The unafraid matter

The unafraid matter

My softest flower,

How did you make yourself so perfect?

I wonder

How it doesn’t matter to you a bit,

If you stayed or went,

Trampled or nursed by the wind!

Clarity! Please be with me,

Let me behold this defenseless beauty,

While you are there… let my eyes and ears,

Help my being to be erect

In wonder…

The storms, the waves,

With their sounds and moves,

Not to bend

The unafraid matter!

Doubt

Doubt

Doubt…

If it’s page or a canvas,

Or just a pond;

Peripheral workers moving around the stage,

Beyond some impending hours;

The travail is done.

Waiting now, to enter through the outside

A passing traveller;

In the holding kiss of lovers in the garden,

The fruit is found hanging…

Drapes clear

White clots of nothings, ready to wash,

Or would it be to drain;

Doubt…

Echo

Echo

It’s ringing to death O hell,

The bell doesn’t ring a bell.

My written notes are placed on the piano,

A matter of silence makes the tune glow;
I am and I am doesn’t catch the wind,
I haven’t never ever I haven’t ever winged.

It is not the people it is you in guise,

Calling them in vain dressing a scene you like;
My airplane is taking off without any sound,
It is beyond the glass of finite shape and form.

I haven’t taken the onus of playing other’s role,

Creatures all alike are echoing in the whole.

Doha from an outcast

I love terrorists and I bless them with all my heart

Want to kiss them on their hands, in their minds with all my art …

thought of an outcast

thought of an outcast

Patriotism is barbarism

Poisoned and imprisoned
With scores of inflated and bonsai ism

Kindness to ugliness, a doha

Let me drink a little ugliness

While beauty sleeps in the glass of her partner poetess

Re-creation

Re-creation

Come let us find a new world,

A land, where we plough our thoughts,

Trees that carry our breaths,

A seed that wills on the sand,

Just at the drop of a hat.

Come let us build a new world,

Where rivers border the fields, not our hearts,

Mountains stand to give, not to guard,

A bird that sails on the sky,

Without reason this or that.

Come let us create a new world,

That helps the blood to air the Source,

With a mind that means to mend,

Goes distance to see no end,

Lands on us, shows what was there,

World in its place loving as it were!

Travel

Travel

When innocence looks through

Clearness of thoughts,

Sky falls in the garden;

When a story travels in terrains unknown

Viewed from parts to the whole,

A paradise is regained.

Flying birds

Birds fly in V..
Child sees one huge bird up there
World waits to take off

Knock knock knock

Knock knock knock

Knock knock knock;
I am swiping from outside
At the door I can never lose
Somebody who was travelling with me,
Will open the door;
I hear the scratching sound of my dog,
Trying hard to usher me in;
Naww, he can’t… I opened it with my usual key,
Switched on the unwilling bulb
With times floating inside my head,
How I wanted my house to be like this!
My dog is me, with four untraveled legs,
Talks to me with something that hollows up the blanks;
I am at ease when my inmates don’t talk,
Even when I knock knock knock;
Some indurated vacationers were here for some time
I threw them out as they were on the wrong side of the door!
Calling me!!! To get in!!!
Daffy they tried and tried with a torch,
Until I held them by their neck and plucked them off,
And said goh! And off they went with them the door!
Now I stay with green tourists in the house,
I water them with care and get my oxygen in return,
It helps me puff through life
And open my door,
Waiting to see if some day
I could find the door I threw with a flare
If that could open when I
Knock knock knock.

Fugitive in its place

Fugitive in its place

Gestures of uninhibited movements, of words, judged for ages
If you have to release to breathe
In the silky air you’d longed for
So be it,
Come unto me if you will
When you do
With your benign heart that rests
Unmoved in its innocuous strength,
The spirits floating flying all around the sand
Onto the hut
Just three or four waves down the lane,
Where poems met the poet
Fugitive in its place;
Here, hands didn’t hold the times cut
By the lips, severed by the looks,
Legs didn’t walk through the hopes
That waited since long,
Eyes didn’t kiss the thoughts on the crossroads,
Actions weren’t bold enough for the heat
Steaming on the beach,
And poems weren’t half-made to escape
Through the windows, a little away from there,
Some sand dunes away, my girl,
Come back if and when you will
Onto the waiting pillow that resides
Fugitive in its place!

When the base is the same

When the base is the same

Pen which has flown from the left to the right,

Its juice traversed with lacerated lines

Of a particular nature,

Suddenly instructed to squirm in a different direction

How would it know this world, these grooves!

When the base is the same

Forms and figures, in their rights and their wrongs,

How would it know there’s song in the thorns!

When the base is the same

Identification is the malice

Virtues of times that left, shredded as vices bereft,

With fences that flew with snailed experience!

The mural morality that excludes, has known only that,

Through twists and turns with bruises and burns,

Decors into humanity that includes, nothing other than that,

Ready to secrete the essence!

When the base is the same

thoughts in triplets

Birthday

Moments born reborn

Every day is a birthday
Eyes burn water breaks

Futile letters

Envelop arrives

Mind wonders is curious
News of false offers

Worthless

Growth is worth nothing

Children die for love peace food
Shameless figures glow

The necessity jail

Job offers capture

Blue and white-collar workers
Prisoners die to live

Cuts

True, shortcuts are smart

Long-cuts are wiser tougher
Stands the test of time

Sugar is about living healthy

Sugar in blood high

Bills pills pile up in no time
Heart pumps day and night

Advertisements make a killing

Buying and selling

Child wants to go out hands stretched
Flying kiss cries smiles

Yudhisthira re-appears to rectify an existential response

Birth the only truth

Death cannot exist on earth
Stunned Yama looks smiles

Frangers

Frangers

Get out hesitates

To say come in lines as walls
Friends look as strangers

Law of emotion

Law of emotion

Fight for fight goes on

Love for fight outside the law
Hatred breeds and bleeds

Progress report

Progress report

Teacher remarks, writes
‘Not fit for further studies’
Student shoulders truth

Party's over

Party’s over

Parties before votes
Leaders entertain with fights
Until curtain falls

Invisible classroom of non-verbal communication

Invisible classroom of non-verbal communication

 

Riding a bike cells
Talk, driver drunk, accidents
Fast learners! Who taught!


I am amused at the way people learn things they are not supposed to do much faster than those prescribed to them! What is so attractive about the taboo! Amazed at the way riders, with their heads and shoulders catching the cell so precariously, talk over phone as though it is the most important thing on earth. It is learnt through non-verbal communication.

Accident here is but a metaphor with just two examples...however, there are numerous examples which tell us that what is not to be done is learnt much faster than what is to be learnt. A teacher telling the students not to talk, cheat goes untaught; a grandma telling her grandchild an emphatic 'No' is futile because the child surely interprets that as a loud 'Yes'. It's interesting to observe how words fail to convey the message.

There is another school of thought which says that if the intent is right, message will be conveyed. Now this brings us into a more interesting area of communication. This could veritably mean that the grandma fails to hide the intent to her grandchild even with the emphatic 'No'! She wants the child to do what she's asking him/her not to do! Likewise, when the message 'don't drink and drive', is written and circulated, there is utter disbelief in the writer's mind...and it is this disbelief that communicates to the mass. Vastly interesting, don't you think!

It is for us to ponder if we have really learnt a 'No' as a 'Yes' since childhood, and invariably do the don'ts while ignoring the do's! It would be easier for us to understand why war till date is a historic and a trans-historic reality!

In my opinion, we could even stop the war if we sat and devoted some time into discussing as to how we could trick the non-verbal communication that is so effectively learnt in the open-air classrooms worldwide!

Needs

Needs

Dark skin needs white skin

White needs dark so amusing
This black and white war

In judgement

In Judgement

Judgement no judgement
Both need schooling grooming with
Board chalk and duster

Stalker

Stalker

Is there a place where

The sky stops stalking for then
Silence rests in peace

La beauté by Yves Bonnefoy translated

Yves Bonnefoy Poèmes

nrf Poésie / Gallimard © Mercure de France, 1978. © Éditions Gallimard, 1982

La beauté [from Hier régnant désert; page 136]

Celle qui ruine l’être, la beauté,

Sera suppliciée, mise à la roue,

Déshonorée, dite coupable, faite sang

Et cri, et nuit, de toute joie dépossédée

– O déchirée sur toutes grilles d’avant l’aube,

O piétinée sur toute route et traversée,

Notre haut désespoir sera que tu vives,

Notre cœur que tu souffres, notre voix

De t’humilier parmi tes larmes, de te dire

La menteuse, la pourvoyeuse du ciel noir,

Notre désir pourtant étant ton corps infirme,

Notre pitié ce cœur menant à toute boue.

English translation by Supratik Sen

Beauty

The one that depraves the being, beauty,
Tormented, confined to the wheel,
Disgraced, defined guilty, seeps ​​
And hollers, and night, dispossessed of all ecstasy
- O ruptured on all grilles before sunup,
O stomped on all road and cruised,
Our towering despair that you may live,
Our heart that you droop, our voice
To denigrate you in your weeps, to tell you
Liar, director of the ebony sky,
Our longing withal your tottering carcass,
Our pity this heart shepherds through the sludge.

Note:

While doing my research in France, I was exposed to many wonderful poets, and authors. 

Yves Bonnefoy was certainly one of them. But I must also quickly add that I could penetrate into his world (if I dare to think so), thanks to my professor Madame Renée Ventresque.

Birth

Birth of a pure cry

What is painful doesn’t pain
Eyes behold smell smile

Liar

Profit money gain

Work stops shuts down easy slow
Liar! Sky did not fall

Friends

Bombs are like babies

Unaware of their pranks sounds
Patience O my friends

The unstoppable

Growth speed style pelf work

All kept in the dustbin yet
Fruits flowers plants bloom

Spoilsport

Rushing for meeting

Cars splash mud on the shirt face

Cells crying in pain

Leisure-pleasure

Sheets of rain pouring

Town washed out of gear no ride
Paper-boats sailing

Hope

Leaders’ hands are tied

Those who are led are tongue-tied
Head tide clears the knots

Realm of a poem

Realm of a poem 

A poem is born through poets, not from them;
Emotions nursed in propriety, in the worlds
Now lie in the hearse of words;
Totally cut without possession…ugh…c’est complètement parti mes amis!
C’est fini, alors c’est fini,
This mayhem!

Readers take over now,

Criticize; analyze, love, slaughter left and right,
The poet drops the pride and the vow,
Joins as a reader in the ugly pretty fight!

Wrong is heavy and loose

Let’s delve in the write so high and light,
Whatever be the choice we have nothing to lose,
Threw up everything on the page toute à l’heure in delight!
                                  
Let’s love the poets, who think otherwise,
For they, like us are also right,
We transgress as readers, wise, unwise,
Without prosecuting visitors;
For us – as part of them,
There aren’t any trespassers,
In the realm of a poem!

Messenger

Cliffs bring the sunrise

Light spreads into the valley

Morning teas wake up

Alarm

Hands jam hungry breads

Day queues up with many chores

Work honks at the door

Out of train

Train runs at high speed

Crowded stories talk non-stop

Eyes on windows look

Fillers

An airplane flies high
Sound reaches a silent hut
Mother feeds her child

Equation

Man money machine
Quadratic equation lies
Woman explores x

An invitation

An invitation 

Look into the palm.
On the near rooftop,
Hard as rock soft as arouse crop,
Wheels not needed for willing wings,
Climb aboard to fly and smile!
Readers so dear the paw marries,
No intent, no motive, no hidden malice,
Stable unfailing the hand to wed,
No fears or fights no dodge or trade!

Look into the palm.

Steady to the clear sky,
Nests inside seldom fake or lie,
With light and air and water abound,
Mount a little above the ground!
Readers to breed an open delight,
No caprice, no margins, no stunning fright,
Strong as rock and tender as erect crop,
It goes so smooth, it stays and sings!

In act one

In act one

Brush, brush, brush
A rush of colours on the paper sky,
Soft, violent; all in, upon them
Brushing words inside out;
O what a shame!
Brushing organs in broad daylight,
Tune of emotions foaming out,
Everyone oversees overlooks,
Threads of buttons going back
In act one
As cottons;
Candy flosses flying in front of the eyes,
It is all so loose, clear like an open chest,
Brushes now deep, indeed inside,
White paper grins and plaints!
Its colours lost without remorse,
Threads continue to rewind as cottons,
With order, disorder; on the paper sky,
Brush, brush, brush

Raymond Queneau’s poem on poem translated into English

Un poème
By Raymond Queneau 

Bien placés bien choisis

quelques mots font une poésie
les mots il suffit qu’on les aime
pour écrire un poème
on ne sait pas toujours ce qu’on dit
lorsque naît la poésie
faut ensuite rechercher le thème
pour intituler le poème
mais d’autres fois on pleure on rit
en écrivant la poésie
ça a toujours kékchose d’extrème
un poème

Poem 

English translation by Supratik Sen

Accurately placed perfectly chosen

some words conceive a poem
love for apt words is quintessential
to write a poem
when a poem is born
we may not always grasp what is said
we seek anon for the theme
to bequeath a name
we whimper and chuckle at other times
while writing a poem
a poem
always possesses something extreme

In the midst of

In the midst of

Unrest incomplete
In the midst of
Wealth, health aplenty
I threw it away and was empty
Searched for it with unspeakable pain
In the vault in the loft from brain to brain!

In the midst of

Dirt and dust
I found the jewel in its throne unhurt
Lying in the drain for quite some time
Didn’t get washed somehow as slime!

In the midst of profit and gain

I threw it of me, thought was gone
Found it again in the trench of my lawn
Shining at me smiling sans cesse
Picking it again and going through stress!

I looked at it close a little from above

I took it in me was complete with love!



The poem urges readers to pause and think of something they have thrown away in disbelief. And now, in the midst of broken values and sheer lovelessness, that something seems to be missing the most.
If the intelligent minds could think, many fools could be saved. The Earth is the biggest fool.

The balcony of the unpainted house

The balcony of the unpainted house

I left the house long ago,
When I was just twenty,
My childhood grew up in every corner
Of that universe;
I was born to love the place,
Knew every cell of my balcony,
My terrace, my staircase,
They knew me before I could see;
I’d painted the house with my sounds,
With my smells my sorrows and joys without bounds,
My unsure youth dared to step out,
On the streets whistling, playing, just being,
Wasting times in scores, unnoticed,
Until it was snatched;
Went to a new place though not very far,
Everything there was strange,
The smell, the air, the much bigger terrace balcony,
Reminded me more of the place no more to see;
However, I learned to love the place
My father had bought … in time, I
Began to know the place,
Busy and accounted time travelled with me,
Never gave me the space to be in my long-lost place,
Until years later;
My car just happened to pass near the lane,
In the evening I saw children playing my games,
Guys in their twenties whistling my songs from a little far,
I came out of my car;
My make-up was such a big hide,
Stopped for a minute before the unmoved house,
Games interrupted for a while with children looking vexed,
They thought who on earth this stranger could be,
I looked at the house my parents calling my ears could see,
The balcony of the unpainted house recognized me.