Friday, January 1, 2010

Nabina Das


Othello’s Path

Butterflies dropped dead from branches
Where they never grew
Dewdrops of nights that stifled dawns
Lay on your path
Or were they tiny handkerchiefs
Outlining a long sorrowful track?
White of courseBlack with guile
Wordsmiths calledIt green, envy
But when the foliage died
No one was left to pry
So, don’t walk that path dear Othello
Don’t wipe your eyes with
Those thunderstruck fingers, they’ll teach
You rage and us a loss forever to linger.
 

Bouquets

In very hot weather
Flowers wilt like bouquets
As do kneeling gardeners
But no one hears them.
It is fashionable for us to
Take bouquets – not words -
To happy or sad rituals where
No one deciphers the flowers.
We can shade the buds
But that may deter buzzing bees
Heavy with the delusion of summer
And the ensuing calm

-both poems previously published at Lit Up Magazine


"A Face Like Ours"

Poetry is a face inviting a peek

A thought that carves the Ajanta grace – a smile, a pause

Poetry’s guest. Liberated words.
 

"Airborne, We Sing"

Our times is a kite for our hands

To say nothing of the birds. Alphabetic. Soaring

The face, this poetry, defy disbelief of metaphors.


The Message Tree
(Ijaazat)

You'd passed on some words to me that
quickly got splayed on sunny clotheslines
washed crispy clean like new handkerchiefs
stiff at first, starchy, then sudden wind floats

kites that were eyes, your eyes.

I tied words around your wrist, threads from
archaic ceremonies, unknowing how I tied
up nerves in jasmine bunches hanging over
our garden shades as you casually chewed
sugarcane sticks taking back lost letters or
words that meant a new beginning for us

**

Our love story was like growing up in a
house with no telephones just soft knocks
true, I had a home like that far away from
glossy shop magazines, no sudden ringing
tones of familiarity that jolted my listless-
ness when I rested under a pool of sleep

tasting sweat with my swoon.

**

Look, I've grown branches now like it
happened in a Bollywood tale once upon
a time! I'm a message tree, my twigs just
hang where white post-its make a beeline
at the showroom flat-screen that belches out a
song and we dance around the message
tree talking in un-said tones.

-all 3 poems from her blog, Do You See?

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