Forest Fire | Day 11 | #NaPoWriMo

Forest Fire

Some loves

arrive as quietly

as mornings

in a forest.

Jets of daylight

burst through the

foliage and trickle

down branches,

gulping along

their way the

minty night from

cold leaf-tips.

It then sips into

the ferny bed,

caressing our

fallen leaves with

a rekindled hope.

Now when such

love sets on us,

it is obviously no

regular dusk.

For the receding

light of our

wounded souls,

scatters the sky

with scarlet grief,

as the diving winds

brush our unrequited

ends to stoke a

gouging fire.

© Sobhan

Absolved in Jhelum | Day 10 | #NaPoWriMo

It had been a year

my eyes last met

your wounded glee

in the windy murmur

of thawing snows.

This April sun

wilting the plains,

there tints the

white rivulets of

Jhelum in gold.

As they sigh

down valleys and

jingle past forests,

like the ankled feet

of a gliding woman.

Apple yards of Pahalgam

must be back to flowers.

White buds lacing

shiny green canopies,

gearing for the

September harvest,

when the sweet aroma

of ripened apples

shall mask the acrid

gunpowder odour.

Cable cars like the

oval backs of ladybirds,

sure are treading the

frosty Gulmarg sky.

Taking visitors and skiiers

to Aparwath from Kungdoor,

to sprawling white acres

of frozen sea that was

crimson the last spring.

Winding alleys of Downtown

that flares up Friday noons,

with Tehreek raining stones

at the forces and their

retaliation with toxic bursts

of fire and gases;

all of it culminating in quiet

once the moon stealthily surfaces,

gleaming atop the night's still lake.

Normalcy is somehow always

imposed, restored post a furrore.

It is in the middle of a summer

that I wish to return, when you

won't have snow shawls

to hide your scars.

And unclad we will lie

between the waves of Jhelum,

our sliced backs to the Earth,

seeking luminescence

to our dreaming eyes

beneath the merciful Heaven,

against the blinding pellets

that has become our fate.

© Sobhan

LoC | Day 09 | #NaPoWriMo

Betwixt my soul's dire yearning
and a mind that cannot let go,
you preside like the bewitching Kashmir.

This savage battle of possession
though depleting my existence,
it is at the line of conscience
that I contine to bleed for you.

© Sobhan

Pacific of Desire | Day 08 | #NaPoWriMo

With a wink,

you let the

robe slip from

your shoulders.

And I gape

at a sparkling

bead of water,

furrowing down

your seashore back.

On me you

slowly bend,

inching forward

on toes.

Your oval dunes,

moist in their

silk cups, hang

in my face.

I let my

hand inside

your thong.

In your dark

traingle, my

fingers tip over

a round wet

pearl and make

you pant

with parted lips.

You stick my

face in the

heat of your

breasts;

and urge.

I close my

eyes and come

crashing in

waves on your

naked shore.

© Sobhan

শুভ নববর্ষ | Day 07 | #NaPoWriMo

The new year

sevai simmers

on the flame.

Sweet aroma

of milk thickening

in the pan, juiced

with raisins and

nuts, overhangs

the house.

A singing

procession of

men and women

drift through

the cypress shadows.

In their chorus

rings Tagore's

songs, welcoming

Boisakh, the first

summer month.

Conch shells

are blown.

Its echo thinned

by a splitting

wind, as Bengal

wakes to merrry

by the banks

of Ganges.

A pink strand of

the rising sun slants

through the skylight.

The milk is now

settled in the pan,

as I look for you.

Wouldn't you come

and check the sugar

in our new beginnings?

© Sobhan

Falling Skies | Day 06 | #NaPoWriMo

To my new lodging,

I have finally moved.

And oozing from

the mauve colored

walls is a dank odour

of drying paint.

Wafting invisibly, like

heat from asphalt on

blazing summer days.

Its rancid stench

nooses my breath,

and stirs my guts.

So unlike the easy air

homes always wear.

In my duffel

I have carried the

lavender air-freshener.

Its whiff, I remember,

you loved in our room -

hanging,

textured with light,

where we snuggled

close in a sheet,

and watched

your relaxed eyes

close, sedated by

the perfumed air.

I spray it here

all over again,

into the dark

toxic air.

Its aerosol mist

hangs for a whie,

and then, like a

pensive garden breeze

climbing to rooms,

renders my living

with familiar touches

of a cherished past.

Wait in the air, oh love!

Wait for me to sleep.

Before you part

through the window

into the violet

night sky, and

the constellation crumbles

upon my reverie,

into decayed petals

of a love dead

in my heart.

© Sobhan

To Mothers | Day 05 | #NaPoWriMo

This era of readymade woollens
easily available in myriads of varieties,
like friendship on the internet one click away,
had put our mother's needles out of use.

Still whenever a button breaks
from the plackets of my new era shirts,
it is to my mother that I retort.
From her old sewing box
she picks out spools of thread
and selects needles,
closing our ripped hearts
with gentleness and affection,
every time our new age loves
turned us to tears.

© Sobhan

Hunters of Night | Day 04 | #NaPoWriMo

Hunters of Night | Day 04 | #NaPoWriMo

In the grey Kolkata skyline,

Vidyasagar Setu looms broadly

like wings of Harps,

softly played on by the darkness.

A bustling strip of NH 6

arcs over the river,

streaked in blue fading lights,

connecting the twin cities

that make for its heavy shores.

Even with the night at its darkest

and the surrounding roads emptied,

the bridge is strangely never still.

Cars with blue shadows on their boot,

continue to stream both ways,

along the connector,

all night.

I wonder if someone up on

their rooftop late night,

tasting the salty breeze,

would look at us the same way.

And smile and keep vigil,

of our lonely feelings -

yours and mine,

that claws their way out

of our hearts every night,

unable to rest and contain,

to travel to each other's city

across the river,

taking the bridge

we failed to burn.

© Sobhan

Requiem | Day 03 | #NaPoWriMo

Requiem | Day 03 | #NaPoWriMo

We have burnt holes in the Ozone,

cleared forest and contaminated the air.

Global warming has made summers worse

and rains seem to have bid us adieu.

The ecosystem is now permanently impaired,

shifted towards an inevitable catastrophe.

In a world that has caught fire

and melting at the poles, here I am –

incompletely complete,

grateful to your damage,

making clouds shift

and winds rove inside my heart

with your thoughts,

springing rain from my vacant eyes.

every time the heat of your absence

surpasses my tolerance.

© Sobhan

Love Like a Bibliophile | Day 02 | #NaPoWriMo

Love Like a Bibliophile | Day 02 | #NaPoWriMo

Purest of loves often leave no trails.

Like a Bibliophile’s books,

of titles read over and over again,

starchy still,

between creaseless jackets

and not a speck of dirt at the corners,

gleaming like guns in an armoury.

Unlike someone who reads to kill time

where there will always be

a piece of paper stuck somewhere

containing address or phone number

serving as a frail bookmark,

a brown coffee ring from the

bottom of Styrofoam cup,

a peacock feather in chalk dust,

or uneven lines of blue or black

at the back, scratched hard,

to get a dried pen working.

Loves of the Bibliophiles kind

are hard to find and harder to get rid of.

They leave no signs at the surface.

Their feelings are submarines

wading quietly through deep waters of souls.

Transforming,

conquering,

setting hearts to ravishing ruins.

© Sobhan