1. Consoler
A small voice, mine,
Opined – ‘From a time-stretched view,
Uprootings like this do
Happen, who understands better than you?!’
But that 9 pm night of ’89,
Quaking with dashed glasses,
Fumbling in electric darkness,
It sounded disproportionately wise –
For it was the riven ground,
It advised.
What measure of hopelessness,
Or bigness…
Could describe the incongruence?!
– Bolbul
2. Gold Bricks Old
Three were made of gold,
In a story time told
Him, as he dusted memory’s painting…
Once upon Economic Times,
A couple rising would find,
Streaming window light, shares price,
Water sprinkled faces and skin –
All oozing golden.
He laughed recalling how narrowed her eyes
At the drift of words in pink,
At the mental effort to make all sink.
Now time has shown
That stocks and skin
Mean little to nothing
But the memorial paintings they hold
Are indeed made of gold…
To be preserved until old.
– Bolbul
3. Writ in Mint
Rubbing eyes after listening
All night to recordings,
He stumbled into the kitchen garden
And caught a live act going…
An Acacia trunk was rubbed by boughs
Of succulent shadows…
Casting notes, only a talent preternatural
Could have composed.
From coriander, radish and turnip leaves
The breeze picked the fulness
Of a reverberant double bass.
When the man bent upon sprigs,
Challenging his nostrils
To name this particular music,
He recognized with deepening certitude
The words of ‘A Morning Writ in Mint!’
– Bolbul
4. A Grainy Man
The graffiti noodles history of Berkeley,
Would pull him and co-riding friends
To poke around and sightsee…
But like the coastal fog, there hung
The threat of random violence,
Making things hard to see.
If Civil Rights trails were black to white,
And Bohemia flitted colors tie dyed,
The palette of violence seemed to him, to mystify…
It revealed to be a slomo movie,
Shot in very low light.
From the amphitheatrical I-House seating,
He and a buddy doing the coffee thing,
Once watched the set
Of a crowded parking lot
When a boatish car pulled in
And on their cinemascopic mental screen,
Did a slow flip.
A man from the direction of Oakland,
Seemed unhurt, crouching upside down.
The unnerving Doppler effect of sirens notwithstanding,
A grainy figure eased out, lit a cigarette
And walked away with a revolver, cocked and dangling.
His confident puff made the red embers
Stick like a sore thumb
Out the hilly, pinot noir scene.
Berkeley could make him tick
Or quickly sick!
– Bolbul
5. Two Shores of a Sofa
Atop the short ocean of empty air,
His winging hand froze in fear,
Unable to touch the still figure
Of her memory or was it the flesh of future?
– Bolbul
6. Tank of Trees
Every morning with eyes turned fish,
In the blue green pool of Eucalyptus,
I would rise to break the water
For a gulp of shining air
Then dive among the algal twists
Of leaves referring
To the loose stroking colorist
Of Giverny.
But my place was Village Escondido,
In the cool shadows of San Francisco,
Among derelict Stanford grottoes,
Where I knitted daily thoughts
On some problem of art.
Nibbling on the dappled bark,
In my pool arboreal,
I wondered if like me
Did the Koi feel?!
– Bolbul
7. Monterey Take Away
On days sunny as an otter’s face,
Or those foggy as the Pacific edge,
A man riding a steel mustang
Would take a friend to Monterey.
Much to see there, they’d say at Stanford,
For biologists, historians and artists,
And its a short ride away.
But on Cannery Row, the thick paint
Of new times was hard to peel,
Sweat and sardines
Or what Steinbeck might have seen,
Replaced by a gigantic tank aquamarine
In which the fisheyed were swimming.
A thick clam chowder with the texture
Of the sea and algae,
Was often the closest
He’d get to what once
Was everywhere and free.
– Bolbul
8. Ever Whisperer
Its unassuming voice, he heard for six months,
Among those of stately Palo Alto mansions,
But three decades since,
He hears that Seale Avenue house
Like an ever playing harmonica,
Shading his mind,
Stretched on a pink futon,
Against a lawn hanging sun.
Few houses talk,
Even rarer teach the walk
Of a picker in his home orchard…
But this three bedroomed setback,
Taught bare virtues sundry,
Bespeaking bluish melodies,
And gave even roommates to party with.
– Bolbul
9. फेंकाऊ
अंदर से फेंका,
दर्द का टुकड़ा,
जा आवाज़ में अटका…
अब तारीफ़न लोग-बाग,
सुन मुँहदबी भी बात,
कहें किसी बड़ी दुआ से
मिले ऐसी मिठास!
– बोलबुल
10. Once… by Thousands
Trickling through a verbal stenosis,
Mum’s words tumble to the doctor
About her child’s condition aortic –
‘Will she walk, talk, normally live
After the surgery?’
But pursed are the doctor’s lips,
Her eyes static on the cardiography.
‘Doctor… Doctor… Doc..’ mum pleads,
Then ‘Greta!…’ at which
The doctor deadpans, ‘But she already did,
For twenty years, no less!,
Swum, played the trumpet and tennis!’
Doctor Greta wasn’t even six
When the valve in her left ventricle
Looked the same… even her mum
Had voiced that worried question.
‘I did mother… just bring her!’,
She finished.
No coincidence –
This was Greta’s thousandth patient?!
– Bolbul
11. Betelmania
To a hearts-leafed betel vine,
Glabrous or glaucous
Depending on the wind and sunshine,
He pinned his own emblem
Of cardioid devotions…
Then severed a foot
To bring home for admiring looks.
Three days flowed like table wine,
With the man opting oft
To sit and sip,
But by the fifth,
The leaves stared out the casket of death…
His love was shorn of breath.
Woody stem in a watery grave,
Former ‘Betels’ rested a few days
When arrived the time of farewell…
The man stared at
A lifeless stick horizontally laid
Across a former vase…
His fingers shaped to fling,
When the eyes said, ‘Wait!…
Hearts loved, go on living!’
– Bolbul
12. छत से तोड़े
पहले मैंने आलू धोए,
फिर पलट खोजे तेजपत्ते…
जो डब्बे में दिखे… मन के
हवा लग हिल-डुलते,
धूप में चमकते।
हाथ बढ़ा कोठे से,
दो तीन तोड़ लिए।
पटना की छत पर घूमे
इतना ज़माना हो गया,
बोयाम में सालों के
जो छूटा, पीला-पुराना हो गया।
जैसे हाथ के पत्ते…
मगर महक से
अब नया घर रंगते!
– बोलबुल
13. उड़नखटोला
अटक पलकें कहें…
मत लंबी कहानी,
और लिख ज़िंदगानी।
जो पन्ने काँपें…
इतरा छितरा के,
हवा में दे उड़ाने।
स्कूली जहाज से…
घास पर लेट सुस्ताने।
– बोलबुल
Bolbul's Patch 