Bistirna Barua- Three Poems

OF FIREFLIES AND NIGHTS AND GONE BY

Those were the days
When there were no streetlights
To distract our tired eyes, uneducated in
The glitzy glitter of the world
From a melodic darkness.
We trudged back home
With backs crooked
By the weights of a distant tomorrow,
But with lips whistling
Today's nascent tunes
In the light of fireflies.

On lonesome evenings
When bamboo leaves scribbled
Haiku's on the winds skin,
We tried to fill our palms
With restless fireflies
Only to find them eluding us.
And of us enjoying this
Beautiful poetry of delusion.

What then, are fireflies?
They are but the blessings of
Generations that have transformed to memory
Which guide us gently, to the
Eventual decay of our individual
Wastelands, that we have so obnoxiously
Created with our bare hands.

Fireflies tell me that
The only way to deal
With the rage that burns within
Is to alight in a way:
That lost travelers may revel
In this momentary discovery
Of their peek-a-boo selves
In a dark silence
That ingests us all, lovingly !!!

FOR THE LOVE OF DARKNESS

I love darkness

I dip my pen in it

And words crop up

like bubbles, on blank sheets.

But you always were too radiant

Too much of light,

For my shattered and tattered darkness

To stick to you.

Seven hundred and thirty days

And seven hundred and thirty lonesome nights,

I spent conjuring,words that will breathe

Down your neck and whisper

All my secrets to you.

But I failed.

Maybe your neck was too slippery

Or my words were too flippant.

And the only light I have now,

To momentarily erase the monotony
Of my all-engulfing darkness

Burns at the extreme end

Of a dying cigarette.

 

In the grasp of darkness,

I hold on to the tiny fickle

Fingers of light.

VERTIGO

When I see you
I get vertigo.
For I know
The heights
You are going to reach
One day.
And the depths
Inside my soul
That I will plunge
Inspired by you.

Loving is
Climbing an unseen mountain
That lacks a summit.