause a destruction In minds, narrower than channels That connect different waters; How foolish of us, To ingrain that Normal protects us from evils, When normal itself Is the society's evil

(Etymology of normal - originated from a Latin word 'norma' meaning carpenter's square, this is a piece about how far we went with respect to the origin of "normal" ) ============================================================

#19 : Blind

The cigarettes that burned While the midnight oil churned; Behave like a woman?

The coffee sipped black Besides Atwood from the stack; Don't be that woman?

The jewelry that shone Along With bruises on the collarbone; Carry like a woman?

The forced pink blushes While red "impurity" flushes; Hide like a woman?

The meals served on the table That never heard the server's fable; Take care like a woman?

The decision making voices Writing parchments about choices; Follow like a woman?

The mighty veils of mannerisms Blocking a rainbow through prisms; Be quiet like a woman?

A wardrobe abhorred While the unjust system scored; Dress like a woman?

Enough to cite for a Blind eye, That darkens out the veracity, This eye is what she closes forever, When she talks like a woman! ============================================================

#20 : Fragrant

There's a lot a fragrance could do, One might think;

I recollect afternoons, The blandness of which Complemented the ferocious loo; Dry summer afternoons, Which had me restless, At the thought of the evenings, That ripped me apart, When I had to step out there; The sun setting, at the edge of the field; Taking the entirety of me down, Making a kid stand curled up, Voiceless in a corner breathing air that Carried a foul woebegone scent.

Evening was a bully, And afternoons, even though.

I recollect afternoons, That had grandpa put Khus In the water tank of desert coolers, That helped us bear the heat; It brought a saccharine fragrance, That wafted tranquility in the house, Turning my worries into ecstasy; I had adored Khus only in sharbats Until it made anxious afternoons fragrant, (Evenings; being difficult still) There's a lot a fragrance could do, I thought then. ============================================================

#21: Surprise

Some day, maybe when Metaphors are the last thing To convey what all this Has been about, really; There's enough reasons To resemble a dart board In an irritated kid's possession, But abandonment; When believing isn't The only other option left, Than a mind kept to rot, Scooped around by boneless arthropods; Some bright sunny day, When the weather's undoing Isn't a blame-game; When consistency Isn't exhaustion of burials; A day, when things fallen apart Could be walked upon With padded slippers; Some day that isn't long Because using the adjective uneasy Was too demanding; When careful is much more Than being inside the head; Someday maybe, What you are really looking forward to, Isn't a coping skill But a sane surprise. ============================================================

#22 : Restless

A manifold of leaves, parched Linger for life at the dawn, Restless,

Innumerable stomachs, empty Raise a living out of futility, Restless,

Several families, fragmented Seek a bubble of security, Restless,

Numerous workers, exhausted, Carry an obstinate truth, Restless,

A million victims, shattered, Plod on to a horizon of hope, Restless,

I lie on my bed, shackled, Purging of a despair gathered around, Restless. ============================================================

#23: April

I am looking for April, Carved out of precarious stones, Yet standing ruined, As temples of a lost city;

It comes and whispers Leaving traces of ambiguity, Through recurring nightmares, Closeted by a roused soul;

It can now be sighted, Amidst profound conversations, Blooming with the spring Tulips; Fetched by the modelled blocks;

You know it's April, When there's a dodging over The showcases intended to fool, By the torchbearers of a crisis ; (April fools?). .

I look at it, bewildered With thoughts on the sprouting heat, Coped up by summer treats, Pursuant with a bland month;

I am looking for April, To be found in unrelated words, Folded abruptly into art, To give it back it's lost rhythm. ============================================================

#24 : Pause

Hardly anything is known Beyond the corner of our street, The bells of the kulfi-wala jingle And things must be okay, I guess, As I believed about what was hidden Beneath the foliage that never Expressed to the nervous forest, Which looked for hope towards The tyndalls from canopies, And it doesn't know anymore About dust or light past The covering of dense leaves, They could exist in any form, Like quantum states unless measured, Superposition is a wonder;

Mixed feelings are nothing But a pause, A breath between symphonies, A blink of an eye, The surface of a still water, unalerted of stones; Pause is an uncertainty, Like the one posed by bricked fences, Pause is thrilling But also keeps your senses unmoved. ============================================================

#25: Dream

When began, it was mundane For about seven sleep seconds, I don't know how clocks work there; But they somehow trick me into believing That time has nothing to do with me; I see washed out grey faces, With confusing gestures, But I know them, I've been thinking About them lately.

There's no conversations as such, There's commotion, It feels like a train passing by me, Places are changing so quick, That I cannot even create a memory; Things are happening, Stamping on some inhibitions; I know I am not there, But I haven't felt being present To this extent ever in any situation; I don't see any colours though, There isn't any bird chirping by Or flower blooming too, I wake up and I realise this; Nothing remotely poetic exists there, Except for maybe it's essence; Even though,

It's a manifestation of What thoughts I could imprint on my mind, Just like my poems; It takes some reacting musings To give out a dynamic product; They call it a dream, I call it a chemical reaction. ============================================================

#26 : Emergency

have you ever come across someone throttled by the scorching sunlight, a despair settled within like dust in pores of a weak fabric that covers them, while a rubber strap loosely hangs above worn out toes that never cease to walk; the bunch of miserable hair, tell that they had a lot more to attend to; how worse could it be? being chased out of a temporary shed, abused on traffic signals, an ailing member plodding to death, or far from our definition of worse; an emergency is always around the corner,

isn't it ironic how we are always made to fill an 'emergency contact' for not to miss online deliveries, or a call from the firm that interviewed you last week; a lot could be slipped out, see? i often wonder, if the word "emergency" was weighed before putting it to use, as there's someone in the dark, finding the least tough surface and hopefully patches of quilt to sleep warm; Will they ever have an emergency contact? ============================================================

#27 : Recipe

a lot can bring you the relish dahi dripping from aloo paratha pudina chutney with pakoras jalapeno dip, on which nachos dance mustard sauce rolled over the sandwich puffed khari dipped in hot chai, just as things that come after you've fiddled with the recipe, never listed as a step, but always recommended; there's a flavour beyond recipes, as life beyond a set pattern ============================================================

#28 : Language

They always taught to not mess with punctuation; And now I'm always worried about Punctuation marks, that could sabotage What my poem has to say; But semicolons; they just make sense To me; providing a headspace To follow my own words, While also leaving them behind;

The most fun part of learning poetry, back then; Was scrutinizing it's ornaments, I wonder how the textbook poets Would react to us underlining their lines, Categorising them into epithets or similes, Making a language out of poetry;

I grew up with a very technical notion, About the language of a poem; The seven ages vexed me, Not only with it's metaphors

But it also had no rhyme scheme; Now a world apart in my act as a poet, I choose some things relatable, Some schemes of insights, I don't cater for the language, It falls in place as verses shed the lights. ============================================================

#29 : Map

What have we left behind, To get sunk deep into the swamps of falsities; What have we unlearned?

The mud on our soles Reeks of the forest's adversities; Does creaking the foliage curb it down?

Not all purple looking fruits are suspicious, Soon they'll grow on us, wild as creepers; Would the beasts help us segregate?

Some seeds will be introduced to the soil, Brawling for every speck of sunlight; Where would we be when they grow?

There are trust issues with brittle branches, We cannot put our heads to rest; What would be there to support?

What determines our strides, When maps were folded and locked apart; What have we learnt and what will we explore? ============================================================

#30 : Goodbye

I've packed and unpacked caskets Under skies that weren't sure of colours, I've strolled with naked feet on grass, Aimless, with the morning sprinklers, There have been space constraints in the little case, Some stuff unoccupied, as thoughts unlaced, I've thought about getting buried in that very soil, To use some caressing and bear fruits out of turmoil, I've looked straight at the sun for an undoing, As the birds flying back to their pinions, I've held on to the drab landscape, Longer than beehives on firm trunks; I've been observant all along, Watched a plucked green leaf, settle with a sigh; I've embodied it's descend, and, I've said my goodbye. ============================================================