The skeptic and the dreamer.

There was a boy who had loved.

He was the son of Neptune.

His eyes had seen and had moved

Many maidens’ good fortune.

His teacher gave him his love,

His mistress walked him home,

The creature that ruled above

His mind set his feet to roam.

He roamed and roamed till Eden,

And seeing Eve and Adam,

He taught him how to breathe in

Her lust and call her Madam.

Seeing that dear God came down.

He flicked his hair and pointed

A finger atop his crown

And bid him be arointed.

He took his bag, went along,

Turned back to them three standing,

Played his tune and sang a song,

And stepped down to the landing.

Now, ten years hence, he’s returned

To boil the world with his glare,

And this time his wheels are turned

By the glint in David’s stare.

Would he walk on? Would he try?

Would his marble eyes still cry?

Would he jump to touch the sky,

Or would he choose instead to die?

RhymePlay

I’m doin’ a seven-eight-six hullabaloo of a rhyme!

Let’s see if I can explain that. In each six-line unit, there is alternate rhyming, while each discrete three-unit follows the syllabic pattern of seven syllables, eight syllables, and six syllables. I have tried to keep it iambic, and I hope there is a name for the meter. Without further ado, here is it:

Stoned I sit, in blended bliss,

To rise to my sweet maiden sky

And offer her a kiss.

Worn and weary passers-by,

With eyes that wish to make a swish,

Pass quietly, as I sigh.

Lonely wit wants tenderness

And hearts need starts and ends again

While love do make its mess.

Tones of silver manly pain

Meanwhile does dress a board of chess,

Deep hidden, in the vein.

Keep me low for earthly woe,

And winds that scar the sky’s visage

To offer me a blow.

I pray to thy womb’s flotage:

It kept me going through the show,

Without a stumble large.

OKAY! Pre-script!: This was written literally along the lines of Dylan's Tambourine. So the likenesses are supposed to be there and strike out at the reader's mind. Please. And it shows how I would, someday, appeal to what I believe is a miracle of nature, that should be experienced only after a certain ripeness.



Hey Miss Marijuana, make a bong for me,
I’m not sleepy, but there’s a trip I want to go into
Hey Miss Marijuana, roll a joint for me,
Because this ancient nose of mine here starts a-followin’ you.

Oh I’ve been to life’s dustbins, searching for romance,
Slipping in my stance,
Kept on guiding both my hands to eyes a-weepin’,
My civil-ness amazes me; I’m stranded on a street,
Where only darkness greets,
Any restless stoner’s sweet-less hollow dreaming.

Hey Miss Marijuana, make a bong for me,
I’m not sleepy, but there’s a trip I want to go into
Hey Miss Marijuana, roll a joint for me,
Because this ancient nose of mine here starts a-followin’ you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship,
Where senses once were stripped, and hands once felt no grip,
Until an airway strip
Was built upon our dreams to stop them wandering,
I’m ready to smoke anything, I’m ready for that state,
Like a drawing on a slate, or a dream upon a plate,
Come love me like you wanted it.

Hey Miss Marijuana, make a bong for me,
I’m not sleepy, but there’s a trip I want to go into
Hey Miss Marijuana, roll a joint for me,
Because this ancient nose of mine here starts a-followin’ you.

I just want to laugh and spin and swing up madly to the sun,
Till I’m thrown back by a gun, that’s been escaping everyone,
And been shooting at the stars and been erasing,
And if you could just grace me, for you I love divine,
Mary Jane I’ll make you mine, it’s just a silly trick of time,
And people call each other blind,
It’s just a looting of the scars that came while racing.

Hey Miss Marijuana, make a bong for me,
I’m not sleepy, but there’s a trip I want to go into
Hey Miss Marijuana, roll a joint for me,
Because this ancient nose of mine here starts a-followin’ you.

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the groggy runes inside, a wasted poet’s mind,
The heartaches that he’d feel, when life went out of reach,
And thrust him into power’s heartless hollows.
Take me riding on a carpet high, until I reach the sea,
Where the sky did birth the breeze, and the sun danced with the trees,
With all harmony that rose from beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today, until tomorrow.

Hey Miss Marijuana, make a bong for me,
I’m not sleepy, but there’s a trip I want to go into
Hey Miss Marijuana, roll a joint for me,
Because this ancient nose of mine here starts a-followin’ you.

Another drawing.

I think I've written for too long and too much. I can't write anymore for the time being! SO instead, I picked up my MSPaintbrush and painted this -

Like?

Waking up from visual hibernation.

A story of the phoenix who's ashes didn't bear another.

I

A lovely night had come to pass,
Some twenty years ago,
A lovely night without a past.
She'd given me a purple rose;
I'd let it fall under a stampede.
I’d let them stamp out its seed

And crush it beyond reparation,

Alone in my empty railway station,

Keeping clean from devastation

On a forgotten, defeated nation.

That night I lied to she who didn’t,

And tied myself to this precedent

Of an ultimate ruin in the end,

Where I drive off the cliff at the crooked bend.

That night I’d cried to myself alone

In my bed before I slept, and gone

Through many painful phantasms

With cages carrying imprisoned orgasms.

That night dragged on like a plow

Edged with razors on my skin

Until my blood had ceased to flow,

Far outdone by its sin.

II

Empty footsteps in buried alleys,
Orange sunsets spent alone,
Putrid rivers in barren valleys
Reminded this young man of home,

Once he woke from his night of sorrow

To a tempestuous dawn aglow

On the east end of the purple sky,

Where the sun did burn the darkness dry.

He dressed himself in canvas clothing

And shaved and combed his hair with oil,

Useless attempts to hide the loathing

He had for life, that in his eyes did boil.

He walked out of his wooden cave,

Cold with night’s chilly breath,

For never did he firewood save

To burn on days of nearing death.

He walked across the burning moorlands

That bore the signs of that stampede

Where, in some long lost grain of sand,

He’d lost the purple rose’s seed.

He walked on through across the grass,

And came across an aged home to pass
The old man in his porch sweeping the brown dust,
As his lonely young wife lay burning in her lust.

He walked into her room and stroked

Her hands, looked out at the trees

Swaying in the arid morning breeze,

And lit her on fire with embers stoked

With newfound passion and fleeting

Fancies, that satisfied, will run away

In an instant, leaving old dismay

To Walk back through the door in somber greeting.

III

What if you hide your love away and forget where you've hidden it?
What if you've tried too hard to be the Back-door Man and are left locked outside?
What if you saved up to your last penny and discovered they’d given it?
What if you see a mother in agony searching for her son and you figure he's long dead since the time you poisoned him with your words?
What if you dream that she makes love just like a woman, and you're still a little boy?

What if you’ve told her not to cry coz you still love her, being the little boy, unawares that it’s your maimed love that makes her cry?

What if you disfigure your being and risk everything on a coin toss, but the postman forgets your address?

What if you follow her casket praying to lord, just to find her alive and yourself dead?

As the slaves of despair make you their playground,

And forget that they were here to play,

The sun bids goodbye to the trees around

The grazed field in which you lay

Pondering on whether you were betrayed

Or just another scared failure,

And you starting wishing that she’d stayed

On a bit longer, till you were sure.

Suddenly, just a bit ahead of the woods’ end,

You see her calling, hands in air,

You run towards her healing scent

And long to brush against her hair

When earthly sorrow stops you still

And slowly drags home its kill.

Amar Shohor.

My name may not be Johnny, but I’m one heck of a walker. And I also happen to have grown up in Calcutta. South Calcutta. Since upper kindergarten I was out on the streets alone, in a sense, when I was allowed to walk to my school, directly across the street, on my own. My two strong feet have been softened to the fields of plain city grass or playing field mud from the paras of Jadavpur; hardened to sun-burnt concrete streets or roughly paved sidewalks in the hidden little boulevards in Golf Green or Jodhpur Park, and shaped upon the very contours of the empty blazing afternoon roads. And slowly as my being grew and began to discover newer and newer things and emotions, to hope for love, to bid for goals, to form opinions and nutritious bonds, I ventured alone, or was led by strangers, to discover new niches and mysterious alleyways and other creations of fantasy rendered manifest only to you by some special places you’ll remember.

I found challenge in cricket fields, scored centuries and smoked biris as reward, and roamed free and rampant over territorial land, hand in hand with childhood friends all integrated into one pulsating living ‘gang’.

I found heartwarming crushes that made me smile and feel happy for enormous stretches of time, and began to roam to Jodhpur Park, a serene and yet earthly environment for a young aroused soul. I sat there for hours and days and years, changing places and intentions for visit – from football to adda to smoking to flirting to seeking refuge from earthly fetters – but remaining ever faithful to the place.

Meanwhile as I grew, my prowling region expanded, and I discovered that dreamy wonderland – the Lakes. I went in there at first like a child discovering a new storeroom, venturing widely and forming maps. I discovered old memories of learning to swim in the Andersons’ club, and new places of captivating fancy among trees in bloom to hidden bushes or lakeside benches where the cool breeze blows. I discovered Central Calcutta, through my admission into the basketball School Team, with weekend-ly trips to WBBA’s courts to practice or play tournaments. Wandering through Maidan listlessly and exhausted, saved by the random fruit vendor who rescues you with ripe papaya, I started feeling at home in the City’s then so myriad faces. Then as I grew, and leapt into realms of internal turmoil and battle, I discovered the Ganga, with the waves like a flowing transparent sleeves on her bare white arm. I discovered the feeling, so deep rooted in every Bengali’s soul, of the rural calling, when lying in a wooden boat with a sing-along boatman. The gentle rocking of the Ganga, like your village mother would rock you to sleep in your little clay hut with thatched hay roof, and the sound of her violently feminine presence around you, send your mind into introspective quests as you battle yourself, cocooned from the world by her engulfing embrace.

As age drew on, I turned reclusive, and discovered a new religion. The temples of prayer were slowly discovered courtesy friends, strangers and sheer courage. I sat back down, happily home, with a heart more stable and a soul more calm. The lakes drew me to them, as I found my nest of solace and beauty in nooks and crannies and iron cannons. In pursuit of happiness, through the new religion, I began to become a hermit for short stretches of time and merge as one with the monsoon soaked Lakes or the sun baked Lakes.

Then with newfound inclination towards the truly technical sciences and humanities, I found myself frequently in College street, passing hours and hours in the burning sun looking for this one promised book that is oh-so-rare. I discovered coffee house, where one could sit and have coffee, while breezing through his old memory albums, to young days with cousins in Central Park or family zoo visits, or Science City or Nicco Park treats from relatives on single digit birthdays, to old English houses abandoned by all but a group of white pigeons and mice and lichen to spare.

You gaze over the books you found and weren’t strong enough to not buy, and order another coffee, as you start to feel, quite strongly, that no matter how affected any future blunder could leave you, this home of yours, your city, Calcutta, shall always hold you to her breast and calm you with her loving heartbeats and make you rise and turn to smile, as yet another day passes by.

A letter to Death.

Death almighty,

Loner's deity,

Show me pity,

Seek this city,

Find my home,

And like an ugly gnome,

Ascend the stairway into my room

Where I lay sleeping in my bed's womb,

To wake me up and call my name

From a list you carry like your money or fame.

Keep one eye on the bedside table,

Where lay that deadly juice of Sable,

Both sweet and bitter, and bittersweet,

A carrier to worlds with silver streets

And golden footpaths. Please take my hands

And make them empty in into my glands.

As body dances with passionate stranger,

O Death, please lead me towards a danger.

The subtle sultry seductress - Sable,

Like a half remembered childhood fable,

Shall lull me into a trusting state

And you can guide me by my hand to a Golden gate,

And stop as I drop into an unseen cavity,

My death, pushed by you, and pulled by gravity.

Janie's Blue Rock

Janie kept a blue rock beside her bed,

Coz her mamma had warned her

Of red snakes that may visit at night.

Janie wore a red bandana on her head

Coz her daddy always told her

How wonderful she looked with it shining bright.

Janie met a junkie in a cheap theater

And they hit it off and stood one night

In a cheap motel, on a creaky li’l bed.

Janie wed a rich man in a deep blue sweater

A man with power and money and might,

Who outwards was charming and inwards was dead.

Janie on her death-bed, on a Christmas night,

Was touring her memories inside her head

Till the weather turned stormy and wetter.

Janie had stumbled, maybe through a wrong right,

Into the time in her childhood. She was on her bed

When the snake did visit and start to wet her,

Janie, with his hypnotizing gaze. He bred

A charming dread that did get her

To forget the blue stone that she’d kept for the fight.

Janie lay and wondered, on her death-bed,

Maybe life would be better,

If she’d not killed it that night.

P.S.: Just wanted to sort of point out that the rhyming pattern goes a full circle in cyclic shifts: ABC-ABC, BCA-BCA, CAB-CAB, and ABC-ABC.