buried sea

west bank
east london
the sea closes in
departure
sun froth swings in
long lost tales creep back
moist grass makes up
for the lost time
a sky shifts back
to old alleys
my face wet
i can almost hear
a call of
muzzein from
the dargah of
khwaja khanoon
at home

and
the old and buried
remains the
sea.


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

forest

words and feelings grew rampantly
in a forest of distant thunder
in sleep
in corrosion
only the eye flickered
catching a ray
sometimes
strange is this time
stranger is you
strange is unresolved
mindful
of
tomorrow

dawn
the fort banks off
at another
angle.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Gwalior ravines

summers and ravines
a banditry of a sworn
sky
and beyond that....
your laughter took strange hues
this would always remain gwalior
a dusk pervades the seeming
closeness
and eyes droop
to your warm touch
cold is the marble sheen
cold are your tears
cold is the ravine earth
gwalior sleeps
an angry sky stalks
the night
a river
long lost to
tales.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

baba

baba passed away in a strange land
stranger a scientist wept at his loneliness
ashamed he turned his head away
the final light clasp was unearthly
he passed on his dreams to a son
a contract of constellations
kolkata, benares, kanpur, gwalior
lives unlived for
baba
i whispered in a galaxy of darkness
death could have been lot kinder
who would now tell me to come back home
who would listen on the phone in deft attention
although he hardly could hear anything
his ashes were poured in the ocean at east london
the priest told me
it’s the same
the same ocean goes to the ganges
the earthen pot containing his ashes toppled on to the sea
but always came back with the waves
the priest pondered, baba wants to come back

and i live
wearing a second skin
living in churning motion
of broken suns
living encountering
many non life forms
living a zenith of
foretold ideas
and i live for ancient
words i can never share

only baba’s outline
sink in cohesion
his voice far shadowed
than before....


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

sleepless...

there is no sleep
and these bloody sleeping tablets
brings back always the pain
addiction is pain
blackening the moon
blackening the dreams
black is where i live and i ask
you in wakefulness
why straying is combat
in an approaching desert storm
and lives just happen during that time
of birds, dogs and trees
restless
as another culprit night
demises in ardent failure

i deny another day
think of you
and throttle my car
towards a land
unheard off

again.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Hiranvan Kothi, Tales of Gwalior

chotu angre was murdered
in a swarm of swallows
in a red rain
his laughter
shattered
myths of unsteady walls
hiranvan kothi
remains trapped in the present
a clutter of hens and houses
seem to be catching up with a
forest on concrete cacophony
a rusted royal insignia
was hanged without
judgement
decay remains fresh
embroiled
in
memories

loving you
seems to have
happened
only
yesterday.


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

when everybody had left

when everybody had left
you
me
and even the despot ruler
of
our fate
the fort one night came down
and touched us
it hid us
in its wrinkles
from an unruly horizon

nobody dies, it declared
the lust of this tree
our porcelain past
the breakaway season
conspiracy unhinged at nightfall
your names etched in the first drop
of a gwalior rain

nobody
really dies
here

nobody.....


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

old fort

the blistered road to the old fort
goes on and on
like all tired summers here
scrappy greens try to hold on
to its last outpost
an uneven sun tries to breakthrough
the northern walls
invasion has always been the rule of
a mortal day at gwalior

only
you
remain
unknown


Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra