Black

Evening hung
above street lamps
with nocturnal insects
drawn to light
Like fishermen flinging an empty net
over the vast Loktak

The day ceased
in its abject silence
The earth accumulates
dirt, dust and decay
Nambul turel's open drain
slithers lazily
Sad silver fishes
suffocated by sewage
Floats back to immense emptiness

The night accumulates
Like age on wrinkled skin
Like rust on humid chains
A barb wire of hope
Threatens into skin
of clasp palms
of hurt soles
Trying to break free

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Departure

Starving
On a blank blackboard
I wrote
Without words
I wrote
With the duster
Wiping
In swift motions
Before the army of words
Siege my bare fortress
From where
I barred words,
sentences

Ravenous
I fight the urge
to devour words
And surrender
In its green and graceful
motion
like wriggles
of a woolly caterpillar
lost among the green leaves
taking its miniature mouthfuls

Voracious
After my forty days exile
I set out
To binge
on words
I found none
I found instead
The silence of departure

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©

15th August

The city of the day was peeled off
The city of the night emerged
At around midnight outstretched on the pavements
The long winding endless tarmac
Bringing memories of
A brook that flowed
Someplace called home
The breeze
Emanating the days’ heat
Along with stench of urine
Amongst
Betel nut stained pavement
With slabs of stubborn mucous
Forced from unwilling throats
I make my bed

And then the grand day arrived
15th August
Where we
An eyesore to be
Concealed from view
Horded together
We of innumerable feet
-all feet and walking ceaselessly
We of innumerable hands
-all hands tirelessly toiling
In utter silence of centuries
Disappear with the receding shadows

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My Name

You who visit me
In the dead of the night
Away from prying eyes

To close the day
And open tender folds of moonlight

To remember another
In a faraway land

To close hurt
By inflicting me with fresh stabs

You who visit me
With numerous feet
Disappear at dawn
Leave footprints and money
to be blown away soon
By October's wind
I, whom you visit
Called by numerous names
And you of numerous feet
Have no name

http://soibamharipriya.blogspot.com ©