Painting by Debashish Saha

Whisper

They said don’t
talk to her.
They said she is
 not yours,
 So I abandoned words.

Hence, I spoke
with my breath,
she listened with her lips.

Tears on the Shore

I sit by the water
 and soak many
 a tissue with cries.

New York puts an arm
around me and says,

‘Why for anybody are you weeping
 when by your side
 you have me?’

this city of hundreds
of languages,
falls silent
when I ask her,

why do you weep in
the ocean?

River of Boats

The learned man on the pulpit
 said, one Friday,
 this world is a river and
 all men and women within are boats.

Each boat starts at one shore
 and ends its row on another.
 The womb of our mothers
 is where the journey
 commenced. The heavenly abode
 fashioned by the Almighty is
 where we need to drag our
 crooked boat of a body.

The young man, named
 ‘father of many’
 had a thought at this.
 What about those boats that
 are eaten by a typhoon and have
 never a shore in their destiny?

He hoped the Almighty accepts
those rotten planks that were once boats.

Haggling for Company

when my funeral
 on four wheels
 with a Mercedes logo
 on the bonnet,

passes by Times Square
 the illumination,
 the celebration,
 the fascination, pricks
 deep into my heart,

do any of these happy people
 dressed in fancy
 sophistication,
 any of these
 do even care,
 that I am going to weep
 this whole night in my dark grave.