Nautical Child
A ruminative lake asks a boat ‘What did you like best
About her… chatter, laughter or the way she dressed?’
‘Oh! She had the surest, loving touch
On the oars…’ the boat says
‘I ever saw on a child… or adult!
And it’s been twenty years since Nita left.’
‘Look at me…’ the evening, over the lake stretched,
Whispers ‘I am wearing her favourite red!
Gosh, how that kid made painterly washes
Over the lake’s canvas…
As if the canoe was a sable brush!’
‘Her smile was inset with the coconuttiest white…’
Add the shore palms, ‘on the palette!’
‘Where could Nita be now?
Does she smile walking down
Memory trail, at us?!’ her mates seemingly say
In one voice and with one enchanting face.
To which Nita far away, applying varnish,
Replies with a kiss ‘My nose, smile, hair, eyes… life
Are filled with childhood colors shared.
Just check this self-portrait!’
– Bolbul
Rain Poles
A bamboo grove speaks in cryptic creaks,
Lends a neighborhood elevated mystique,
Causes living beings and nature even
To rejoice in its arc of influence,
To imbibe with disciple-like deference,
Its essential mannerisms…
A fact noted by litterateurs
In China, Vietnam, other lands Asian.
Once during a monsoon deluge,
While visiting friends at bamboo’s
Native home… to the world as Bangalore known,
I noticed this magisterially fused
Scene… revelatory, Vedic-ally pristine.
A private road by a tall, arching grove,
Began to paint itself into internodes…
Broad, resembling a culm watery smooth.
At its base, fallen branches and leaves blown
Appeared to shoot out of rhizomes.
Bamboo-filtered rain fluttered like leaves
Or connected to ground in bundled streaks,
Wet with sliding, trickling light drops,
Many formed bending poles
Over heads of walkers in the rain-grove.
My friends returning home told
Of the experience… as entering an
Onomatopoeic vocal zone where words
They shared produced musical tones,
Pulling speakers to the altar
Of the one supreme behind all souls.
– Bolbul
Suburban Lark
Lark was a city bred dog,
Well heeled, walking cramped sidewalks,
Had occasional romps in backyards…
Twice a month, took Laura to the yoga park.
Laura, mid-life planning, found a new job
Away from the city a drive short
Where she could relive memories
Of childhood and read stories.
Lark didn’t know how to deal
With the space grass filled…
He made friends with chameleons and crows,
Then extended confinement limits to spiritually grow.
One evening Laura put down her book
Listening to far barking and a whoosh.
‘God no… Lark’s escaped to the highway’,
She thought as her heart shook.
Shoeless, waving frantic hands, helpless,
Laura watched as a trailer rushed to her pet
But Lark, overjoyed, ran perfectly parallel
Echoing… in leaps and bounds,
He too was now country life-suited.
– Bolbul
New Crossing Old
In the old city of Delhi,
Where lived a canny dog,
A new road crossed an old
And the intersection got busy…
Leaving the canine jumpy but happy.
From the blitz of footfall and tires,
Jumpy would have… to a corner retired
But because pakoda to pizza sellers
Set up stalls to all night shops there,
The scrap feeding dog was fatteningly happy…
‘Pushing his luck’, said onlookers many.
Came a cold hearted January,
Students from the nearby University
Saw Jumpy limping at a corner,
Refusing savories and sweetmeats
And quickly thinning as if to be among callous feet
His heart felt no further need.
Alarmed they brought their professor
Who surprisingly picked up his paw,
Applied Betadine, fed him disguised with cream
Unpleasant Melonex and Augmentin,
Without a miss, daily for a week…
Returning favor, he gave the hand many a lick.
A new feeling the old crossed,
In Jumpy’s heart and his tail wagged…
Now he hangs around helping hands
Of students at the University,
Feeding less but jumpy not and happy.
– Bolbul
Concentered
Golden egg in hand,
She, artist and mimetic philosopher, stands
In the sanctum of her kitchen,
Ready to smash the shell into halves two,
Exposing the mysterious concentric goo…
With a sharp crack bare she lays
The sunny core and the transparent,
Encircling stuff, analogous to space,
For the embryo’s sustenance custom made…
A microcosm similar to what she’s granted.
Encased in sunlight albuminous,
Supplied by rich interior proteinaceous,
She remains meditative the whole day,
Rooted to work by divine chalazae,
Thankful for her nucleic place
Within the nurturing cosmic egg.
– Bolbul
Old Readings
(from Kahwa Kahee)
A girl drank words at the window…
Sharing their gist and core
With the morning light of Bangalore
And with the slender pepper vine
Curling beside… in a third floor alcove.
The intertwined gang of four,
Counting the steaming cup,
Struggles historical dug up
That made their country avant-garde…
In care of the environment
While producing a sun dappled crop
Out-competing the original mocha from Yemen.
Unlike the offensive slash and burn stuff…
The delicate jungle interspersed method
Was perfected by native raiyats
Who fought for the preservation of
Village feeding trees, betel, pepper and shrubs
Moderating the lucrativeness of coffee.
To them interdepence was existence
And cilinical isolation… devastation,
For they understood that the smile of cherries,
The dance of light limbs,
The tenderness of curved tendrils
And the song on human lips
Shared one heartbeat…
Then as now, look carefully
At the window… do you see?!
– Bolbul
(Based on Dr Sharmila Shrivastava’s research)
Doggie Drawn
Far Manhattan dragged with him,
Barking and squeaking at the ankles,
In the shaky train from Queens…
As had Bully in Mumbai.
He only had minutes
To recall a life treasured,
To self-promise that the year
Of a switch to painting… was near
Before sinking into Times Square,
Beside pooh poohing buildings
As his media boss applied overnight editing pressure.
A clutch of sky-huggers today,
Moved limbs, took sympathetic steps…
To mimic Bully and the master,
Did their gallery best
As darkness fell.
In the impromptu sculptural arrangement,
They sent a message…
Until the earned break, we’ll help you
Paint inside the head.
– Bolbul
Kahwa Chic
They met where chatted two thoroughfares,
Two collegemates and a loving pair…
Sunlight laid the table
And coffee served the air.
Ms Apanna of hilly Coorg,
Who once shared a hostel room
With Ms Varma of far Patna,
Held a gift bag of cottage craft
As the two swirled a memory
Blend of Arabica and Robusta.
Ratna mixed sugar cubes
With Rohit whose Java groove,
If a money-spinner proved,
Would make her take the news
Of love to folks back in Mysore,
Tending plants in backyard hittalus.
The two pairs would rendezvous
With the trailblazer cafe, lured
By mocha roasts and sufi cups
Without slowing gup shup.
With their entering steps,
The sidewalks of Road Brigade
Would reminiscingly say,
This spot here since British troops stayed,
Has been the mother of Indian cafes.
– Bolbul
Ku̇m Ku̇mm
To make a poet wet… they come,
As the heart rolls drums…
Bearing ‘rasa’ or coursing literary sentiments,
The two golden birds riding heavens…
Just ask Kalidas or Jim Morrison.
Imagine eyes alone in a room,
In storms season… closed yet flying
Over mountains… looking for winds
To drift upon… then to transcribe
For millions the excitement.
It’s when without fail do Kum and Kumm
Swoop down to grace his personal firmament.
Dancing in unison, sprinkling blessings,
Inspiring feelings beyond the bosoms
Of celestial beings even…
Until the poet and the birds
Merge, losing the separating distinction.
– Bolbul
Coda, Ammonium Requiem
Growing up in Eden,
Learning from worldwide vegetation,
Dahlian penned music equal to Chopin’s…
Yet the garden no longer listened!
High on nitrous oxide,
Reckless and cheaply fertilized,
The plants’ lack of shame
About causing climate change,
Had metastasized.
Crimped, adding notes blue,
Resonant to fires, floods, eroding roots,
Dahlian didn’t know what more to do,
To make the laughing gas hooked
From being fools.
His wife, hand over the infant in her womb,
Intoned… ‘Dahlian, soon
A new generation will replace the loons.
God willing, in just a few moons,
We shall hear the playing of your tunes.’
– Bolbul
PS: Nitrous oxide, also laughing gas, is a principal cause of global warming. Released by ammonium and other nitrates in fertilizers.
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