Puja
Let's play 'Lost in the Carnival'.
I have three eyes now, and one,
impaired, hunts for you in the realm
where glimpses and visions go
after the blindness.
The other two seek the concept of you
in this earth, city, people pouring out
into the streets, shops, buying and selling,
sweating and licking the sweetmeat.
The light blurs truths between the divine
we worship, love we forge and fear we kiss.
I pass a sodality, and those young men talk
about the new clothes, shoes, flings,
the way the festival disintegrates and its
decorations are disassembled and immersed
in the stream. They scream, "Cheers to the next year!"
I feel the winter in my spine, I sprint to the river.
Oh sinnerman where you gonna run to?
Clouds quarrel above. Do you remember
good ole mother used to say, "The Goddess
upstairs desires to descend and come home
to the men who imagined her so hard that she
became real, and the God forbids her to leave
the heaven. He does not want her to be mortal
again even if for a few days if the carnival."
Did mother say these? At least some parts of these?
Do you remember, Devi, we play, and it is
not a game if the hide and seek doesn't end?
"Appear", I whisper.
From a series titled ‘We have no place for the belief in--The one Reality and the unreal appearances!’ | Photo courtesy: Samit Das
JUSTICE
I
'Justice' comes up in
our word-association game.
'Freedom!' you say, and I
mumble, 'Shame',
and then a cloud burst
cancels our autumn picnic.
In the shelter of one tea stall nearby
we confine our faces
in the Rorschach maze
of the words we say.
You hide your protests in
the biographies of our forefathers.
I wake up at night to wipe out
the DNA of some brother slain
by another. Ancient family business.
One ebony feline mewls from
its burial between out minds and brains.
From a series titled ‘We have no place for the belief in--The one Reality and the unreal appearances!’ | Photo courtesy: Samit Das
II
Justice comes home all wet
and he says nothing when
we ask him again and again,
"What happened? Where's your umbrella?"
Silence bullies into the shelter.
The school of thoughts screams and shouts.
Rings an old bell, and no, there is no din.
I mop his head. His mom dries him.
We fix a dinner. An animal circles
our house. Its belly flashes the glow of hunger.
From a series titled ‘We have no place for the belief in--The one Reality and the unreal appearances!’ | Photo courtesy: Samit Das
