ADIEU

The day you finally left me
in the hot shadow of a harsh noon
Under the spectre of a fading moon -
I lost count of days and nights ,
Control over sounds and sights ;
And many strange things happened
Like lightning , every now and then
That to all so very soon !

Every simple thing was just an image of you
Every small sound , a whisper from you
Every second , a memory
Every happening , a story
And spread across the canopy of imagination
You were the lone, faded , past glory .

The mirror lost interest in my face
And in the courtyard of my own home
My name lost its address ;
I fell like a cursed star out of divine grace .

Your parting time copper sulphate look
Put out the entire colony of desires,
On the corridors of power houses
Sunk into a pitch darkness of dead fires .

I have turned into a heap of ashes since then
With a few flickers reborn from time to time
In the oven made of dolls house’s mud and mire ;
When you are in constant love with fire
Burning there in the land of your constantly rising desire .

Comp. n copyright Saroj k padhi :
30/11/14

FREE NOT TO FLY

White butterflies fluttering around

 Dozing  creepers of the afternoon

Turn direction to dart below ,

Behind  cute yellow ones  flitting across

To hide behind bushes soon

Heedless to pursuits of promises made

 In the dawn of secret boon,

Of  siesta and fun, walk together and run ;

Coming to know that it’s the colour

That keep the male folk running

And it’s in their lot to be left with

Sheer sighing and swooning .

Sarees swing as they dry in open air

From ropes tied to necks of  shrinking trees

On the bank of the river that sinks still deeper

With little charm in the bank’s mythical breeze ;

Women very close, clip wings of fellow women

Men in garbs of saints act as more humane;

And Love admitted in Casualty ward

Suffers from intense malarial pain in brain

As news of terror- strikes and racial wars grips us

In every lane and bylane .

Copm. N copy right : saroj k. padhi

26/11/14

PICNIC ON BACK-WATERS

That wild picnic noon in the woods

Bewitches  my  bones again and again

Every time unfurling fresh petals  of your palms

That glowed under the winks of a prying Sun

As you offered them for me to quarry

The lines that spoke of our future union

When  some continued cutting vegetables

And others were busy peeling onion .

Your lips shied away like a gentle wind

Eluding the breath of  the excited ripples

On the back-waters of river  Kolab

That giggled at us from nearby

As we talked about an imagined cottage

And our young love’s half-grown plumage .

Dancing  to the beats of a number

Drew our breaths  still closer

And your singing of the birds of a Gajal

In search of  lost homes made us wonder

Before  we ambled thro’ the dry leaves

That had caught fire from the cool oven

Of our glowing hearts in their wild leaps .

Comp. n copy right : Saroj K. Padhi

25/11/14

ALPHABETS  OF  LOVE

Etherized  by too much pain I hardly mind

Your giving still a little more --

Your annual doses of a card or two

With those familiar alphabets

That years back inked your last love letter ;

Wishes of anniversary or new year

Tear  thro’ this heart’s inner walls

Like acid that burnt faces of girls

Who refused when forced to comply ,

And I’m sure the more pain you give

Nearer to your crumbling images

like a masochist I fly

Spreading my half-broken wings across

The faded rainbow of our love in your eye .

Time has stolen the earth from under my foot

The sap from the shoot

The trunk away from  my root

And the limitless expanse of a glorious sky

For my words to jump into  fall

Of mists in morning leaves’ tear-filled eye

Where like dew under Sun swiftly and  sweetly I die .

Comp. n copy right : Saroj K. Padhi

24/11/14

CHIT  FUND  INVESTORS

We are the small Chit fund investors

with big dreams of  bright futures .

How  rosy our daughters’ wedding

and how fruitful our children’s studies

would have been had we got back

the promised return of our money

losing which  we have now  turned loony .

Little had we thought that

 our esteemed proprietors

would spend the money on night dancers

luxury  flights  on planes or  copters

soon after  money

had gone into their coffers .

In league with them the top brass,

builders and big leaders !

What a beautiful way to serve poor country men

without  past hooks from authorized sectors !

Now we curse our lack of education

our ignorance, greed and deprivation

that has left us as bankrupt investors

with our dreams gone, of bright futures .

Ours is a beautiful country of big money in chit fund scams

and we, with little conscience and qualms

Where it seems we are in love with secret deals, prudery and shams .

Comp. n copy right : saroj kumar padhi

23/11/14

TEARS ON TREE TRUNK

Trickles of dew down all over your trunk

Speak volumes  of the stories of  tears

Shed in the silence of the foggy night

As you tried hard to fight vague fears

Over youthful  Love’s wrong and right -

Of the moon leaving your company

After his long first kiss was nearly over ,

Transporting  you to a damn hot fever

As clouds from the sky  took  over ;

Did you think of your unnamable child

Conceived in the heat of that fever ?

Or were these sweet tears of satiation

Before the morn- imposed  isolation ?

The sticky drops reveal  your silent cries

Under  morning Sun’s muffled, misty sighs

Why do you feign  smiles on your cheeks

As I look intently  into your red hot eyes ?

Comp. n copy right : saroj kumar padhi

22/11/14

FAKE RELIGIOUS GURUS

Some religious gurus are on prowl these days

With the dark spell from old  pouches of drug  :

Pandering to prejudiced passions of public

Thro’ some feats of false miracles and magic

And doses to devotees of fake divine logic

Which the foolish devotees swallow greedily

Without insight into such hollow mystique.

These gurus know how to cover up their crime

Under the garb of costumes costly and fine

Public love to drink  milk from their bath-tub ,

And get seduced by their so called pious hug .

Lacs  throw big money into their drop box

Without any concern  for the really poor ,

They sacrifice life in standoffs for gurus

To grab the chance to be true  martyr .

When will good sense dawn upon this civilization

When will we learn to live with true concern ?

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

21/11/14

WILTING AFTERNOON

Breaths droop down the dangling boughs

Along a sapped afternoon’s siesta

On the lap of a languorous November day

Whose dying  ambers lick the bougainvillea

In their soft , delirious sway

Looking for an ecstasy in the wind’s chequered  way.      

The birds in the tree-hole look on

As if in a dazed stupor

With prayers muttered to Goddess Chandi

To cure the millennium city of malarial fever

And  weeping sores all over ;

When you call me from the distant wilds

Of crazy islets on river

Where fire too often fuses with water

To the charmed spectacle of Nature .

Without knowing how on the crust here

Hunger bullies us every now and then

At the behest of a fearful  thunder

That derides  our hollow spiritual fervor .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

19/11/14

  FOGGY HUG

A blanket of grey fog hangs over

Closing in Earth’s supple body still nearer ,

Hiding Night’s hunger

In the nearby soaring ant hills ,

With mandibles’ new fills

At the root of trees ,

Away from blow of breeze ,

Where from the ‘old man of the mound’

Watches on as overriding layers mount

Vulnerable green trunks

From holes of which snakes glide out

To wriggle thro’ thorny bushes

And  shed worn out skins of  old rashes ;

As the cold-infected Moon

Sneezes sputum of beams

Onto shimmering grass leaves

That wipe off this dirt with million hands

Before dabbing faces of stars

That restlessly blink without proper sleep

At sights of human woe their hearts do rip .

Amazed at your peaceful snore

I move to the open heart of the door

Where the sick Moon seeks a warm hug

Drawing me closer  still more and more .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

20/11/14

ALE TO DRINK

Anyone there ?  Please  come ,

Stop this telltale heart from fluttering

Among the artificial branches of  unreal city trees

Where nests of birds wounded by the last cyclone

Echo but sad songs of betrayal  and  desertion ;

Where serious words uttered by intimate souls

Are swallowed by  clatters of hollow affection ;

Where clanks of wheels speak of empty progress

And emotion is exchanged across clinks of  glasses

Without thoughts of the hapless lot of our civilization !

Prayer to my lord goes unheard in the din of clamours

Desires fade in body of wounded petals

Trails of dowry deaths confound conjugal relation ;

Gutters drown the aroma of jasmines

That promised  breezy kisses at the end of dusty day

And drinks only douse us to temporary oblivion .

Come, give me a peg of your artificial ale of elation

For the night to end

Before again like a  phoenix I rise  in morn back to action .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

18/11/14

I’M A HALF-BURNT CYCAS PLANT

A silent thunder in my  heart

Rumbles across the entwining skeleton

Threatening to blast off the secret cave of the chest

Without a drop of rain expected from the horizon ,

As the burnt out bust of the Cycas blankly looks on 

With envy at birds and bees

On indolent hunt in bushes and trees

Where your growing image interrogates

Every word of love whispered by the wind

Into the crazed ears of a Christmas tree

In whose arms a strange solace I find .

Impotent metaphors of the present

Quarry the womb of the past

In search of those cyclone-hit plants

That went underground with a plaintive sound

Echoing the pathos of our break –up

Under a whimpering November Sun ,

When your lips faltered out the name of real lover

Under my eyes’ angry  gun

Burning my image into ashes in fire from that Sun .

Memories smack of rotten rat smell in the loft

Of my old crumbling house

Where I turn a temporary guest

In search of a real identity of my own

When I rush to rest awhile

Under the shade of scented creepers of the dawn

Sizzling with fresh hurts as they silently lie across my lawn .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

17/11/14

RADHA’S RIDDLE

At the touch of your blue body

The leaves of my mimosa  lips folded in

 With a strange passion, exciting the wind

To blow into the aching flute of my body

Filling each node with notes of hymns

From your vast lyrical soul

Wherein for new love my soul sings ;

Since then I have lost control over my mind

That is in constant buzz of repeated rewind,

Echoing your footsteps on a bed  of wild grass

Whose overhanging  damp smell turns me on

Changing the hibiscus petals of my palms

Into a crimson blush ,

My blood is in a wild rush ,

And throat, running dry ,

My chest bursting with million birds’ cry …

Tell me Govind, how I to hold you now

That you arouse me with your touch ,

Swimming in the blue waters of your body

Tell me how to reach back to the shore

Don’t pull me please any more ,

Don’t, don’t  pull me any more.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

16/11/14

WITCH

Poetry attempted a suicide last night
planning to hang from the hook of a sagging moon
when a young bride suspected of being a ‘witch’
was battered by her own husband and in- laws
before being pushed to her death in the well ;
into which like a piece of roughhewn log she fell
with a baby throttled inside the tummy’s swell ,
drowning all her unripe wedding joys ;
her bruised body splashing curses at gods and goddesses
to whom she had nothing more about her woes to tell .

I remember her as a little neighborhood girl
with her disarming, toothless smile
when she used to clamor for chocolates
and speak about tailless lizards and stubborn cockroaches
before she was dropped out from village school
to be married off to a country fool .

Her smile seeps into my withdrawing days,
her laughter rips into nights of my poor soul
declaring her death to be an cock and bull story
she is a silent,sad word now behind all sound and fury .

comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

14/11/14

CHILDREN’S DAY

We are those unfortunate children of gutters
From the womb of the country’s wound ,
With darkness gnawing at our soul ,
Affrighted by onslaughts from all around ;

Some cruel adult hands stripped us

Of our pure, simple, innocent joys
Lurching us to grope as broken toys
In corridors of dark, lurid experiences .

We starve here, we die every moment here 
Inside and on the outskirts , everywhere
Without a name to our soul or our body ;
Without a breast to feed us , 
To succumb to hunger we are ready
But with a simple question lurking in our hearts
As to when is this land of ours
Going to Chacha’s dreams embody.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi
13/11/14

SHADOWY MEETING

Meet you in the silent spaces

Between words crying to touch your elusive body

In the bewildered night of my elongated dreams

When the surfing waves aspire to ride the Moon

And  your shadow assumes newer faces

As  on the ocean’s inner recesses repeatedly they bloom ;

In the words dying to merge  into the fringe of sky

Where the horizon holds the promise of the last dye

At the dead end of each struggling day

When you become a lump in the throat

Of an excessively emotional lover

Before something  concrete he can say .

Meet you in the siesta of every afternoon

In the fiesta of every dawn and noon

In the tortuous alleys of the mid night

Where memory fights with the present darkness

To fill the moments with some meaning ,

When desires seep into  futile longing

And before you merge into the Earth’s growing sweetness.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

13/11/14

WINTER FIRE

Where is that sweet chill of Winter

conjuring fire at the tip of your finger

that inflamed each cell to a Summer

in your lap under hot blanket cover ,

when  the turmeric leaves of your body

encircled the batter of my desires before

boiling down  into cake of a sweet prayer?

Where are those song birds gone

that roosted

In the Chilka of your dew-drenched  hair

with perfume of a bewitching peace,

after catch of fish,

pervading in the swing of  the surrounding air ?

I’m waiting for you Winter , only for your sake

here at the cold hearth of my lonely home

where you offered me a bite from that cake ;

for that pious ablution in your eyes’ lake

where your chill had a different feel

I’m waiting for your fingers

my soul to thoroughly rake .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

12/11/14

FLIGHT

You were a fairy in your teens

With sweet flutter of wings

That gave feathers to my words

For high ecstatic flings ;

Together we built a nest in the air

For our roosting hearts to sing ,

And the dales of our green youth

With joy of new harvest to ring ;

You pruned my wings,

Curbed my flights,

Cropped   my soul

Before rising to newer heights of joy ,

When another bird took you higher to fly

And I was left wondering with a big,big why.

Comp. n copy right ; saroj k. padhi

11/11/14

APATHY

Your apathy is not a problem dear

That memories in a dark cellar seals;

It’s your repeated pity that oft’ kills

With tears from  hurt my heart it fills

And blood from wounds  it drills.

Don’t give me that look of goodbye

In the farthest corner of your eye

That sends me to some painful feels

Your unconcern only my heart heals .

Hate me , distance me but hurt me not

With your kindness and concern

I’m better off like this in my aloneness

From distance enjoying love’s sweetness .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

10/ii/14

 LIVING WITHOUT YOU

I concealed a huge storm in my heart

To unite you with your ‘practical’ lover

Who knew about your body’s fever ;

And how to quench all such fires

And respect real human desires.

I pretended to be at peace with self

When you had inflamed my ire ,

For my emotions guided me

How to live in the heart of fire.

Nights of crazy reflection on life

Weaving of words from beams

Leaning on to kind shoulders

And shedding  endless silent tears

Taught me how to hold on ;

Till the nights gave in to a dawn

Of bliss in pearls of divine dew

When I slowly learnt how to live without you.

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

10/11/14

BALIYATRA GROUND

We wander here on a sprawling bed of sand--

Children of a generation lost to the past wind

On the dry chest of a much-bruised river

Rich only  in a memory to too often rewind ;

The ragged Winter bed of broken snail shells

That  clank at the touch of anklets of silver

Worn by women, with their soft ringing bells

Soon to be drowned by rising vendors’ yells ;

Where grains of sand stick to feet sullied by sands of time

As beauty of water lost its sheen at the middle of its prime ;

Filth accumulates on bed behind all glitters of the annual fair

We get every household article here minus pure, healthy air .

The sails no more puff here with the wind of past glory

Baliyatra now speaks of an altogether different story .

Comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

08/11/14