CRAZIEST  LOVER 

Katak,

You’re my craziest love

in  spite of your many betrayals

and tough trials

you’re my sweet pain,

my cherished  freedom,

 and my  desired chain.

I’m a pebble under the waters

of  your rivers,

rolling  on propelled

by the sands of your desires

with my lust for  the  contours

of  your sensuous  body

changing  into flowers inside my stony loins

before  adorning  your shabby groins.

Caught in  the cobwebs of time

the butterfly of my dreams

wriggles before being devoured by your hunger

sizzling in the huts hemming  the flanks;

I  love to nestle like a  runaway lover

In the burrows of your quicksands

offering recluse to my wild pranks

with the offer of the elemental water of your love

and the balm of your breeze on the banks.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

30/09/14

PLUNDERED PETALS

Why did you go away,

when I ran dry?

in oozings of nectar

in my sweet  womb?

In flow of youth

In my  honeycomb?

Sucking me to the full

at the root of my virgin spring

making  me speechless

like a dumb human  being !

Thrust into  the whirlpool

of a  constant turmoil now

I ponder and lament

In my long days of dry wait

And in my nights

of dreams soft and  wet;

my conscious is flooded now

with a black beetle’s blind love

that flicked my body

like  droplets of dew

from the bosom of night above.

I’m in  the clasp

of your unseen hug now

unable to fight,

you hold me now

like  my petals of youth

nestling too tight.

‘I’m done now’,

I sometimes do feel

but  painful thouthts  of you

in my head do reel.

You are my  day,

you are night,

you are my soul’s desire

my love’s sweet fire

and my dreams ,all too so  bright !

comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

26/09/14

DROOPING SUN

As the Sun droops into a desired corner of darkness

Under burden of day’s  random thoughts

And the hills at the distance  drown

Like flakes of  ice in light floats

Inside  the  crimson drinks of a sighing  sky;

Blinking  fireflies

search for memories of  their soul-mates

lost in last cyclone

and  the dry river trickles on alone;

the washerman’s wife in  a cool resign

folds  dried up clothes on the bank--

and their children in bare feet look on

into a dim horizon;

buffaloes burning with hunger

chew hay in the darkening fields

drawing their calves still closer;

I ‘m lost in  remembrance of  ripples

of the vanished waters of a young river

whose sagging breasts  now

reflect a glimmering half moon

With strands of pale sands

and bits of  stray skeletons around

where like the spectre of a gliding snake

your  sinuous memories surround .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

26/09/14

A THROB

As the  evening birds grope

the chest of the dusky sky

for answers  hidden in dark

to Day’s each , every why ,

and the jasmine buds itch to open out

to a familiar darkness in your garden ;

I keep waiting for that throb

lost long back in the corridors

of my heart’s Eden—

replicated here in the trembles

of  tender mimosa in the soft wind

their leaves in excitement clapping

in tune with my heart heaving ;

the surfs of memories

tossing my awoken desires

on the bed  of a scented night

where grass leaves ruffle her skin

worn like a chiffon garment tight.

On the ebony of this night

dreams, like fairies alight

and look how our soft breaths revive that throb

before our souls  sweetly unite !

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

25/09/14

A GIRL OF EIGHTEEN

I’m a girl of eighteen

In love with my own tune

And my dreams umpteen;

Why do you bother me

With slings of your dry swoon

When I’m in a fling with the sky

And drunk with a wild moon?

I am a girl of eighteen

Envying those rose-cheeked girls

At the college canteen

Trying to flirt with my sweet friend

Who from a fairy land did descend

But now, he my heart does rend

With only tears in my eyes to fend;

I cry under the bower of a silhouette moon

And  hope  to find that real  friend  very soon.

I  ask myself  many ‘whys’ wherever I go:

Driving at night I ask  ‘Why am I afraid

While  crossing   the thoroughfare

Even of persons quite  familiar?

Why am I afraid of my own shadow

While chasing my dreams  lying afar?

Why am I stared  at so long  and stalked

By greedy bees who steal  all colours

From all lovely  flowers?

Questions are many

But answers a few,

I’m still not bothered too much

As I find

My love to be  so fresh and new !

My love of grass, my love of dew

My love of self, my love of the world

And  my love of all  him, her and   you.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

22/09/14

YOUR  UMBRELLA

You hold the umbrella over my head

To stop the drops of rain that Heaven does shed;

Over the arches of my wet consciousness,

Your sweet love’s arbor  of a singing cool  shade !

As the butterfly of your look

Flits across the sky of my heart

Casting a rainbow of desire

Across my drooping mind,

Of roses oozing under rain

Me, you remind;

                                                                             

Where honey bees  of  my looks

Drink from petals of your lips in slow sips,

Along with  rain of bliss  from showers

That in  tune with music  softly drips;

From your umbrella’s soaked bowers

I’m  such a  poor captive

Under your magic powers !

Not knowing when

I have become

Inside your dark tresses

A bunch of aromatic flowers !

Copm. N copy right : saroj k. padhi

23/09/14

I LOVE DARK

I love this dark that caresses

wounds from common  hurts

in the silence of my soul

when  night after its familiar stings,

to a corner does  lightly stroll

and leaves like drops do softly fall

to the grass of my body

to bury the day’s  tough roll

into the roots of my tree

where I am from all noises of life

completely free; 

Come you dear dark nearer into my crevices,

repeat your soft caresses

bind me to your dark tresses

strangle me  into your gentle breath

and let me  be sighed out

of the nostrils of your jasmines

into  simple  airy nothings.

Comp. n copy right L: saroj k. padhi

20/09/14

CRUEL WATERS

Liquid terror floods thro’  Jammu and Kashmir’s body

telling altogether a different  ghastly story-

of  human  flesh ripped  apart

as if by acid rain

 to reveal  a large skeleton of broken  ribs

rocked by waves of muddy waters;

unleashing the face of some dark demons

that lurked inside the rivers on spate

to muzzle  the humans

and  munch bones of the poor hapless dead ;

spreading   horror of epidemic  into the spines

of the surviving  who scramble on the sheared banks

gazing into a big  blank sky

occasionally filled by some spectre of promise

by dronings of choppers targeted by stones pelted

out of sheer frustrations of the hungry  at them.

When will the beautiful valley again sing

of the beauty of waters ?

Of the glory of flowers ?

Questions like this in the broken nests ring

as we sit here on the banks

thinking only of today’s meals

that seem to elude us like morning dreams.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

16/09/14

A SWEET DRINK

Why does darkness again and again fill my cup

As I try to drink your beauty

In morning or evening

Midnight or noon

Late or soon?

You are always getting laced with

A sweet poison from past

Sinking like dregs into the bottom of mind

And  changing the texture of the drink,

The colour of dreams,

The nature of imagination

My thoughts

My emotion !

As I move on

After the drink

Into a peace do I sink

Like dew

 Into the grass’ hue

Under drunken stars’ unsteady wink

And  I lovingly die

Into a shrouded  Moon’s  helpless blink .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

15/09/14

WITH YOU


As you snuggle into my arms
seasons change names--
Spring in full bloom In the garden
of our eyes moves to a frantic corner
bowing in earnest to a soft shower,
assuring again and again
of love’s sweet rain,
a promise of sure release
from wait’s futile pain ;


the Sun of my desire melts
into colours of your rainbow love
filling the contours of Summer’s body
with drops of dew from above ;


the winter of your fears
fades like Autumn’s yellow leaves
into the lawn of my pining heart,
the midnight blues of my mind
vanish into hues of petals
on your lips always dyeing new art.


Rain or Summer
Autumn or Winter
Ice or fire
Sun or water--
we are always there
doing something new
to Love
changing formal weather.


Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi
12/09/14

KATAK , I LOVE YOU


O my Katak of multiple bazaars and myriad streets,
Of our many secret affairs with baffling lanes and bylanes,
Of thousand little desires awoken across smelly gutters;
Some fulfilled and many more still lurking
In the alleys of our common suffering life,


Silver city of our many loves
with bee-lines at food joints of dahibara,
chaat and gupchup and bara
catering to our hunger,
you are always there at evening Khaties
to offer your unique pleasure.


We love your
pompous puja celebrations ,
gaiety and jubilations,
your bands and immersions
drinks,dances and pollutions
along narrow roads in night
without causing an ounce of fright;


We love you Katak despite your noisy living
on mud- mired streets,
your mad love of Gods and Goddesses
making annual go-rounds in fleets;


your cool ,intoxicating breath
in Autumn evenings along your long lying banks
with wild Kashatandi flowers sweeping
river Kathajodi and Mahanadi’s flanks


abloom under an azure sky
you add rainbows to our eye
and send shivers to lovers’ hearts
teaching them how for beauty to die.

As we move closer
to the fragrance of these flowers,
the blessings of Goddess Durga
from heaven’s lofty bowers
come drizzling in soft showers.

***

LETTER  FROM  BHANJAVIHAR

Tell me dear who here

Is so complete, so full ?

Why are we so bound together

in words as well as in empty spaces

even in the absence of a fixed rule ?

When each one seems lost in a quest—

Like, like…

the wounds of the Earth in search

of a balm from rain;

hurtled winds in search of an intimate sojourn

between the scented breasts of a sky;

the mad  moon in search of  the  lover Sun

who promised to fulfill dreams with lots of fun ;

the river in quest of a warm embrace

at the mouth 

from the recently-grown- inattentive sea;

in the womb of the flower, the blinded bee;

and the day light, beneath the dark fragrant

locks of  the night

 in search of rainbow and long lost heat;

flow of blood and tears  

in search of the touch

of the saree soaked in longings;

half-burnt mind in search of the palm

of green leaves where  pores

write long histories of lost love;

and storms of the day bury heads

in the lap of jasmines of dewy night

like simple, harmless doves

shrinking deeper  into holes of big fright.

You appear tonight in moon beams rushing

thro’ hyphens and dashes between leaves

who are busy knotting the locks of the sweet night

with aeriel roots from excited boughs

flung to both sides to sway before to a sleep deep

they softly the limbs of this boby they douse.

Words crack and crumble

as waves of agony rise to merge miles

of poor population camping outside,

caught in the fury of ceaseless rain

and  hunger’s merciless pain.

Silence these impatient cries dear

with a simple, soft look from the corner of your eyes,

with a small curve at the edge of your lips

as the moon into a yawning , blue abyss slowly dies.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

10/09/14

RIVERSIDE

Here the heaths incessantly hum your name,

reeds sing of the white blossoms in your dark braid

catching moon light in their palms unfolded

in a trance with eyes blindfolded,

knotting  the mad night to the aroma

from your arm-pits soaked in the sweat of a soft drizzle;

buds in half-lit bushes bloom into big desires

flaming stars to beam  with strange fires;

muddy waters in the marshes smear your growing image

across the vast moist moor merging into a jungle

where farmers collect spiny gourds from creepers

dangling from boughs  of big trees

as  snakes hiding there jump and play

and I move like a wisp of cloud

across your wet body in a desire to kiss

your  dark brows still holding on

to the streaks of a rainbow already gone.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

09/09/14

SONG OF RIVER

I asked the river ‘Why this muddy water?’
She smiled and said ‘This is not just ‘muddy water,
It’s my melted heart in its million quiver
mixed with the slime of agony
from the walls of my sick lever’

With tears of soft dew in her  eyes
she hummed ahead to sing of moon beams--
in the heat of a rain-soaked Sky’s
passionate kiss

on the face of a vast 
layer of madly murky water,
overtaken by heart’s thousand desires,
sounding their suppressed aches
in the womb of night in endless murmurs.

I’m a wonder in the eyes of innocence
picking pearls of happiness 
from the drying, drooping petals of life;

on her thorny bank,
in the jungle of  cloudy night,
caught in the ceaseless battle for new life
every moment of my sturdy strife.

The river goes on singing 
my timorous life song 
to the heart of the night
seeking consent to each syllable
of the story told by sand and pebble
about love’s poor and pitiable plight.

*****

RISING FROM RUINS

Days’ and nights’ of fall have puffed

your body with fill of stale rain

letting  moisture of anxiety

explode in the air like some bio- bomb

scaring people of  some imminent collapses--

of walls or old roofs or of relationships

built on the base of selfish enjoyments.

Skeletons drop from the community’s cupboard

when girl children are treated as witches in womb;

words scripted in male hands

whip women into a strange silence;

and we, the timid folks  squirm

into a corner of our old  houses in fresh ruins

smelling of damp love where we huddle

 under  leaking polythene roof,

not knowing in our tiredness

 when love was thrust upon us

under the cruel  gaze of some ominous stars

until the blood-red moon revealed some pathetic  wounds

between   our injured and stained thighs

and a ghastly  horror in our estranged eyes.

Failing to hold my  fragile breath

in the midst of noises from the street

mocking my painful retreat,

I turn into a hibernating toad under the ruins

that think of my better days in the offing

therefore, of hope do I  so firmly sing.

Comp. n copy right:

Saroj k. padhi,06/09/14

PRETENSE

I pretend so successfully

to be without you

wherever I go

when actually the buds of your smiles

burst  silently into blossoms

in the bower of my  heart;

so invisible to the world

spreading the aroma

over miles of misty hearts

lost in spells of birds chanting

about beauty deceiving love.

You are so kind dear to have

flung  your priceless baby smile

into  a catch in the woods of my heart

lending  curves of bliss to star-flowers

in conference with flirty breezes

ambling  from  wet corners of night;

wherever I go

it’s only you that comes to  my sight !

COMP. N COPY RIGHT:

Saroj k. padhi07/09/14