Nib 'n' Notes

Sweet ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 05:53:00 +0000

I bet I met an angel last Halloween
Now I'm all but a witch
though he called me his Queen.

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Found this line in my dreamcatcher this morning...

The summer that's gone had a spring that'll always stay.

Pourdom

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 06:19:00 +0000

These trees
they sway
swing
they've got wing
from the cloud that's coming
and so would they
waiting for their wet
me waiting for mine

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 06:25:00 +0000

How invisible do you have to be to start being visible to yourself?

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 16:07:00 +0000

Another woman's breast
the first sign may be
may be not
just a screen.
Benign. All fine.
Walk away disdainful

natural
hope he'll make up find a way
His guilt turns into petty defense
some other pretext
goes away
I hope he'll come
He realises some
but does not warm, feed
calm a coughing soul
or come back like I would
and once, wish he too could
I read, try sleeping but only toss and turn
I burn.
But he, his snare, too much to care.
I pour it all in a poem
bury yet again my hurt
to go feed him on a spurt
although he consumed
another woman's breast.

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 16:22:00 +0000

Night notes
No no
But the best of it rides on the moon
Ah no, but your time's noon
But that's always impossible.
Always too soon.

Sounds

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 12:06:00 +0000

Last pages. Dear Life.
The dearest ones.
Sounds of her simplicity
Of country words so comforting
Interrupted now by
A blow drier making a crayon clock
Bread butter business
A gong like beating
The night guard's stick
Perhaps - or a mad man
On a rampage
Or midnight construction
Deconstructing souls
Click knocks of the kavi cupboard
Blaring music in the big cars of brash brats
The guard stick chasing them
Soon after, musical goodbyes
From relieved dinner hosts
And intermittently,
Painfully,
This cough,
Crowing croaking choking
The lump in the throat
Struggling to throw itself out
But all the bags of air
Too thick for sweet silence tonight

The Mentor

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 13:59:00 +0000

I see you

Smiling. At the woman that's me.
At the child you made grow up through tears.
At the writer you made crawl out from the hiding.
At the li'l leader you found and believed in,
When all there was, was a little girl with belief
Today, as you drive, you plug your years out to reality
Your own
As beautiful as you built theirs
Showed them how to perch proud for the flight
Flew yourself with grace in the race too
Left your nest to rest
It did understand — but they in there had to fly for wing-sake too
Fly off if you were too smitten by your skies
You lived loved laughed lost
Treaded the human-superhuman knife edge
Still so beautifully faltering
So sensitive gullible fallen in your greatness
I see you
And in reverence, try not to see through you.

7.45

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 17:40:00 +0000

Stoned. Smoked.
Tring trings at metro station madness
disco lights from the Bangkok mart
a shouting for too much art
faces places their simple stupid smiles
agenda against agenda
colleague against colleague
fallacy after fallacy
and amid it, a Friday plan with two old friends falls in place.
Perhaps some solace.

Stationed

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 17:31:00 +0000

Four minutes to the train
meanwhile, honkfest
choked on roads, the upper crest
girls on metal benches talk hard to soften up their boys
some fish for gold in their bags - a headphone here, a tablet there
attention please, train to destination Noida is on its way
but that lone star you see beyond will stay
still, far, unconcerned...
twinkling in eternity just as it lay.

There did come soft rains

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 10:23:00 +0000

Standing on a terrace I stood on
over a long year ago
soft rains breeze umbrella now
relentless roar pour soaked helpless then
The roof that saw patiently ...
the whole of the city, the pity, the jams
and blinding lights and fast trains
and smoke and sick
Saw it with a divine distance
put it in perspective
Gave me peace last night again
the purest, surest most pious kind
an energy so eternal
a stance so magically high
that friend's terrace where I can
always heave a heavenly sigh.

So pure, so pointless

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 11:38:00 +0000

Now I feel it fading
now I see it rising
inexplicable unreasonable unfair
all it does is impair
but this that show
I don't wanna know
beyond being
so pure, so pointless.

Virgin Within

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:51:00 +0000

It's a pink diary

in a pink room

I thought I hated pink

but I feel it, feel love now

pastels, pretty, it's a doll's house here

white poster bed, peach curtains

fawn floors and

a fairy on my night gown

Not the slightest darkness in these soft, subtle shades of life

the halo hues

of this safe haven

know I'm touched

and yet never really

always half-reachingly.

And suddenly it all makes perfect sense

to the virgin within.

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:18:00 +0000

Wrapped in guilt
thick as cheese.
There's the breeze
but it weighs you down
like a pregnant kangaroo
you hop around
spinning in hope of a song
to set you free
but the revolution
it doesn't come to your skin
and you feel ugly within
grey-black, clouded, coarse.

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:04:00 +0000

The few posts to come are a result of a recent poetry retreat I attended at Te Aroha in Dhanachuli, the kind that comes like Magic when you start feeling like you have no more words to give the winds. I must thank each poet who was there for inspiring whatever was born out of the little creative chaos that came about!

The Door

Outside, as I write, are the vastest skies
apple pear trees,
a yellow tin roof
shining back at the sun as brightly as it does
cotton clouds float above and below
four crows
fairy ferns
soul sanctuary
crossovers
connections
conversations
the only door that's locked is my room's
as whole new worlds open up.

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 04:08:00 +0000

A single cricket cries in the night
like a poet humming his tune
under the moonlight shining so bright
and yet darkness in his dune.

A day not for poems...

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:56:00 +0000

... But to get blown by boisterous breeze
Soaked in fish curry with folks and a feeling so family
To read the piles and piles waiting print-fresh, to be touched and loved
To chat up so many who must wonder why I don't feel like saying hello
A day that must meet deadlines of things you like a beggar wish of others
For a walk by a park you don't know and never would
For watching leaves at their dance and wishing you could too
over wine and good old romance, or a storyteller stellar.
A day for Mandi House, healing a hurting friend, for writing
For forgetting, freeing, floating, fleeing
Not mixing business with displeasure.

Blank

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:29:00 +0000

You're staring at me
Staring away from yourself
Into this wall, not that rolling, lol-ing one
Into the empty
Blank.
Rot thought
Sad thought
Mad thought
Blank.
Love shit
Family fit
Sick world
Blank.
It's okay, it's not that bad...
you're still drawing.
For if you can draw a blank
you can draw... anything.

I don't go there anymore

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:57:00 +0000

The Door. Shot by Swati Chandra in Benaras.

I don't go there anymore.
But I'm led.
When the right calls come at the wrong time.
In music beautiful, background disturbed
When the bottle shatters itself from my hands
In a moment beastly but splinters so beautiful
One sharp, one scary, but all shining with sure love
Crashing to the ground. Hurting. Spurting. Leaving. Coming back.
To make peace and more.
And the next day, in someone else's door scribbled with someone else's thoughts to become yours
A letter coming your way to look the real you up.
And another, poking at plastic perfection.
Rain in the breeze a few blocks away
Dom Moraes and A Tale of Things Timeless
and a suggestion so spot on for a dream project.
I only went to work after a strained holiday return, reluctant.
I don't go there anymore
But I'm led.

Night through day at Nahargarh Fort

noreply@blogger.com (Amit Singh) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Citylights by the moon - view from the fort that sits majestically atop Jaipur

What a restroom view!

The door to the dwelling - there's a sole room - the Raja's, that hosts guests here

The step-well, where Rang De Basanti was shot

The queen's playfield

Carved corners by the courtyard

You don't have to 'do' anything for the earth

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 05:57:00 +0000

Here I am, my laptop sitting atop a lush green leaf-shaped mat on the dining table, the mud craft clock showing a 10.40am – too late to be doing this *guilt pang*. Google is a bunch of blossoms, my husband has gone to play cricket in the grass fields, and on my mind is a thank you to Zedathon for urging me to do what I should have done without a poke from them.

As a child, I wrote for the best environmental magazine in town, perhaps in India, with a motivation so deep-rooted I thought I could never turn out to be anything other than an environmental journalist. My grandfather, a pisciculture scientist, was proud. My other grandfather, once a journalism professor and author of books on the happy green islands of Andaman and Lakshadweep, would have been smiling up there in heaven.

Later of course, destiny had other writing plans. The living plans, of course, stayed green. I can’t do without my daily dose of nature, not even a single day without it. Whether it’s the crystal white moon in the sky, the seasonal constellations, the koel at the Sri Ram Centre in the evenings or the Gulmohar outside my window and breeze by the balcony, not a day passes without being part of what we all are – The Earth. I love the touch of rain like it’s romance unmatched, I play with kids because they still haven’t grown too tall away from the earth, I stick with people who are as connected to nature and live with a man who is of, for and by the earth – and down to it like very few are. And those are the things worth living for – because that’s where life – the true life within us - comes from.

The only places you can really enjoy in your element are the ones which smell and feel of the planet, the only sustainable lifestyle for a smiling soul is the one that is ‘natural’. And that, in itself, will take care of what they're worried about. It’s not a ceremony or duty to do anything for the earth – be nature, be of the earth, and you’ll find it's just great pleasure.

To believe

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:59:00 +0000

Why can’t I

Why don’t I

What’s wrong

No, nothing is.

The skies are hazy today

But the heart’s crystal clear

I know.

It’s just ‘fun’

With the bad stuff? No, none.

What if I’m not part of it once a while?

What if it’s other things that bring a smile?

Why can’t I kill this cynic forever, once and for all?

Why o when it’s spring, do I keep fearing the fall?

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:45:00 +0000

No, I don't doubt

No, I don't shout.

But I think, and that's worse.

Shrieks

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:24:00 +0000

Of pain, anger, resentment
in my dream
she fought with him
he spat fire
she, shrieks
long, beastly, ghostly
in my head
a drunken head
they echoed in the dark
and only that evening
they'd fell Ravana.
They were real
from an apartment? Hell? Home?
No, she couldn't be in that much pain.
A frantic message sent for help
But Solitude was the only friend in sight
Until Sleep came along.

Why?

noreply@blogger.com (soumya mukerji) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 14:21:00 +0000

In seven beautiful days
Why do I feel like writing about that one miserable night?
In an infallible eternity of faith
Of that fleeting moment of doubt?
In that wish to stay forever
Of that one moment when I want to escape?
In that ‘beyond’ belonging
Of a strange estrangement
When I judge my life most harshly as the heart pounds loud, questioning itself
But the ifs and buts stand no chance
For the morning must take care of this monster