Calcutta if you must exile me wound my lips before I go
 

only words remain and the gentle touch of your finger on my lips Calcutta burn my eyes before I go into the night

the headless corpse in a Dhakuria bylane the battered youth his brains blown out and the silent vigil that takes you to Pataldanga Lane where they will gun you down without vengeance or hate

Calcutta if you must exile me burn my eyes before I go

they will pull you down from the Ochterlony monument and torture each broken rib beneath your upthrust breasts they will tear the anguish from your sullen eyes and thrust the bayonet between your thighs

Calcutta they will tear you apart Jarasandha-like
they will tie your hands on either side and hang you from a wordless cross and when your silence protests they will execute all the words that you met and synchronised Calcutta they will burn you at the stake

Calcutta flex the vengeance in your thighs and burn silently in the despair of flesh
if you feel like suicide take a rickshaw to Sonagachhi and share the sullen pride in the eyes of women who have wilfully died

wait for me outside the Ujjala theatre and I will bring you the blood of that armless leper who went mad before hunger and death met in his wounds

I will show you the fatigue of that woman who died near Chitpur out of sheer boredom and the cages of Burrabazar where passion hides in the wrinkles of virgins who have aged waiting for a sexless war that never came
only obscene lust remains in their eyes after time has wintered their exacting thighs
and I will show you the hawker who died with Calcutta in his eyes

Calcutta if you must exile me destroy my sanity before I go
 
 

from THE NOWHERE MAN

12

When you first came, quiet as the rain that never fell,
in the sunlight that never shone, I whispered words
I had never known and now shall never forget. These
words have grown into secret songs. We have known, and
loved, and shared what only lovers can share in lyric
guilt. There can be nothing simpler than this love of
ours, nothing truer when this darkness flowers.

13

If only you could reach me, I would take me along with
you. We would listen to the frenzied wings battering
at the wind; we would watch the trees go down on their
knees before the evening sunlight on the hills. And
before my hands can memorise the braille of your
beautiful movements, I shall assume whatever promise
there is in silence and allow your slender body to wrap
itself around me. Your eyes return my words more
beautifully than the silence of rain.

14

As the rains do not scar the dark hills, my body shall
leave no trace on yours. When the wind and wild hawk meet,
we shall celebrate our distances. Till then, do not ask
me my name, nor the shipwrecked start, we always return to
solitude : I know no longer where anything begins.
Silence follows the footsteps of men.

15

Tonight I draw your body to my lips: your hand, your
mouth, your breasts, the small of your back. I draw
blood to every secret nerve and gently kiss their tips, as
you move under me, anchored to a rough sea. I cling to
you, your music and your knees. I touch the secret vibes
of your body, I fill my hands with the darkness of
your hair. This passion alone can resurrect our love.

16

I have travelled all the lonely highways in the
autumn and watched all the lonesome cities pale at
dust. I have held all those tired strangers in my
waves, and whispered stranger secrets now forgotten.
This gypsy satchel carries all my sorrows, this
fatigued evening carries all my songs.

17

Tonight I surrender to the closing of wings: the
dark shall testify to this tremulous thyme:
whenever you move under me, my body celebrates
this beautiful ceremony. Within my hands, your small
breasts move into the twilight: yes, we have loved
like the wind that swirls into the seasons:
your breasts content against my proud absence,
shipwrecked into expectancy as your tongue turns
hunter tonight.