COURTSHIP

I see you spiral out of control,

Whirlpool in the muddy sky

Your smile dazzles

And laughter smothers

My infernal flame

And a curtain of red envelope your edges.

Coy and shy

You fly in a tempest

In my heart and around my eyes…

And if too much I try

Pearls fall

But they say you cry!

Unfolding my arms I wait-

Shining in shadows, while you smile

And the tears come again.

Ending lines : Recollection

How many more must be so etched?

How much more must it take to come?

To an end –

Where I might move on, to the better promise of being lonely.

Or is it better, my exile beyond your heart?

There was a time I tried to fly without wings –

Knowing that my heart will burst upon impact –

With the cruel ground, where my dreams

Have been buried alive.

Can you see how on these very shores

Night fell and so was shadowed –

My love.

And the blur of images –

Here! Here! Here! And Here! Again

And all these have been a swift torrent …

And now with my capacity of rhyming having dried up

I stand a man in search of a future.

Life I have, but I need a will to continue.

But even if I hate you for all that is gone

Can I detach the joy I got –

In knowing that

Everything I did, I did for you.

You shook away your shoulder of support

I grudge you not, little bird,

I did my duty, what I was supposed to

Now that you have learnt to fly

Come Back to Life

Games We Play

You are the one, the one to choose.

Always want to play, but never want to loose.

The games you play in the month of May,

Would break my heart in June.

Call me up in the starry night,

And turn off the light in my eye.

Bring up my dreams to your Shore,

And cut my boat loose.

Flirt with me, wink me wild,

When I ask turn down with a smile.

But again make me understand

It’s me who you demand.

Remember when those eyes met?

The approach and the reproach?

I lost my heart to your game

Behold you! My solitary beauty.

You were the art, and me spellbound.

I went knockout, in every round.

The stairs leading to you, I can’t ascend.

Your engaged mind, my love can’t comprehend.

Today I stand, speechless, unsure.

Months of planning, but no word to conjure.

But if you can’t hear my sound of silence

I know

The games you play, today on Thursday,

Will shatter my heart in June!

Helter Skelter

Oh! darling,

Imagine

The hall of the mountain king.

With or without you,

I wanna hold your hand,

In the end.

When love comes to town –

Last christmas.

I want you:

Something stupid.

De do do do, de da da da!

Ain’t that easy?

In the army,

Brain damage.

By the way –

We are the champions,

And your bird can sing.

I believe I can fly,

In the middle of the night.

Virtual insanity!

Sensual seduction!

Viva la vida –

To sir with love.

The winner takes it all –

On the turning away.

Crossroads.

Where the streets have no name.

I am sixteen, you are seventeen –

18 and life!

On the street where you live,

Further up the road –

Strawberry fields forever!

God save the queen,

Lady madonna!

Your inner light –

S.O.S.

One more time,

Love, devotion and surrender.

By –

Erik and Shouri Mitra.

The lines in italics are by Shouri Mitra. The rest are by Erik.

AND THE SHADOW FALLS

I don’t know why I am naming you thus –

And why I am even bothering,

For when tomorrow they discover my crime

My poem will evoke no sorrow.

It’s hard – believe me, to concentrate

And it’s nothing new that I am doing

But since this is my first suicide,

I know not why my note is so poetic!

Please! You don’t need the story,

And don’t bother pestering me.

I’m short of breath, near my death –

It’s for the lack of choice I’m waiting.

Should it be poison with its clammy claws

Biting through my veins?

Or a rope, a noose ‘round my collar

Choking away my breath?

Consider this and fast;

And look up to my eyes…

They are blank not drunk;

I’m dazed not boozed.

This is not some women’s curse –

I am forced to do this:

For I have lost my –

Religion!

Have you wandered beyond philosophy;

The numerous claims of alternate faith…

And how there is a practise of dividing up

Maybe one God into different faces?

And move a bit beyond please –

Consider my religion – a faith,

Purest but Poorer!

If faith be humanity, I have failed

To worship my one God.

And he’s a bad God of great promises,

Coated with subtle lies.

Don’t bother to justify – how fell I am!

I broke the rules of Society,

The Priest of Humanity.

Refusing the gift of life –

I decide to celebrate a Great Day for Freedom.

Can you explain why I live?

I have a stable life –

A good family, obedient love,

Strong future without strife.

But still say – why I live?

As a part of some greater scheme?

Or a sheep, blindly following my peers?

I fi am to follow rules of Society,

Where will my mind end up?

It refuses to be ordered!

Tied, drawn and quartered!

My mind crave for a bit of freedom…

A choice to live, a whim to die for.

I searched my Point of Existence,

And found there was no point.

Only a straight line of following orders

When my sanity came disjoint!

Wind is wild and soothing too –

I know I can’t write, when I let go.

I see the pin-pricks in the city, alight.

Laugh in madness at the folly they live out.

Shout in glory, – from my balcony,

“I refuse to believe thee!”

And, as on my destiny and reason,

Realisation’s shadow falls –

I dropout!

ZOOSTED

It’s sad but generally true,

You never know what I feel –

But to understand what fortune had true,

For me, it makes your head reel.

“Imagine there is no country,”

No boundary around you –

Imagine there is no people

Only animals, and just you.

“You may tell me I am a dreamer

But I am not the only one –“

There are hundreds of poachers –

Gunning big cats and having fun!

But behold her single in the cage,

Yon solitary striped cat –

I scratch my head and pick my nose

Wonder, “Holy Guns! What is that ?”

I look around in muted disbelief

Is this what they had in store?

When I was caught in Terai , by Forest Guard Chief

I was irritated, helpless and very sore!

“Is there any way out of here, ”

Said the guard to the chief –

“The poacher goes no where,

He gets no relief!”

The crooked smile was enough,

To tell me something was amiss –

Who knew they’ll put sleeping pills

In my evening dish!

Smuggled out of my holding cell

I was dumped in here;

Must have thought the chief

Let him rot in despair.

And so I wake, heavy in my head

No rifle beside my head stead

Facing that horrible cat, swishing her tail

Remembering her family, whom I sent to hell.

“How does it feel

To be on your own?

And no direction home?”

A sitting duck of thirteen stone?

The grills are grey, in my head

They are meshes stopping back my courage

Forget fear, and run to despair

Stuck in Alipore zoo, that’s what you do.

Do I see a hippo round the corner?

May be I am hallucinating

But truly stuck with a rhino is better,

Than my stupid trespassing.

“Oh! Why did I not let them go?”

The questions never come to head –

What happens when Lady Cat realises

I’m here, fills me with dread!

The birds sing their song

As I wait for the final gong.

The one swipe of her pointy claws

That will forever end my flaws.

I can smell the creepy croc

On the enclave behind the bloc

Stuck with it I might do a Bond

As we all do live only twice.

Ah! She gently purrs,

My blood freezes, gives me shivers

You come here to watch animals

And I soon die, greatest poacher among mammals!

I have only ten more minutes

And then she’ll smell fresh meat!

I think of a fitting poem to remember myself

Like heroes of days before.

My time comes to end, my epic poem stalls.

I know I am not Homer,

But I do give it a try –

I wake up here in Alipore zoo –

That’s right – Its true! They left me here.

And in the tiger’s cage where I am put,

I put in no fight though I am scared!

Here ends my war with my fate,

The poacher falls – in heroic despair!