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Malyaban Lahiri Poem
The Christmas lights shine while the temple bells
Toll. The baby lies bloody on the bed- 'delivered'.
Its dusk, a shade of grey dusk but again a dark blue
Around the corner; not a sound did roll nor did light
Strike and it slept. Hush baby... they will come! Among
Her broken toys and impaled dolls she sleeps like the
Child of time- she is black.
Again, the star shined and the bells tolled and they came- all over her,
They trampled and burnt her sins away. Smoke and soot and hell fire
Rained everyday and she took it all in. Like the voracious petals of the
Venus fly trap, those lips of hers engulfed them and stayed content.
It lay in the night... At least she had the night. She was content. Slowly
The saffrons, the whites and the greens entered her hollow being
Day after day and she did not know where they came from.
Even the one to be delivered that rested inside her grew impatient.
It broke free and she lost. It was buried amidst the fanfare and
Ho hum of those colors. The same colors that devoured her sins
And had her delivered, and now they lie in constant wait for the
Reigns to break so the stake is theirs to burn. The witch must burn.
The Green must burn, the saffron must be severed and the white
blackened they thought.
The witch died, and so did they but not the colors. As the
Child in time sleeps under every roof, so does those black eyes
With glowing fangs, under the bed. Just below the flesh
And the wooden bed, you can hear it breathe and crave blood
And carnage. Every street, every devil's bend, every wall bears
Its name. Yet it hides, kills, plunders and hides. Yet another
Deliverance and another coming against the eclipsed sun.
Tomorrow if a life is born I shall warn and mourn and curse
The deliverance coz the colors will lie in wait under its bed.
Sharp talons and itchy fingers waiting for it to blossom and
Tear it up in pieces. Yes! This is our deliverance... We all shall
Be delivered some day. But, I hope my child of time is colorblind
And comatose- Maybe dead. For then it wont hear the evil crawling
Under its bed, see them on the streets and feel them inside itself.
That day will be her baptism and maybe she will wake...
© Malyaban Lahiri
Copyright © Malyaban Lahiri | Year Posted 2012
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Malyaban Lahiri Poem
Denver sang Annie's song and the wind howled and swept cold.
I paced across my flooded hall, gathering every drop
The fiery rain sold. Specks of cinder fell
On my face and burnt the skin at every place. I paid the price
To buy my drops to swallow pains centuries old.
Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter it went
As I yearned to be those leaves on the banyan,
Moist and cleansed of any gathered dust.
Grabbing my guitar I sat by the window to
Play some tune close to my heart. But the songs
Played themselves. They were close- too close!
My soaked fingers burnt on the fret and I knew not what
I played. All I felt that it burned and scorched while
The wind chilled and soothed others hurt and blaze.
The tree tops swayed to my pain and the clouds started to bleed,
While my fingers went numb playing on the strings. The wind
Whispered, "Burn such tears that no one needs."
A lightening quivered through the echoing space and the light
Blinded my blurry eyes. Like an artist's sketch it rose and fell;
Like the hope that rises and quickly dies. Through the balmy
Dark walls I saw Those eyes, piercing through the lull. Like the
Iceberg that slammed and pierced with ease
Through the great Titanic's hull. Couldn't stop my legs that
Walked me outside the door. Stood there I clad in rags
As the rain pelted; the wind sang ballads for a soaked crow.
It looked at me with a sigh and a frown; maybe I was its
Image of a clown. Roaring and dancing in an ecstasy of thefts,
With streamers and balloons to celebrate this death. Looking down
I saw a puddle, as my parched throat belched with pain.
I cried and Cursed and stretched my arms; screaming...
But it rained.
Copyright © Malyaban Lahiri | Year Posted 2008
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Malyaban Lahiri Poem
The proverbial all pervading calm and inner peace,
Stability is what we choose to call it- to earn greens,
To eat them, to share it or to control it. So escapable
Yet, always avoided. The veil of contentment ever
So fallible.
Moving from thatched roofs to brick and mortar,
Crawling from unleavened bread to croissant and
From the hard cold ground to the fluffy bed of roses-
We cry, we try, we fall and we die, but then there's
This small moment of rise.
Unseen, often unfelt, unknown and yet mildly present.
The only pure drop of human essence that is- but a drop;
Yet, if embraced it presents enlightened apes with wings to
Soar beyond the cutlery and the bed and diamonds and
Roofs. Its there but never yet...
Why do I the naive poet type my verses on this machine?
Why does the rickshaw puller not opt to buy a higher
Mechanism of sustenance? Why do you think of conquering
The space while the same increases in light years between us?
Where is that drop? That essence of intended genetics?
Or maybe intended is what we make of it. Individual freedom
And the consequent 'progress' or digress. A place where graffiti
Almost topples the la politica and, deaths of millions and voices
Of the troubled are channeled like the AM frequency. A drop to
Each one of you dear mortals!
Breathing free sans the fear of someone at the door, sleeping
In peace sans the unrest within, listening to the wind without
A play button to press and walking the muddied path without
The cacophony of horns. Some of the things we inherently want
When the body is born naked.
Then? We grow up and down and up again like a spiral. A
Careful reduction of the equation that wasnt meant to be a
Circumspect effort. I equals to human so you equal to?
Oh wait! There's a square root on top... Tough luck child.
That drop is there somewhere but we are reduced.
We grow up but never grow back!
© Malyaban Lahiri
Copyright © Malyaban Lahiri | Year Posted 2012
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Malyaban Lahiri Poem
Got no themes to write on,
Got no poems to sell.
I think my clergy has arrived,
With the tolling of hell's bell.
Random thoughts like shells fall,
As I stand here like a broken wall.
Brick by brick and inch by inch,
Covered with moss and sooty stench.
Such thoughts I cannot bind,
In cages of words like a poet blind.
Nobody sees the aching head,
Bursting with agony of thoughts unread.
A verdict as this is seldom passed,
To a shooting star which burns to dust.
Pages like blots rot in my head,
Sleeping still as if comfortably dead.
Thought I was the chosen one,
To taste the mist and the morning sun.
Cosmic fun is but so brute,
Played by Gods with existence crude.
Like a man, whom the distant Bedlam calls,
Housing lost prophets and pierced dolls,
I am lost between the paper and the head
Reading scribblings of prophets at sinful sheds.
Wanders thus, my third eye blind,
Touching the walls of a pitch-dark mind.
If a thought like a firefly does fly by,
Dies the fire before the gaping third eye.
Pierce my body with a thousand nails,
And hang me on the cross of the grail.
My brain still would be numb to pain,
As it hangs impailed by the barren grain.
Give me a touch, a smell or a tear,
Give me the death of someone dear.
Just pay the price which I'll hold as debt
Taken to save a poet from death.
Copyright © Malyaban Lahiri | Year Posted 2006
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