The Shadow Lovers

Photography: Rathin Mitra

Running through the street
With a storm under her feet
She reaches the old man’s den

The timepiece, oblivious of when

Knowing he would understand
The ruin of her castle of sand
With hope she pushed the door
In need of his unusual lore

In the stead of him she found
The room oddly crowned
With a heap of broken records
Which seemed to play unheard chords

Passing through scattered yellow hardbacks
A smell which every paperback lacks
She sees her old man on his bed
With almost no wrinkle on his bald head

He always looked as young as a lover
Resembling a Marquez story cover
Who only became younger
In the company of her female hunger

This time she came to let him know
Her story of the lowest low
That for long she was ailing
In her last days she was sailing

She tapped him on the shoulder
To wake him up from his slumber
But he lay there on a bed soaked with urine
With ears which were not too keen

She called him for the next two days
But he was lost in his deceased haze
He never woke up to hear
Or to hold his ailing whore near

In a day or two she too took the cue
To start a flight, brand new
Amidst diseased books and infected laughter
The corpses lived happily ever after.

My Boy Child, My Son

You remind me of myself
When I used to hide my poems in my shelf
When I was a little younger than you
Though in number they were few

I see the same fire in your eyes
As you rainbow your myriad highs
Every time you light a joint
And twist to make your point

Together we laugh in glee
As bullets on the bypass flee
Sitting on car tops
We try to eye the cops

I laugh endlessly at your jokes
As others pass them off as only a hoax
Between talks we drink caffeine
Between walks we stop by a known lane

Together we fly gas balloons in fields
As lovers promise to be mirrors and shields
We cross ridges
And burn bridges

Like my boy child you move
As you try hard to explain a seven and a half groove
Your eyes swollen
And your usual modesty fallen

Like my moon child you write
In my old time words you glide
Thinking poetry is your mistress
On music you give your stress

One day when you are as old as I
You would learn to twist a lie
And to make love to wife and mistress
With not an ounce of lust less

When on a fresh day of Spring
Under a eucalyptus you play me your one-string
Child, you will help me dream of my son
If between years of nicotine I ever manage to have one.

M.a.r.i.a

She cooks by morning

Washes a sink full of dishes by noon

And twists to the Radio by afternoon.

She teaches by evening

Plays the Violin by night

And writes till dawn.

She rolls by morning

Smokes pot by noon

And twists to the Radio by afternoon.

She drinks by evening

Injects love into her blood by night

And knocks at your door at dawn

She says: M.a.r.i.a

You say: W.h.o

One Hundred Years Of Love.

I touched Marquez's Solitude after half a decade

Again.

I figured that my relationships so far

Have had a similarity with the village of Macondo

At the time of Arcadio Buendia

For all of them seem to be so recent

And invariably ephemeral

That most are devoid of names.

And to speak about them

It often becomes necessary for me to

Point.

Boonyi.

Photography: Rathin Mitra

Moss is growing on your rooftop, Boonyi.
I remember times when your room was my hide out after school hours; you looking over a seven year old me playing with my toy train. Now they report to me that there are cracks in your ceiling. One August night after another water oozes out and wets your bed.
It's been twelve years I have not seen you grin your toothless grin, smile your wrinkled smile.
It's been long, too long I have not seen the sun shine on your silver hair.
Love is growing on your rooftop, Boonyi.