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