Infinity

Hanging between two towers –

a swimming pool clasped

within the Infinity Loop –

floating web – a wire mesh

called the cloud – Deya –

causes architectural shivers

down the spine of an

awestruck spineless city that

has forgotten to protest.

Far below, on a flyover,

travels a red car serenely,

out on a joy-ride,

a tin can stuffed with

two big, two small heads,

imagining mermaids diving –

a walk down swish corridors –

turning the handle into a plush room.

Stacked below everything,

as in a series of tin cans –

the bustees where

all ambitions begin and end

with a pot of boiling rice,

strips of fish, and the

occasional andaa biryani, in

the flicker of a mobile screen.

Deya — a Bangla word meaning ‘cloud’
bustees — slums
andaa biryani — an Indian rice dish featuring the andaa or egg

Domestic Terminal

Words calibrate

the falsities of my soul;

turn them into 

pit bulls of terror and anger.

Words celebrate

the hooded sleepiness of my guile

that coils and morphs

pitilessly into a marauder.

Words masticate

dangerous emotions, then

make them harmless, like the

soft plump walk of a

duckbilled platypus

over a deserted flyover.

Words dictate

the recipe to churn

thoughts – illogical, liberal, wanton –

into homemade buns

and teacakes of contentment

on a green striped armchair.

Hand in Glove

I wondered which two worlds

I would swing between, –

On us two supine on the bed,

or the ogre hiding below the bed-beam?

I wondered how wonderful

we dared feel; should we

ride high on waves of shared

footfalls, or be the lazy busy bee?

I wondered how deep we should

dig, to feel the subtlest pain;

should we part to meet again

and again, and joke at a teary stain?

I wondered how crooked we could

be, like a gypsy’s broken teeth;

we could lie or cheat, flick a match

or a knife, to dwell forever in league.