Venom, it is

And the ink drop bursts on the ground
The venom crawls clinging to itself
Dreams, floating through the void
Ask him, Where have the wings gone?

A migraine rises through his veins
Feathers, Are they also this light?
Fading lights beckon him into darkness,
Wandering visions, mist and a glide.

Forsaken handshakes, forgotten boats
Long lost horizon, cascading smiles
"You pour venom through your words"
Sentences, multitudes lost in veils of time.

A mention of venom and his muscles wake up
The shoulder blades jerk the silence away
Blood rushes through the arteries to pointed nails
And starts an acid rain; black, hideous letters
Shoot through him like war trained horses
Leave behind the ones who fell behind
Heart sets fire to the canon; Venom, yes he is!

The Victory march

I heard the bells
Far away, they were singing
Of victory : The city, they said
Had fallen; And they were singing
Canons, bullets and shrieks;
The music was soft, piercing.

How many moments did we have
Before our flags were to be burned?
Murmurs of escape kept floating
The distant fire was just a gimmick,
Among hurried voices and records
I stood, engulfed in flames of failure.

It is ready, the General whispered
I looked at him, pondering over
My decision. Was I playing God?
"Sir", he waited. I touched
The cold red button, I took a moment;
The final one, triggering the third  in history.

Vapour and Ash

The fire slowly ate into the wood
The barks vapourised to reveal
A juicy flesh within but to the fire
Everything was same; kept digging deep.

He stared long into the burning log,
Two states, he thought; vapour and ash
But it wasn't important, the fire went deep
Some objects don't need to melt.

The molten state is for everyone to see,
For everyone to inspect, examine, judge.
The melted, even though an advanced state
Still clings to the ground and is never free.

He thought of the inner flesh, now burning
A sadness engulfed him; It doesn't have long
To burn out. He wanted it hard to come out
Such a shame that it never saw light.

He tore apart his letter for the third time
Relentless in this burning,
He kept searching for the final tide
Once, even for once if his truth saw light!
Vapour or Ash, someday the wood must fly.
 

An October drizzle

The rolling tyres made a faint approaching sound  from the horizon. Somewhere on the forsaken highway, Deep sat, strumming tides of the Bohemian Rhapsody. He had a hat on to neutralize the smiling Sun. Leaning on a milestone, he kept playing to his wishes as a few trucks sped by in hourly intervals. A sudden cloud cover alerted Deep. Just as he was beginning to consider his fate in the rain, the tyres came to a stop by the milestone.

"Hey ass! What took you so long? Bara kotokkhon dhore boshe achi bolto!"
Deep shouted at the driver.

Ali, the recipient, signaled him to get in the car in his typical manner : a wink.

"Sala faltu case khetam arektu hole." Deep was still complaining when the first drops appeared on the windscreen.

As Ali put the car in gear, Deep set the music to "Riders on the storm".

Ali: Memories, Man! Shei mone ache jokhon prothom gari ta niye berolam Pujoy, ami, tui, Batu, Alu, Shubhra... bhai kichu din chilo re

Deep: Stop fretting over the past. Except for us, all these bastards are married. They don't even bother to come home for Pujo.

Ali: You were the one who started it, remember? You stayed back in Kolkata while we all came here. What was the year... 2016? 17?

Deep: 14. Yeah, well I was in love for the first time. What do you mean by "You started it"? I arrived late that year but I did arrive. It all started with Shubhra. Asshole got married the same year in December, got Sneha pregnant and then all we know is he's not coming! Are bhai, at least pore ashti. He just gave up visiting Balurghat for Pujo ever since.

Ali: Fifteen years! The world has changed so much, hasn't it ? I can't identify with most things anymore.

Deep: I really don't think about it too much, you know. The world is what it is. It's just the way we see it, changes. I don't think we are significant enough to have changed the world in such a short span. Just because everyone around me is enjoying a family, doesn't necessarily mean that it has started raining in October!

Ali (chuckles) : And we are driving in the October rain.

Deep: Precisely, my point.

Ali : Ei sob funda kono sundori ke dile to elaborate na koriye charbe na!

Deep: Sundori te jacchis kano! Ora to antlamo dekhlei baar khaoyay.

Ali: Tui ki ebar Khuswant Singh hoyar katha bhabchis? Gyani..., gouno..., jouno...

Deep : jouno ta tao ache... tobe baki duto to serom holo na. Tai Khuswant Singh II hoyar icche borjon korai jay.

Ali: Ta tui ei highway te guitar bajiye show off korchili kano?

Deep: Bal! Dekhar lok kothay peli tui? Emni sokh holo eka boshte.

Ali: Hat pore country singer look niye Balurghat er dhare highway te Jim Croce eshechen!

Deep: Jim Croce hat porten na by the way!

Ali: tui dekhechis, na porte? Bal oi to youtube video te curly hair-e duto chobi dekhechis! Batela.

Deep : "If I could save time in a bottle"...bhai.. only if

Ali: "But there never seems to be enough time..."

Deep: Probably, the best song I've ever heard...

Ali: "If I had a box just for wishes
       and dreams that would never come true...
       the box would be empty,
       except for the memory
              of how they were answered by you..."

The Santro faded into the Southern horizon as the October rain slowly made way for the Afternoon Sun.