NANDITA SAMANTA

NANDITA SAMANTA

Autumn

Spring can never colour the shadows of Autumn

I have seen the entry and exit of the season,

the broken ramparts of punctured fresco,

the pride of the falling leaves,

the imperious shedding of the countless trees,

the brown arrogance of the rustling dips in the lea,

decades of beauty in the withered decay;

a season with an invincible say.

The shimul orange strewn as the carrots in a stew

hark to the voice of the wind; a coerced journey wayward, no cadence heard.

In its ghostly cacophony stand the barren coppice,

the rays of the sun slicing through the skeletal weald

the tortuous arms pointing heavenward, not ready to yield.

In all the falling, the fall satisfies its acme of strength

none of Spring’s bloom can beam

in such poised arrogance!

Shimul: Bombax ceiba, trees of the genus Bombax, is commonly known as cotton tree. More specifically, it is sometimes known as red silk-cotton; red cotton tree.

The City

Vanity doesn’t call my city by its name anymore

Even Gods have Learnt to lie in vogue

There’ll be no more dialogue

Between the city and me as before.

This city has soaked arrogance deep into its veins

The sidewalks of life are terracotta stories

That can break in the reverse winds

Again wake up to a baneful mantra of naked existence.

Brouhaha of elegance fails in its pretence

The claims of Pareenta’s love don’t anymore make history

The joys have walked into exile with the dreams

My city still stays awake with all of these.

Clouds have gathered on the rooftop

I have hidden the holed raincoats inside

The acrid breathes float high

They’ll soon envelope the moon in the sky.

After a while my city will get wet

Rain will wash the alleys, the streets

The vapour lamps will remain hanging from posts on steady feet

The clamour of fortitude will break on dark regrets.

Time

Those times: the time when I’m all alone;

time, when I’m most prone to succumb to what is ‘Gone’

formless thoughts form in the mind, those

that scale heights without pinnacles,

the signals of the neurons weave intricately

the loose ends of time in a tight hold,

a very small portion of a latent whole!

Bygones toss and turn deeply rooted in the core,

the vista of love becomes a formative chaos;

an intangible restlessness sting the heaving heart,

the feelings resume their liberty without ethos,

the delirious plastic fantasies float like islands

floating in the middle of a sea,

its fringes wet in foams of fancy.

Time: it ebbs, and it grows

heals, bruises, infinite, untamed,

claimed, unclaimed, fleeting, fleecing,

away it goes...

freeing small clods of feeling from the diaphanous chords of charted woes.

NANDITA SAMANTA

NANDITA SAMANTA is a poet, a short story writer, a reviewer, an artist. She also practices as a parenting and relationship advisor. Her writings are published regularly in many international/national anthologies, magazines, webzines and journals. Many of her poems have been translated to different languages. The poetry collection, ‘Scattered Moments’ has been translated into French and Bengali, both the versions will be published next year. The next collection ’The Trapeze Of The Mind’, will be available on kindle in June 2020.