An altered state of mind

Image Copyright © TimFrommeyer

I am as if in the midst of a conundrum.

I can see but I cant watch, hear but 

Really dont want to listen. I move, yet

I am still, but walking on the waters of

The rainy Hyades on the dim sea.

I can hold yet cannot touch, I cry but

Do not weep. The salt dries on the face

And yet I cant feel the residue. I write

And imagine yet I dont think and toil. I

Am just a mirror placed in an angle.

You can see a million me's and I can

See a million yous. But its just me at

The funhouse of mirrors and distortion

Of internal images. In a slumber I am

And when I wake, its on the lap of daze.

Words pass me by, an incommunicado

Sub-conscious doll embraced by cobwebs

And dust at my angles, and a mask on the

Mirror that I know but have never seen. Its

An altered state of mind. A lapse of your reality

But, I am still awake with heavy eyes scanning

Frantically around to find a shudder that will wake

Me up from this state of seemingly eternal bliss. Its

Too good to leave but too hard to stay coz when its

Over you are way below in time and space;

Gathering your conscious pieces and sweeping those

Sub-conscious cellophane bags under your cerebrum

Is as easy as saying goodbye to the last train of eternity-

Inevitable yet painful but, again somewhat ecstatic. A

Thousand screaming headless torsos thrown into the mix.

The trip; the journey into the micro of things but

Looking at it from the macro on top just feels

Like the body is detached from you and you are your

Reflection. As the neurons fire under the influence,

The brain sits still gathering the output like cable tv.

I am what you are and I am what you are not,

I am your reflection and you are mine. But 

Beyond the wakefulness of it all is what I tend

To think about and then I see not me, not you

And not them, but a pulsating electron surging.

Into the funhouse we go and look at the distorted

Mirrors showing our true self and what we can be,

But, once we leave the mirrors still follow to remind

You of a sense of time which has no minutes or hours

But, only me and because of me a different you.

So tell me perception, which is me, what is them and

What is us and ours? Coz all I see is a hollow lane where

You can choose to light the flame or just walk into the

Darkness that keeps crawling like maggots and eating

Our state and time and realizations. Its altered and yet isnt.

The mind over the body, the subconscious over both,

Or just me and a perceived you above all else. Let my

Altered state of mind decipher and decide. For it will

Never be decided and the you and the me will all be 

But one and different in an altered state of mind. 

Every stranger has a name. Me and you...

© Malyaban Lahiri

A Malady

The proverbial all pervading calm and inner peace,

Stability is what we choose to call it- to earn greens,

To eat them, to share it or to control it. So escapable

Yet, always avoided. The veil of contentment ever

So fallible.

Moving from thatched roofs to brick and mortar,

Crawling from unleavened bread to croissant and

From the hard cold ground to the fluffy bed of roses-

We cry, we try, we fall and we die, but then there's 

This small moment of rise.

Unseen, often unfelt, unknown and yet mildly present.

The only pure drop of human essence that is- but a drop;

Yet, if embraced it presents enlightened apes with wings to

Soar beyond the cutlery and the bed and diamonds and

Roofs. Its there but never yet...

Why do I the naive poet type my verses on this machine?

Why does the rickshaw puller not opt to buy a higher 

Mechanism of sustenance? Why do you think of conquering

The space while the same increases in light years between us?

Where is that drop? That essence of intended genetics?

Or maybe intended is what we make of it. Individual freedom

And the consequent 'progress' or digress. A place where graffiti

Almost topples the la politica and, deaths of millions and voices

Of the troubled are channeled like the AM frequency. A drop to

Each one of you dear mortals!

Breathing free sans the fear of someone at the door, sleeping

In peace sans the unrest within, listening to the wind without

A play button to press and walking the muddied path without

The cacophony of horns. Some of the things we inherently want

When the body is born naked.

Then? We grow up and down and up again like a spiral. A 

Careful reduction of the equation that wasnt meant to be a

Circumspect effort. I equals to human so you equal to?

Oh wait! There's a square root on top... Tough luck child.

That drop is there somewhere but we are reduced.

We grow up but never grow back!

 © Malyaban Lahiri

Baptism by Colors

 Image Copyright © Vlad Nemirovsky

The Christmas lights shine while the temple bells
Toll. The baby lies bloody on the bed- 'delivered'.
Its dusk, a shade of grey dusk but again a dark blue
Around the corner; not a sound did roll nor did light
Strike and it slept. Hush baby... they will come! Among
Her broken toys and impaled dolls she sleeps like the
Child of time- she is black.

Again, the star shined and the bells tolled and they came- all over her,
They trampled and burnt her sins away. Smoke and soot and hell fire
Rained everyday and she took it all in. Like the voracious petals of the
Venus fly trap, those lips of hers engulfed them and stayed content.
It lay in the night... At least she had the night. She was content. Slowly
The saffrons, the whites and the greens entered her hollow being
Day after day and she did not know where they came from.

Even the one to be delivered that rested inside her grew impatient.
It broke free and she lost. It was buried amidst the fanfare and
Ho hum of those colors. The same colors that devoured her sins
And had her delivered, and now they lie in constant wait for the
Reigns to break so the stake is theirs to burn. The witch must burn.
The Green must burn, the saffron must be severed and the white
blackened they thought.

The witch died, and so did they but not the colors. As the
Child in time sleeps under every roof, so does those black eyes
With glowing fangs, under the bed. Just below the flesh
And the wooden bed, you can hear it breathe and crave blood
And carnage. Every street, every devil's bend, every wall bears
Its name. Yet it hides, kills, plunders and hides. Yet another
Deliverance and another coming against the eclipsed sun.

Tomorrow if a life is born I shall warn and mourn and curse
The deliverance coz the colors will lie in wait under its bed.
Sharp talons and itchy fingers waiting for it to blossom and
Tear it up in pieces. Yes! This is our deliverance... We all shall
Be delivered some day. But, I hope my child of time is colorblind
And comatose- Maybe dead. For then it wont hear the evil crawling
Under its bed, see them on the streets and  feel them inside itself.

That day will be her baptism and maybe she will wake...

© Malyaban Lahiri

The Final

The hand that holds the pen is disconnected
From the head, the brain that writes the
Thoughts. Its crippled with implosions of the
Fifth kind rendering the body helpless and still.
Paralysed...

It feels like the limbs are falling into slumber
As my brain remains ever awake without any neural
Outlet. The fear of an explosion, of death and of
Destruction is paramount enough to perpetuate this
Neurosis...

Like the non-stop cycle of seasons the head keeps
Churning. But, now there's a difference. The senses
Cant feel it anymore and cannot respond. Only the
Wandering and fearful eyes seem to understand the
Flickers inside my head...

Is this it? Is this the end? Is this what all that we
Felt and hoped have finally come to? I dont know.
All I know is palpitations, heaving breaths and
Breathing eyes... All I know is you are out there,
Maybe I am too... But, is all this mine??

আত্মহত্যা

প্রহরে প্রহরে ভয়ের কটাক্ষ আর নিস্তব্ধতার বেদনা,
ফাঁপা মুখের জং ধরা রেখাগুলি আজ যেন সেই
পর্দার উপর ঝলসে উটছে। তেপান্তরের মাঠ পেরিয়ে
এসে দাড়িয়েছে সমন আমার শিয়রে. যেতে হবে।

নিজের দোষ, গ্লানি আর বিবর্ণ পৌরুষের যে ছায়া
মাত্র হয়ে রয়েছে এই দেহ, তাকে সরিয়ে নিয়ে যেতে
হবে। ডারুইনএর প্রাকৃতিক বাছাইয়ের ছকে ফেলে
এই জীর্ণ, ভীত দেহ টাকে বাদ দিতে হবে অনুপাত থেকে।

ভয়, সন্দেহ, দুর্বলতা, সবি আছে মস্তিষ্কের অলি গলিতে।
ফেরিওলার মত ডাক দিয়ে যাচ্ছে- যদি কেউ শোনে?
যার শোনার কথা তার দেহ আজ অস্থিচর্মসার এক জীবাশ্ম
মাত্র। ছেড়ে যাবে সে তার পশ্চিমী হাওIর পিঞ্জর কে।


সেই একটিমাত্র মায়া যা ত্যাগ করার দুঃসাহস তার নে।
মাটির অনেক পরত নিচে থেকেও ভুলতে পারবেনা
কাজলা মেঘের সাথে পশ্চিমী হাওIর সেই উন্মাদ খেলা।
নশ্বর হয়েও অবিনশ্বর হবার সেই প্রতিক্রিয়া...


দুর্বল না পাখন্দী নাকি নিজের পিঞ্জরে আটকে থাকা
কোনো বন্দী যার রন্ধ্রে বইছে তোমারি সুবাস কিন্তু
বাকি শরীরে শুধুই মিথ্যা আর সেই অমানবিক নেশা!
মানুষ তুমি বর্বর। সৃষ্টি করেছ তুমি মৃত্যুর চোরাগলি। 


আসি ফিরে আমি আবার যদি এই শারীরিক জঙ্গলে,
নশ্শাত করে দেব আমি এই মস্তিষ্কের দুর্বলতা যা
চিবিয়ে খায় আমাদের বর্তমান ও ভবিষ্যত আর
এ শরীর কে কটাক্ষের হাত্চানি দিয়ে যায়। আসব আমি!
©

Evolve

The need for flagellation is intense,

Like the will of death creeping and

At bay... The doc's medicine is working,

Stopping it at the doorstep, a step at a time.

The need for solitude has never been

So fiery but, the fear of it more potent

And effervescent like epsom salt.

Bubbling at every stimulus my brain reads.

Why does it require for a man to fear

Liberation over tyranny of self?Why

Isn't the sea full enough to quench his

Thirst for novelty? Evolution at its best!

The Sapiens should grow a tail and dwell

On foliage while the apes may take the

Scepter and rule with instinct and preach

Instinctual liberation. Or maybe its just me.

Yours Truly...

©