Life : © Nibedita Sen

1
Do not look for a story
Look for a landscape
A sudden breeze
Some falling leaves
The pilgrim moon
And the torpid sun

Look for the canvas life
With hues of untamed reds
And running blues
Strange parallels
Paradoxical convergence
At some infinite point…

No story, no sequel
Just a landscape life
2
Lazy sunrise rubs its shoulders
Against the tanned back of the sand stone wall
Deep into the depths of morning
Darkness sets its gloom
Slow sunset washes away
The last streak of light from the white lilies
Sombre evening looks up at the grammar of action
With questions, exclamations and commas

Time to sit around the fire
A purple lipped glass
Glimmering butterfly thoughts rising and falling
With the cloud of pink bubbles
Nothingness warbling sweet notes
Of eternity, constants and variables…
Death and deathless life
Summed up within the cascading music
Of your panoramic eyes
And all the stories of
Yesterdays and tomorrows
Within a fragile glass

Me and my poem : © Nibedita Sen

I don’t write a poem
A poem writes me
It looks into my soul
It searches my heart
It plays with my body
Makes love to my mind
And startles me with
Unknown facts
And it writes down
All that is there in
My austere caves and
About all those fears and
Joys I hardly know
But my poem knows me
Well enough to draw me
To its joys
I don’t bind a poem
A poem binds me

My mom : © Nibedita Sen

My mom still believes
That good is always rewarded
That honesty still pays
That there is always light
At the end of a tunnel
She thinks that some day
A miracle is going to happen
And she genuinely waits for it
When it rains hard and we
Nestle together in a corner
She tells us a fairy tale
She still loves life and
Counts on people
Makes a wish always
When she sees a shooting star
She is afraid of curses and bane
And tries her best
Not to hurt others
My mom, she thinks
That tear-drops are precious
And she never cries

She feels
She hopes
She dreams
She believes
But never cries

My mom she doesn’t show
But definitely knows
That she is left with nothing
But hope

Contentment : © Nibedita Sen

I wanted a slice of sky
Was unlucky
They gave me a patch of green instead
I planted a grove in it
And it grew
Tall and strong each of my trees

Now their heads reach high up
To where the sky is
I sit here far beneath
On my green patch
Caress the barks
And feel the sky

Death-wish : © Nibedita Sen

Let me drink a glassful
Of phosphorescent moonlight
Topped with feathery froth smiles
From the moments of past
With these and a visions few
Let me go into oblivion
Go deep down beneath
The sea-green waves
Sleep! Sleep there!
Peaceful and numb
Shut my eyes from
The ever-running world
Caressing waters flowing
Over my face
Seahorses playing
With my curls
Let the sea-weeds bind
My body and limbs with
Green everlasting innocence
Transparent dreams
A sip of the present distortion
Would siphon me away
Into the tunnel of the dark
Absolute world
No stir, nor any bondage
Of body and mind
No pull from the tossing earth
Stay! Just stay there
Suspended in the timeless space

Fever : © Nibedita Sen

The frenzy city is
Running in my veins
Running through the cerebral
Gullies, dim, lighted, crossroads
Cul-de-sac

The languid city is
Rushing to my legs, toes,
Through the zigzag corporal frames
Into manicured, painted fingertips
Debris

The city and me
Running amok into spiral tunnels
Wavering in momentary bliss and pain
Y-lanes, misty, equivocal
Paranoid

Why? When? Where?
Questions seeking answers within the
Four walls of space, time, mass and reason
Staring baffled, blown
Acceptance

Lonesome woman in the shower-room : © Nibedita Sen

Lonesome woman in the shower-room
Discover yourself in your ashes

O desolate woman
Look at yourself from several angles
With foam create your bubble world
Make love to the soap
A deep embrace
Prattle away with rattling water, comrades

Forlorn woman in the wash-room
Shameless, narcissistic dame
Then once again the selfsame
When out in the absolute world
A snail inside its shell
Don’t even meet yourself in the crowded world

Lonesome woman in the washroom
Discover yourself, benumbed, oblivious

You don't even know darling : © Nibedita Sen

You don’t even know, darling
With your arms around me
I am still distant, like the midday sun

My laughter breaks the concrete walls
Of life and the lifeless rituals of daily days
It’s that thunder bursting through
The string of makeshift shops

The music is on
We settle down with a drink or two
On a sofa, your hands searching into my soul
And I am walking lonely through the sunset lanes
In a lost avenue where koels* speak the language I know

On lazy afternoons, my canvases flourish
And I am painting the yellow yesterdays
And on parties with new found friends
The cocktail still blushes with the same old lies

You don’t even know, darling …
When I cry, I just don’t cry for today’s burns

*Koel: Cuckoo

There is someone called woman : © Nibedita Sen

There is someone called woman
She loves to feed her soul
And cooks to feed her love
Waters her garden to adorn her world
Dances and sings to weave and unweave
Past, present and future
There is someone called woman
She is born to be born again
And again and again
Jumps into hell for the last revelation
Fire does not burn her
Ice does not freeze her
There is someone called woman
She lives only for life
And dies only when killed
By the woman in her

Roman Dreams : © Nibedita Sen

Eternal blue, mixing with the azure sky
The blues in me stretched beyond the Ganges
Into some old fashioned lane, rain soaked curtains
Drawn apart to let the sunrise in
Eastward-bound heart sailing with the seagulls, all the way to Rome
Nero plays on at his strings, Baghdad burns
Pride and woes flow into the Euphrates, the Tigris and all the blue beds of humanity
Darker hues set on white canvases
Museums get crowded with paintings of war
Jaded horses, frothing mouths, gallant faces torn apart
With fathomless pain, eyes still looking up at the sky
World blackens with splinters of smoke

The blue Mediterranean sings a lullaby
And children dream of Barbie dolls

Popcorn : © Nibedita Sen

Pink lights with a streak of blue
And constant beat of jazz
A sip of coke with all that is past
Love and loveless dreams
Popcorn

Float in the tinsel discotheques,
Moony eyes and silver tank-tops
Orange smokes spiraling through
Spines and spineless thoughts
Popcorn

Yellow afternoons and a cold
Interior of a third-rate blockbuster
Status quo evenings with a rally of
Brains and brainless talks
Popcorn

Weightless on transient wings
Whitewashed faces, fluffy imaginations
Birds of prey in august air
Che sera sera, che sera sera
Popcorn

Kitchendom : © Nibedita Sen

The pressure cooker whistles
A day starts
Dancing and singing
Dodging and dribbling
Olives and onions, turnips and tomatoes
Seven steps wide, twelve steps long
My kitchendom has everything
That a woman must need
Spices neatly strung at areachable height
Spoons arranged like the piano keys
Full moon chapatis shine
Twenty-four hours round the clock
I sing to thaw the chill
Dance quick rounds to describe my world
My hands are rough with scrubbing and cleaning
But the smooth aubergine reminds me
Of some healing touch and
The 29th Symphony
The canvas calls ...
squeezing time between lime and analgesic tubes
I draw a perfect moon on
a midday sky

Ballad of Existance :

Go to the clouds, hear stories of estrangement
The breeze would tell you tales of tall and small mountains
Ask the sky about advent of time
And human beings would relate ballads of existence