From sorties sweaty take a break
On my cursive vine-spread…
Here, reset your wings visitor,
Then fly away… gardenesque.
Releasin’ Ethylene…
Why Daisies Die
Each daisy that died,
Headed into the sky.
There became a star,
In an ever winking garden,
Watered by ‘matter dark’.
When mortal heads and eyes,
Seek to breach earthly limited life,
When on open grass beds
Under the heavens they lie…
Daisies lined above, sprinkle welcome sparks.
Made lucky, I too once watched
Flower beds of the galactic park,
Light years long, rich with perfumed quarks…
Until all miseries I forgot
And my head did the daisy nod.
– Bolbul
Yeah, Squeeze
Emanant from June heat,
In a voice mango sweet,
The cuckoo articulated this –
Order litchis, jamuns and melons, mate!
For summer’s on it’s last legs…
Ere it runs away, it’s Indian-ness celebrate!
Indeed who can question
That the juiciness of subcontinental existence,
Owes to these fruits… its peerlessness.
But why, jettisoning its cooing,
Did the bird today went counseling?
Peering out the window, I begged an answer.
Neither the peepul nor the banyan
Seemed to play host to the avian.
Traceless she was, dissolved rather
Into air… leaving a pregnant suggestion –
I ought to especially savor the remaining seasons…
A golden, couple dozen.
– Bolbul
रसना
छिपी खिड़की के पास,
पके आम सी आवाज़
में कोकिला दे गई आज सलाह –
खा ले लीची, जामुन, तरबूज़ यार…
गर्मी है ढलान पर,
कहीं हो जाए ना पार !
सच, किस कदर एक से एक बढ़कर
हैं फल ये दिलो-ज़ुबान के सहचर,
मित्र बचपन से, गीत लबों के… मगर
कूकना छोड़ क्यों सुना गई चिड़िया…
क्या है आगाही का अवसर?
‘ज़रा समझा तो’… झांका मैंने बाहर ।
ना गोचर थी डाल या पत्तों पे
जैसे बागान त्याग हवा में
घुली हो वो या कि आसमाँ में,
थमा कर मुझे ख़याल,
चखने को बचे हैं… एकाध दर्जन साल ।
– बोलबुल
Look Mom!
A mother’s world… hand built,
Brick by coddled brick
Up to the ninth floor, from where each morning
Descends a rambunctious ten year old,
Tumbles into a heap in freezing cold.
Her eyes, quaking searchlights in ruins,
Scan compulsively for a vanished phone.
Why such addiction now to possession?
Or did yesterday’s selfie survive
What her world couldn’t?
– Bolbul
Name Paean to Sunny
On, on play for folks, Sunny
Cricket’s crowning blade, Sunny
Centurian nonpareil, Sunny
All the world prevailed, Sunny
Pillar Atlantean of greens, Sunny
Yudhishthir pitch-mid, serene, Sunny
Dadar Mumbai lamp, Sunny
Team yajnya’s feeding hand, Sunny
Floppy head, cotton blanc, Sunny
Padded, gloved, magic wand, Sunny
Flash first of billion hopes, Sunny
Ray last at day’s close, Sunny
Swell in fan hearts, Sunny
Master courageous arts, Sunny
Mower lightning pace, Sunny
Sage, concentrated face, Sunny
Stringer four petal blooms, Sunny
Aromatizer directions four, Sunny
Bouncer receiver, poised Sunny
Hooker beyond compounds, Sunny
Never spin bamboozled, Sunny
Striking clean, clear-head, Sunny
Out off stump untempted, Sunny
On stump, dispatcher in contempt, Sunny
Lionine in struggling seventies, Sunny
Lionized legend of the eighties, Sunny
Radio commentary treasure, Sunny
Television’s nerve center, Sunny
Perfect from debut test, Sunny
Apical till innings final, Sunny
David little in first series, Sunny
Goliathan master at end, Sunny
Charioteer over seven seas, Sunny
Carrying home victories, Sunny
Youth model for the age, Sunny
When cloudy, casting sunrays, Sunny
Tune setter for teens, Sunny
Rebellious, articulate and funny, Sunny
Aryan striped tiger, Sunny
Shear clawed captain, Sunny
Spirit enlivening fizz, Sunny
Weaknesses all uplift, Sunny
Embodier classical heroism four, Sunny
Handsome, fiery, liberal, calm, Sunny
On, on play for folks, Sunny
Cricket’s crowning blade, Sunny
– Bolbul
In honor of cicketer Sunil Gavaskar… an architect of modern India. His heroism kept the poet youth… to live commentary glued.
श्री सनी नामावली
क्रीड क्रीड जिष्णुजनाधार सनी ।
क्रिकेटमुकुट कंबुजयकार सनी ।
शतकशूर हस्तौ यष्टिधार सनी ।
यशकीर्तिभात जगजात सनी ।
तृणक्षेत्रे स्तंभसमान सनी ।
पिचसुस्थित निर्विकार सनी ।
दादरनंदन मुम्बईमंडन सनी ।
भारततपोवन प्रभंजन सनी ।
फ्लौपीमंडित श्वेतधारी सनी ।
हस्तप पादरक्षकसः मुरारी सनी ।
प्रथमकिरण विजयाभियान सनी ।
अंतरश्मि दिवस अवसान सनी ।
त्वरितकंदुकेन निर्भीक सनी ।
वकोध्यानी मुनिगुणी सनी ।
चत्वारोवली मालाकार सनी ।
चतुर्दिक सुगंधप्रसार सनी ।
दर्शकहृद उत्साह सनी ।
राष्ट्रहित चमत्कार सनी ।
बाउंसराभिमुख शांत सनी ।
हुकहुंकार वल्लपात सनी ।
स्पिन ननु किंकर्तव्यविमूढ़ सनी ।
वेधक तस्य चक्रव्यूह सनी।
सप्ततिदशके युवाशार्दूल सनी ।
अष्टिदशके संपूजित केशरी सनी ।
आकाशवाण्याम् कर्णधन सनी ।
दूरदर्शने स्नायुस्पंदन सनी ।
आदि श्रृंखलाया: सिद्ध सनी ।
अंतपर्यंत: अच्युतोप्रसिद्ध सनी ।
सिंधुपार लक्ष्यतः सारथी सनी ।
तिग्मनीतिज्ञ जयीमहारथी सनी ।
युगादर्श प्रतिमान सनी ।
युवमानस कृतसूर्य सनी ।
किशोरकर्ण मधुगान सनी ।
स्मित आनन अमिताभ सनी ।
समशार्दूल आर्यकप्तान सनी ।
वज्रनख सर्वरिपुसंहार सनी ।
प्रजा मनोबल वर्द्धन सनी ।
क्षीणानाम् पीन गर्जन सनी ।
ललित प्रशांत उद्धत उद्दात्त सनी ।
नायक धीर चतुर्विध आप्त सनी ।
कोटिश: वदन मुस्कान सनी ।
शंभु प्रेषित गण देवसमान सनी ।
स्मः तव नित्यदिन ऋणी ।
गुरु सहचर स्मरणीय सनी ।
क्रीड क्रीड जिष्णुजनाधार सनी ।
क्रिकेटमुकुट कंबुजयकार सनी ।
– बोलबुल
Hymnal Pundarik
Find me O, citydwellers,
Stuck in capitalist concrete,
In wireless cocoons shuffling carpeted feet,
Desiring to be… of dry tedium freed!
Right beside you upon shoreless waters,
I expand pristine white leaves
In stotras, shlokas and mantras
Of universal wisdom… in Sanskrit,
Mastered digitally, searchable in video feed.
Find that incomparably sweet MS Subbulakshmi,
Sitting at Vishnu’s feet.
Hear her sing how the Lord sees
Through me… for I, the white lotus,
Am his eyes verily!
Touch me and be rid of worldly grief!
– Bolbul
Overboat
Incorrigibly infected with hope
That yonder channel lies, to sufferings,
An antidote and for its cargo,
A menu lifting stomach and spirit,
Of opportunities smelling of soup…
The boat extends a tug rope.
Too many haul themselves on board,
Heartstrings resonating with promise
Bravely offered by the rope.
Protesting, scream sea waves…
As only they know,
The boat hasn’t the heart to say ‘Nope!’
– Bolbul
Over 1,200 people died in the Mediterranean Sea alone in 2022… nearly 25,000 since 2014
Hip And Free
Muslin light, balletic tip to toe,
Fluttering slipstream as days flowed,
Her breezy limbs caught a poet’s nose…
Picking a canvas he wrote,
‘My lady neighbor is a ripe rose.’
‘Blithe she is as if youth lost
Has accentuated her gait of thoughts
And removing the gown of petals… shifted
Attention roundly to the waist,
To which dancing limbs connect.’
‘They make slender eye-music
That echoes off my lips,
With pointed reach call to the ballroom
The pen and colored inks… for a romantic spin.
Wish she knew I am a lifelong sucker for rosehips.’
– Bolbul
Moistened Time
Milk flows through layers of time,
Of this the proof is in the mind.
Getting sweeter… as you shall see
In the recounting of my home visit…
And perhaps even leave
With a silver foil filigree on your smile.
Flavored by the milk’s percolation,
Time condenses concomitantly…
Acquiring the texture of cashew cakes
Adding body to the milk’s mental taste,
Such that you feel a teen again…
Lips whistling a movie tune and heart aswing.
Within two minutes of nibbling kaju barfis,
I experienced this… and Lata’s proximity,
Replete with kohl, bangles, nail polish
And the silvery chain characteristic of a lark
As I pushed her skyward and she dropped
Words a cappella… ahh, it all came back!
– Bolbul
Red Dot
She was a red dot bright
On stylized silver halide
Where characters and scenery are black and white…
For her indelible Gangetic belle chrominance,
For her sunrise irises and sunset mannerisms,
That Bihari lass Kumkum.
In her feet’s playful ‘chham chham’,
I saw mirrored river currents
Nuzzling sailboats of a land regal and ancient…
And my heart sang… ‘Ganga mother,
New turmeric cotton I shall offer,
In your darling daughter’s honor…
For the privilege of watching each film
Colored by Kumkum… everlastingly vermilion.
– Bolbul
PS: Kumkum is worn as a red forehead dot by Indian women. Written for the eponymous actress.
Wasn’t This Coming?!
TV Anchor:
Gosh! Political accountability… eternally apparitional,
Is to appear… on your channel!
To ailing constitutionalist folks,
To citizens glazed-eyed and hoarse,
What an intoxicating deal!!
Eminent Lawyer:
The jury are accordant
That the narcissist Puffer was rotten,
His power misbegotten.
Expect the sentencing
To deliver life’s sunset in jail.
The decision will stand,
Should the fish appeal.
Courthouse Reporter:
Twenty years… neither eyes nor ears
Believe what has transpired!
Lakeside Reporter:
At the Lake, the Puffer’s spokesman is bullish…
About the fish’s appeal.
He banks on supremos juridical
To serve reality to chimera hugging,
Momentarily intoxicated fools.
Courthouse Reporter:
Good morning lovers of democracy!
We hear lawyers of the Puffer
Have made the opening statement
Of their appeal… wait!
They’re stepping out beaming!
TV Anchor:
Breaking news… unprecedented views
All over the capital…
In cities and states… what an emergency national!
Justices, congressmen, activists and the police…
All are in a pell mell!
Eminent Lawyer:
It’s a first… in the annals
Of this uniquely litigious country
That lawyers have called the constitution apparitional!
Folks, apparently not a single copy
Of our constitution is available!
TV Anchor:
How can the constitution be deleted?!
All repositories wiped clean…
Gone far our democratic dream!
The Puffer has cut the closing net,
His cheeks are swollen, mouth open…
Hey, what’s that… in it?!
– Bolbul
Lena, Notada
One evening inolvidable in Mexico,
Watching friend Elvia on her Quinceañera,
I noted the poetry of romantic fledging in Latin manera…
Con confetti, candles fifteen and a tiara…
As into a chivalrous world she strode,
Un cuarto de siglo ago.
Anoche amiga called from Medellin
Donde her eleven year old fluttering
With friends… has begun pretending
To be a teen… traditionally a cute thing.
I joked ‘Estuvimos happily clucking pollos…’
Only to be interrupted in a voice as guilty as cold,
‘Her mates are from underprivileged barrios…!’
Elvia is a veteran of NGOs now,
Not easily cowed, I know.
‘Don’t let Lena visit their homes’
I began only to hear sobbing…
‘She’s eleven, Lord… check your phone!’
The forwarded photo was clear, so the text –
‘Your daughter has been noticed.’
Considering that the wave of child tourism
Offers experiences more personally intense
Than cultural relics and customs,
I suggested moving away with Lena,
Before she encountered the joke of Quinceañera.
– Bolbul
Alizarin Pink
Sniffing the coast familial, rushes a lad
Across the nerve-line of bracing water, rubbing sand…
Leaves a time painted figure astrand.
Swells, pet like come,
He recalls their names… pals from an album.
They look up, eyes softer with age,
Old feelings still retained.
All autumn-leafy pink their bodies now,
Are brushed by the same alchemist somehow.
Catching up, the figure older…
Clambers the board, wind buffeted.
They ride, both selves,
Hanging on to each other…
The last surf’s up in the head
And they love it’s new palette.
– Bolbul
Flipped Alright
By water, in a pool of sun
I warm and then
He encroaches… a lumbering cloud,
Of blessed girth and apparently proud.
‘Toadie, why this late?
The monsoon’s long left!’
I mutter and promptly sleep.
Words though articulated softly,
Cut the portly Nimbus sharply,
For entering my dreamscape, he says
‘Not for my sake
But that of amphibian-marine pals…
Such insult I refuse to take.
You shall understand soon mate.’
A volley of raindrops post haste
Shove me awake – to stare
At the metamorphic speed
Of developing webbing… in the feet!
I loosen a slo-mo scream,
Escape into the pool… feeling ruined.
As I swim, splash and dive,
Fear is replaced by primal joy…
An uninterrupted hour goes by.
Turning up, supplicating the cloud,
I entreat ‘Call me too a Toadie now!
Blessed are thy friends and thou!’
– Bolbul
Blow Dry Love
Nudged by a poetic, low sun,
Considering a visit to girlfriend,
He felt the face-cupping air…
Suddenly whipped, of late November.
Squirming in a tightening vice,
Cold but strangely kiss-like,
He realized,
Left to its malicious will,
Suck all love… cold will!
The city shook like an autumn leaf,
Then kept for a minute still,
Feeling in its bones
A seeping chill.
On that day of chapped lips,
None in the city could kiss,
Stuck as if in a dreadful dream,
Too late to benefit from cream.
– Bolbul
Hail Rajma Devi
A freshie’s right to question, much less
To suggest that the concrete set menu
Of tinda, tandoori naan, occasional dosas, etc.
Should be supplemented by a Bihari dish,
Would’ve been laughed off
By the senior cabal ruling the mess.
But a Bihari has never lived without
Aloo dum, kheer, matar parathas and goes not
Months… Holi, Diwali, Dussehra stand out…
Sans puas, Motichur laddoos, rich dahi vadas
Sweetened with imli and jaggery…
Thus the freshie felt bereft, distraught.
Only god could rescue him he thought,
Wondering if there was a presiding deity
At the mess who’d agree that
Adding new threads to the culinary tapestry
Would more fillingly portray her bounties…
Supplicating in manner pitifully devout,
Young freshie pleaded then with Ma Rajma Devi,
Resplendent in the violet red of kidney beans…
Who ruled Delhi with unrivalled clout,
For teary weeks and sure enough got
A miraculous prasad.
Within a month the mess witnessed
A new head cook, mustachioed,
Muscled and prone to assigning epithets
In Bhojpuri to those who dared
Question him… but reserved jokes only
For the freshie, plying him with every
Ask… with the blessings of Rajma Devi.
– Bolbul
Zoic Opera
Picking summer berries a cuckoo,
I recall from childhood.
Filled, she uncorked a ditty when
A higher perched eagle swooped.
In a fading series of coo-cree-coo…
Ended that scarring melody
From which healed long… the memory.
By college graduation, I had heard
A dog lying by the road,
A frog by a snake disturbed
And a violinist’s solo after his mother
Was with a parting malady diagnosed.
In years ahead I cataloged and skillfully buried
Numerous cries in the head.
It started with a horse neigh
Last month, then a cuckoo, a piano with a broken leg,
Mynahs and sparrows squawking by fallen eggs
And the stoicism of words oozing thunders interred…
Returned all buried voices past,
Lovers, children, fathers… joined the operatic cast
In a drama so atavistic… weeping had an animal edge.
From the pockmarked online stage,
Sounds staggered into my psychic trench.
– Bolbul
Riddle Reveal
Materialized sans an umbilical tether,
The one whose sisters, wives and daughters
Have long mentally disappeared,
Is an evolutionary wonder… not rare.
Wears pants, gowns or dhotis,
Sports hats, turbans or topis,
Lords over lands, spouts decrees,
Assuming a world all his.
Swearing so long stones are cold,
Women shall be obeisant or weep,
And seek what is within a shadowy sweep…
He honors his master’s whip.
Name not the beast from cultural mirrors…
The relevant answer is the future
Where girls have twice the rights…
Reparatory plus reginal – conforming with nature.
– Bolbul
Head Switch
Ten junior boys in low teens,
Slept in a dormitory in spring.
Moonlight seeping through mosquito nets
Patted their pillowed heads
And cradled two neat rows of beds.
Darkness draped the floor,
Submerging flip flops taken off,
Perhaps causing the misstep
That brought a youngster awake…
‘Who… kaun…?!’ he sternly said
As the figure reaching for the net turned and fled.
Chasing after, though by seconds delayed,
He enters the seniors’ room holding breath
And flicks a light switch…
All sleep but there’s an empty bed
Immediately right of the door… ‘What the hell?!’
Thinks the boy with a sleepy head
And retraces his steps.
It would be a couple years
Before nature would whisper
The answer… as if a timed switch
Lit up his pubescent head.
He saw clear as moonlight
That some creatures of the night,
Hide flip flopping sides.
– Bolbul
Aargh…!
‘Khadi like’ would aptly describe
My old school’s weave of life.
Indigeneity was the thread of cotton
Feeding the musical charkha spin
Of activities that spooled young men –
Well educated, humble and hand woven…
Whose deeds compared well
With graduates of Harrow and Eton.
Atop the earth’s oldest rocks,
Away from plains and city folks,
We were handed a monastic plateau
To worship Saraswati in disciplines manifold…
But as observers many told,
The isolation made students socially gauche,
Poor fits in the world’s rush after gold.
The sage school-founders though had hoped
That in post-colonial, cold ashes
These youngsters would sow roots old and damaged…
So a cultural order establishing traditions of yore –
Beauteous, rural or regal and confidently Indian –
Would be restored.
Thusly I in a commemorative mood,
Entering the alma mater’s social media group,
With photos and celebratory whoops
Of uniformed students… began examining ties
Binding our two Gandhian times.
Ebullient gregariousness, I stamped with alacritous likes
But what felt like stabbing knives
Were the newly mandated chest worn ties.
Aargh… and sighs!
– Bolbul
PS: poet considers ties an individual, sartorial choice… for the formerly colonized
Deferential Calculus
From the side of the street that bleeds,
I heard their grey haired diplomat-ese
On channel after concerned tv channel,
Holding up the sanctity of realmathematik.
Under the accepted regime,
Contrary to what hoi polloi think
About equal human rights,
Or the value of love and kids’ lives…
Deference is accorded only to the one
Annointed head of the national button.
Why, so long hangs the sun,
Justice shall wait… or come
After the passing of the memory
Of playgrounds and apartments…
Of the decimally neglible civilians.
Hail the mathematics of one,
At the expense of the number system!
– Bolbul
Testy
The use of a whipping string of tests
To herd batches toward their intellectual best,
May be in the IIT DNA
But aligns no way
With what students feel or say…
As the case is with a freshie today.
No cattle fodder… the synched out philosopher
And spited rocker has spent the night
Composing lyrics about freedom
From rear poking examination…
But now faces the Chemistry calendar in morning light
And is seized with stethoscopic fright
That a Minor will soon breach his personal rights.
Unshowered, hurtling to the doctor
Who in his campus encroaching clinic
Plays Floyd-ian ‘another brick…’
He begins to panic…
What if the guy figures a patient,
Too lackadaisical to even name a complaint,
Shouldn’t be saved with a medical certificate?!
‘Back pain! While playing soccer…’ he blurts
Before even a question is hurled , ‘Sir, terribly hurts!’
Comes a voice, ‘Take off the shirt!’…
Well, at a cost of twenty rupees and as many minutes,
He turns back with a ‘Certy’ and a totter,
Determined to write a poem against Iodex odor.
– Bolbul
Hot Lunch, Cool Tea
The World Champs and the Indian cricket teams,
One brandishing bullying pace, the other typical spin,
Clash again to settle Test rankings.
It’s late spring in Delhi and the crowd,
Involved… vents decibels moaning or lustily loud.
Comes the final morning tense,
When a modest target chase
Would fetch the Champs a win…
Unless, warn commentators and hope spectators,
The dusty pitch turns a cobweb of spin.
But the cannily restrained visitors
Nudge the scoreboard doggedly till lunch,
Leaving the crowd deflated, gut punched.
The heat intense, as a breeze builds
From northerly Haryana, a youngster six feet
Bounds in breathing pacy fire…
In a surprise change of attack and delivers a yorker…
And an inswinger… and an outgoing one
Until hyperventilation is uncontrolled in the stadium.
The match lit, the air and grass aflame,
Wickets tumble into a funeral pyre,
And stands erupt when the lad-hurricane
Traps the tailend on the dot of tea-hour.
Burnt Champs, in the pavilion shade
Sip cooling nimboo-pani ditching Western fare
And learn the spelling of Kapil Dev…
The new king of swing and pace.
– Bolbul
Yellow Cucumber
(from Kahwa Kahee)
No Hiuen Tsang yet articulately
Word-snapping cornucopian India
Was chaplain Edward Terry…
Who noted in English first, Sufiana
Coffee and other gustatory novelties.
To my Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte fed mind,
Page after page of his 17th century archive,
Appears to peel off paint layers
From the colonial ‘masterpiece’ of image
That’s left behind.
Among produce ‘most pleasing unto the palate’
Edward discovers, is a fruit
That grows in slender clusters…
Yellow when ripe, is shaped like cucumbers,
Which Englishmen in the country stationed
Refer to as ‘planten’.
Tearing up when next
I pick up the fruit…
Asking through salty streaks how it left
Shores Indian to become a firangi banana,
I see it curve into the sweetest
Yet poignant smile
That I swallow it not a long while.
As I do, it becomes clear
That the journeys of the brother,
Across waters and among plantation laborers,
Would fill the heart to hear.
So picking up another fella,
I beseech, ‘Tell me all, dear kela!’
– Bolbul
Air Manoeuvre
A bottom feeder in the sea of air,
Wishing to rise to where
Playgrounds are bluer…
I nevertheless had buddies
Who made of exploring currents, a career.
One had mastered aeronautical affairs
Such that his days were
Spent configuring oblique wings,
Tracking twirling leaves, helicopter seeds,
Spinning jennies… even as he made non-disclosure trips
On defence projects and jumped off bluffs and cliffs.
Two decades slipped and still bottom feeding,
I started imagining what in the dawning
Age of electric trikes and bat named kites,
Could I try.
That’s when on a video site
I reencountered the old friend…
Being awe-inspiringly described as a ‘flying legend’…
The supporting film showed
Him landing softer than a butterfly,
Upright.. on a dime.
Filled with pride, I realized
The plasticity of a practiced
Mind, lets a flyer write poems on air.
With tips from a friend rediscovered,
I hope to practice soon,
New literary manoeuvres.
– Bolbul
Why Not Flowers
‘Why’, I’d asked stones
In fields of silence
‘Left the young…
With music still in them?’
But today was different.
I took steps broken
Accepting, the silent is never forthcoming.
So wandered just remembering…
Eyes on stretching grass
With flowers obscure, never seen before…
Until their fragrance left the floor.
I saw the headstone’s body, neck and scroll
Send into air, a golden score
With notes that fell for transient seconds
Gracing the ground with flowers more.
Bending I picked some,
Instinctively realizing these shall be known
As Sagerias or Briolles evermore…
My answers smiled about the stone.
– Bolbul
Gustatory Ghazal
With the week rutted and feet beat,
She heads to where colors savory and sweet
Fill alleys and haats West and East
Meet, off Lodhi Gardens at Khan Market…
An evening smog retreat.
From gallery exhibitors she picks
Black oyster mushrooms tutonic,
Soft textured bread, cheeses Ladakhi to Swiss,
Coriander, peas, Thai spice leaves,
A palette of tomato cherries
Brought from Himalayas to Nilgiris,
Paying less than a restaurant bill.
The ingredients eager for acquaintance
With each other and the buyer,
In transit cook, of unique olfaction,
A recipe of sustenance and satisfaction…
Such that when she reaches the kitchen,
Actions painterly flow with abandon.
She sits down with the significant one
Who plays Raga Bahar then Nina Simone.
– Bolbul
I, Why
The question ‘Who am I and why?’
Had enriched the friendship –
Of the kitty and the dragonfly.
They shared occasionally, weekends especially,
Colors of their inner skies.
‘A seer am I… emphasize eyes
Over the folly to analyze’,
Observed the dragon often
With casual wisdom.
‘Look how these detective opsins
Throb with the widest palette
Of hues, UV and rays polarized even.
I am a blur in an evolving painting,
Ceaselessly interesting.’
‘Right… to be ocular, I concur.
My worldviews diurnal
To crepuscular to nocturnal…’
The Burmilla often said,
‘But have rather contrasted
With those of the human head…
Excepting the philosophical fountainheads’.
I see change
Understanding which is butt pain.’
Less about asking why,
Life is to artfully describe…
The two souls dispensing paint
Felt, turning from friends to bhai-bhai.
- Bolbul
A Vein of Coincidence
Haven’t you read,
Big carmakers are crying their eyes red,
Without chips that add smarts
To vehicular parts
And profits to corporate pockets…?
But one canny manufacturer laughs.
From the world’s knowledgeable parts,
It has figured out
The truth about vaccines,
Designed to implant into veins
Chips… shortage-causing.
Ergo, its assembly line
Is now designed
With doors that accept
Into robotic biceps
Needles with vaccine.
So while others halt,
Brand smarty-pants keeps cruising.
– Bolbul
Sharpie Right-ing
A mind is galvanized by possibilities,
The moment of discovering a ‘sharpie’…
That dispenses ink on everything –
Geography, history, medicine,
Constitutions, election results… name it!
Upon realizing this I tried it forthwith.
Picking up a globe, allotting victories
To those lying beneath the feet,
By redrawing boundaries as seemed fit,
I felt satisfied but intrigued.
Renaming oceans after native sons,
Abstracting historical narratives as told
By Amerindians, Filipinos or South Asians,
I noticed with awe
Something not even proponents
Of the implement foresaw…
The ink obeyed its own law…
For what I wrote with truthful intent,
In minutes vanished as if evanescent…
Leaving the old lies intact,
Replacing the mutant… but why.
Could it be that what’s written
With a sharp blade once,
Its namesake won’t erase… but will extend?
As for lies, it’s a tool without guile
Lately, even servile …
Though I’m positive the magic
Will flip in a short while.
– Bolbul
Over-poke
Should men and to what extent,
Poke noses hellbent… in affairs of women?
When the fair answer dawns,
Could be a blossomed earth then…
De-odored of the mess
Of cowboy lands… and
Where guns impersonate opinions.
What if for half a generation
Or fifteen years, half of expecting women
Lived in an improvised country,
Teaching their new children
The opposite of what
Barrel-noses have wrought?
Give it a thought,
Woman or not…
Unto noses keeping the snot.
– Bolbul
Speed Feed
What do Africans eat
To have electricity in their feet?
Pounding the dust on fields
At motorized speeds…
In village after distant village,
Making imagination leap
Over limitations… to where live
Dancers such as the Guros doing Zaouli.
But the grains, fruits, fowls or leafy beets,
Just don’t produce explosive calories.
Could the source be…
Perhaps the raucous drumbeats,
The incessant whistle peeps,
And masked mysteries whipped
Together in a cultural feed…
That make the feet fleet?!
Or the epic skies and throbbing jungles,
Scripting characters with mettles
Quicksilver… for their bounties and challenges.
Couldn’t they build voltage remarkable
That moves dancing feet
With the will of spirit?!
– Bolbul
Sated
All-seeing eyes and big head-assisted,
The dragonfly had hunted and fed
In the air and bushes, regally…
Now as the sun fled,
It gathered across its membranous spread,
Warmth for the languorous night ahead…
Promising dreams iridescent.
Kitty, on the other hand,
Had failed to find
A generous soul with flesh to dispense…
That day and could hardly stand.
Many had been times when
It had pawed at the crunchy morsel
Midair and found squat…
But now it stood in its only blind spot.
Would matters be different?
Moving in silence,
Eyeing the flyer magnificent,
It halted… noticing in sharp descent
A competing bird of prey…
Whom the kitty gave no chance to pray.
After the incident,
The dragonhead and the kitten
Stayed friends till the end.
– Bolbul
Add-ictive
How may one picturize Flash –
A dog of as many parts
As his piebald splotches black?
Perhaps best to piecemeal ask
The palms he licks,
If any handshake compared with this,
The thighs and knees
He paws for biscuits,
And eyes following his trysts
With Mini, docile and sweet…
How it all adds.
Best to stitch patches taken
From the night watchman,
The gardener and so on…
About his darting after rival gangs,
About nosing flowers where butterflies hang,
About his silences
After school bells rang.
So many are the facets
Of engagements that
A novel, patchwork art
Alone would capture the eye magnet.
– Bolbul
Decimal Girl
Recalling tours
Of vased, rose-petalled faces,
Asked a seeking wish today…
Why cling to mere surfaces?
‘Look,’ offered an embered fly
Pulling the mind inside,
A girl working darknesses,
Sifting facts, writing analyses,
Who once shared schoolbuses…
You know, in the bones,
To three decimal places.
She buys custom cosmetics
At rock-counters by spraying seas…
At turrets crumbling over trees,
Where turn histories.
Her restaurants serve sandwiches,
Feature live… balladeer breezes
And gladly accept tips
Left over… if a dog feeds.
She holds her own
Against charms of parlour thrones,
Walks a path known
By those skirting stones.
But mate, take a date
If you could be… future sworn.
Recalling tours
Of vased, rose-petalled faces,
Asked a seeking wish today…
Why cling to mere surfaces?
‘Look,’ offered an embered fly
Pulling the mind inside,
A girl working darknesses,
Sifting facts, writing analyses,
Who once shared schoolbuses…
You know, in the bones,
To three decimal places.
– Bolbul
Unheard Of
(Storm Henri, Aug 21)
After the storm left,
The moon came out to inspect
The town of the poet.
The girlfriend with graces he oft-compared,
In the tenderness of Eastern couplets,
To lunar exquisiteness,
Walked about a shelter handing sandwiches
And bottled juices to children…
With hair and faces like whipped beaches.
The highschool album he kept
To fill a nightly cup with youthful zest,
Had been a mile swept.
All featured friends and students,
Hung on calls frantically initiated.
Bars and cafes sold mud
And Molly’s bookstore was sure to be liquidated.
His tome on nature, on a toppled shelf,
Had its stanzas shredded.
The Moon, sauntering to the window
Of the poet, stuck a note.
‘Never seen this before…
Wish up and down the country,
I could tell folks
For whom to vote.’
– Bolbul
Fog Agog
Waking up to Arabica filtered,
With cream and sugar,
She lent to the fog an ear.
Plumes of voices from yesteryears,
Swirling she could hear…
Pulling them from fogged time…
Would mean plumbing the woods
For kindlings to light…
She knew as the mind cleared.
Near… almost brushing her,
In the kingdom of Mysore,
On the sides of Baba Budan hills
And adjacent, elevated jungles…
Lived those whose voices were now agog
In the fog about tales of struggles…
In tongues from Canarese to English,
From bullish to anguished,
They waited to recolor scenes from
The sepia days of… red cherries and white, coffee blossoms.
– Bolbul
Day Waves
Where days are waves,
Waist-deep he waits,
Catching swells with fizzy breaks
Until the mind touches a golden state.
The water’s depths, cold and uncertain,
Will his flying fish-board of innovation,
To superscribe arcs of flotation,
So fear sublimates.
The wind is his soulmate,
Blowing dry, hair wet
From dunks and perspiration,
Every hour, day and year
Until graze sunrays… his silver and grays.
Where days are waves,
Waist-deep he waits,
Catching swells with fizzy breaks
Until the mind touches a golden state.
- Bolbul
Coda, Ammonium Requiem
Growing up in Eden,
Learning from worldwide vegetation,
Dahlian penned music equal to Chopin’s…
Yet the garden no longer listened!
High on nitrous oxide,
Reckless and cheaply fertilized,
The plants’ lack of shame
About causing climate change,
Had metastasized.
Crimped, adding notes blue,
Resonant to fires, floods, eroding roots,
Dahlian didn’t know what more to do,
To make the laughing gas hooked
From being fools.
His wife, hand over the infant in her womb,
Intoned… ‘Dahlian, soon
A new generation will replace the loons.
God willing, in just a few moons,
We shall hear the playing of your tunes.’
– Bolbul
PS: Nitrous oxide, also laughing gas, is a principal cause of global warming. Released by ammonium and other nitrates in fertilizers.
Masking Gas
They don’t mind that their tails
Are oppressively curtailed,
Hips down to knees or ankles,
In a tradition that all day rankles.
So when I point, ‘Well,
The free flow of natural exhaust
Is thus mandatorily masked…
Your liberties are onerously tasked!’,
They, seem to brush the fact away.
But I say
The Rear Pressure Control authority
Must remove the archaic guidance
And let freedom prevail.
– Bolbul
Sunny Deal
‘We are on your team…’,
Were the words on the wind,
Or did his ears dream?
A drifter with yards of nothing,
A brush and pigmented cream…
Expected not this talk,
As he turned to yellow cheeks on sunny stalks,
‘Was that real or gas?!’, he asked.
‘We are… rather, forever will!
Here’s the sworn deal –
Upon those who make of us art,
We shine, especially in the dark.
First, give us your all,
Make us a fixture on the wall.’
The painter got the drift
And midway to signing this,
Felt a cheery lift.
– Bolbul
Wanting Sun
Into a balcony pot, eyeing the dipping sun,
He plants a seed of muskmelon…
Wishing for botanical stimulation
Against a vista metropolitan.
Layering soil like quilt
Over the newbie, he wishes it
Sound sleep and sprinkles
Mulch and water as night feed,
Then forgets all about it.
A week passes and he tires,
In the daytime shade of highrises,
Of acting on client desires,
Skirts urban deserts and quagmires.
The need to connect with nature
Mounting, after a night of burning,
He throws open the balcony door…
And gazes open mouth at the floor.
Cuddled by the dawn’s cool wind,
He finds waiting just for him,
A mini constellation of golden suns
Offering the leafy jungle of muskmelon.
– Bolbul
Pumping Out Ocean
Hands too hurt to even pack,
He assessed two boxes and a bag –
Late at night and stared out…
Darkness rolling to the coast,
Overflowed through the windows,
Trickling down the walls.
No music played to the gathering
Of his thoughts, light as fog,
Yet sinking over the horizon
Of knickknacks in two boxes and a bag.
An airline’s promissory to carry
Him across the Pacific
Spread uncertain wings across
The twenty kilo heap his life suddenly was.
He would have to re-transplant
Roots to India… said a rising
Puff of thought, hinting
At the emergent morning…
But zipping the ballistic fabric
Collecting salty condensate,
He understood that evermore
There shall be an ocean desolate
In his heart.
– Bolbul
Handkerchief Dream
Late at night, behind the kitchen,
Dreamt the soil of a handkerchief garden…
Of Spring’s children.
Gone was the hardness of cold from her limbs,
And in the womb, stirred seedlings.
She imagined playful cries,
Planned for summer, their matrimonial ties…
When gently the morning opened her eyes.
– Bolbul
Luz, the Muse
She appeared… on the dais,
Lit, of light knit,
Soon as he flicked the switch.
‘Hmm… was she waiting for me?!’,
Wondered the early arriving artist.
He was alone… and the model shone
Like an inspiration he’d rarely known.
In fifteen minutes, the drawing sheet
Turned coal black, then streaked
As his fleet, almost indiscreet fingers
Kneaded the flesh of the paper
Until light moaned…
The eraser groaned
And the apparition was all honed.
Next moment, as footsteps invaded,
The light hardened.
A figure, disrobing, climbed
The empty dais and announced –
‘Since Luz won’t be coming,
I shall do the modelling.’
One artist gathering things,
Left the room
Mumbling… ‘After Luz, it’s too soon.’
– Bolbul
Two Degrees
At a speed eyes fail to see
And bodies but spasmodically feel,
Careen we… on a course free.
Jettisoning its customary cool,
The highway’s in-the-hair breeze,
Seems to urge – ‘Pick wisely…
From white to black,
Humanity could be … a blur of two degrees.’
– Bolbul
Angelic?… No Shit!
Some say sewage is angelic,
A reeking mass of raw materia-magic…
Yeah… all untold billions,
Yearly litres of it!
And they won’t let a drop
Escape into the Pacific…
As proof positive,
These folks invite a visit
To their eponymous, desert city
Of Los Angeles
Where champion Garcetti, Eric
Leads the scaling of capacities – to
Transform the unpurest sludge
Into potable water – epic.
Say futurists – more the Angelenos shit,
Richer all will be for it.
– Bolbul
Traffic Throat
Fresh from the country,
New to the city,
An advertising executive stood in a balcony
For hours, overlooking flyover traffic,
Thinking there’s nothing he couldn’t be…
Thus rechraging batteries.
A weekend morning, dreaming coffee and groggy,
The man strode to the balcony
Where sat his pet pariah Phony.
‘Tell me buddy if you’d like roti
Brushed with ghee, dipped in tea
Or…’ he began when yelping, the beast ran
As though from an on-rushing van.
That day setting the table, his maid chose,
Hand over nose,
To suggest that sir should once
In a while skip lunch,
To curb exhaust slippage
And resulting stench.
Evening saw him welcome
Into the apartment,
A beauty fulsome.
Threatened by his alarming condition,
He began in low gear, ‘My dear,
Let’s go out for a spin.
Don’t feel like talkin or sittin.’
Imagine the surprise of the gentleman,
When the lady excitedly took his hand,
And even planted a peck promissory…
So closely resembled he,
A revving up Ferrari.
– Bolbul
Exasperation
Snagging cornered populations,
Flagging zones of explosions…
Who drew the razored lines of imagi-nations?
Not an artist, nor a poet
But it has to be someone.
Under what accursed fascination,
Would a brush outline
Unbroken skies
Yet lands serrated by knives
Or a poet describe,
The rhythmic human voice,
Shades within our eyes…
With words whose meanings die
At arbitrary, ill conceived divides?
No, of these morbidities,
Artists, musicians, poets…
Tend to be free.
So under whose decrees,
Unremittingly, the Earth weeps?
Must be the sultans…
Of misperceived religions,
And of grandiose kingdoms,
Could be poster politicians…
It’s a question for the historians.
Their unpoetic license to paint our Earth
And imaginations
Leads to a poor exhibition!
– Bolbul
Forestall
Rain should fall, not walls..
Especially seven stories tall
And they won’t, said many
Who heard whispers – clinging
To wet and shivering bricks,
To rusty balustrades and girdings –
If those with dry moorings,
Could hear anything at all…
But for years they didn’t
And now the many,
With the monsoon’s coming,
Have moved to the safety
Of the land of no recall.
– Bolbul
De Naranja
Floridians, it was the case,
Praised their oranges…
For decades.
A natural solarium
Upon a sandy stratum,
La Florida was the land of neroli-fragrant blossoms,
Lovingly planted by Ponce de Leon.
Sigh… Say oranges no more!
For the glory’s wrested solely by one
Puckered orange who hogs the sun
And sand while outselling all little ones.
A unique contrarian, it sucks juice
By gallons in the millions…
You may smell it
Too, at least up to Helsinki,
But in la lengua de Ponce de Leon,
You’d complain of then,
El olor podrido – a stank once gotten,
Never forgotten!
– Bolbul
Flapper
Water hose in hand, a man
Freezes by a yellow allamanda plant,
On hearing a whisper wan.
Putting ears close to a leaf
Spreading like a fan,
He hears words tumbling…
‘Get out from under me, pretty!’,
Urges the allamanda leaf –
‘Your canvases are dry,
Ready to water fawning eyes,
Go whip’em into fluttering kites!’
Lowering head, the man widens eyes…
A reborn butterfly clinging to the leaf,
Wriggles uncertainly,
Afraid to untether from a support steady…
‘My load bearing leaves’, the allamanda adds,
‘With their arching midriff,
Have been watered without a skip
By a man whose grace,
We both need acknowledge.
He stands near, dear,
Make him your first, deserving viewer!’
Into action, the butterfly snaps,
Joyous, as the art lover claps.
– Bolbul
Restoration
Her body recounted memories,
Sharp, blunt, dirtying,
From years ago, unremitting…
When a stranger invited himself in.
Her baby couldn’t take it.
No song nor patting,
Could quell its crying…
So she did
What artistic faith decreed.
Ignoring the baby’s cringing pose,
She resolutely disrobed
And let strangers again probe
Her hurting pores…
Praying that they would
Restore the beauty of her core,
Deliver the needed cure.
With each breath that flowed…
She found her bareness swabbed
By cotton boll looks,
Rubbed by erasers that took
Darkness away, directing warm cascades
From lamp shades,
And when brushes
Blended her flesh with air sways…
She felt her baby becoming aware
That their nightmare
Would recur never!
– Bolbul
Up and Lonely
Can’t escape feeling guilty,
For sitting with honeyed, morning tea
And being healthy…
For planning work
And scripting a movie
With a sun-red ending.
For nights here
Now stretch beyond the noon
And dot the earth
With falling stars… while the sky’s
Smoked by a wooden, burning moon…
– Bolbul
False Coronas
Especially to kingdoms of mirages,
Cerebral, political or bolstered by vanity barrages,
Where the elevation and azimuth
Of plain, hard truths,
Matter less than the wilfulness to delude…
A virus shows no ruth,
Dimming coronas of false, mortal knowledge.
– Bolbul
Skies Rock
A night tent side-flapped
By a bush breeze in the lap
Of the Sierras at Dunlap…
Plays to two men and a film crew,
Words filling the valley with life-brew –
‘Breathe, breathe in the air…
Long you live, high you fly…’
Tired out, driving from south Bay…
The reclining minds, imbibe the dark beer
Of sound which a heady thermal forms…
Rising to a watchful ridge,
Serrating the sky at 5000 feet.
Turned birds by next morning,
The two men clasping delta wings,
With parrot green and goose down coloring,
Drive to the edge of the ridge
And catch surging winds.
Etching grooves in the sun,
For the duration of a classic album,
The two men give the camera
Reels of memorial ephemera,
While below rabbits run,
Digging a hole… then another one!
– Bolbul
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