Comma

 

Burnt photographs. Burning memoirs. Scattered fragments. Scattering endings.

Stay, we’ll blaze through in smoke and coke, or break away, since there’s nothing left

Nothing left to frame in wisps of her, nothing left to distill through drops of dark

 

Sands fly violently across these shores, they scorch this body with cold-blooded glee

Don’t they understand the frailty of the moment, that tonight, ravage and rust breed burns

Painting a canvas dripping in red and blue onto the maiden fluttering by the sea

 

The world’s chasing its dreams with vengeance, swirling within a universal course of auroras

And soon-to-be-unfaithful morning stars, dappled, dipped in the ink of fruit most bitter

The sky wears a different shade of black though, its flapping veil a newborn harbinger

 

This darkness has finality on its mind, I hail the nearest cab and jump right in

They start flying by like Polaroid showers – skyscrapers, shadowchasers, illicit infiltrators

Cosmopolis non-stop. Next stop nowhere. Steel, glass and shimmer arising as one crescendo

 

The city could be lying dormant, then, hush, all of it comes flooding in, all at once

Traffic lights. Star brights. Disco-dancing kiss-me-skies. All chambermaids for a tragic starlet

Each a mystic prostitute for nights destined to commence with no real beginning

 

Full stop. The cab rolls on. These streets have a wealth of romance and mystery to them

It’s in the hookah smoke that belly-dances its way through the open air, lush, lost, lavender

It’s in those fixed lyrics of Beach Road, sung softly to many a questioning heart

 

It’s in the full moon fever that descends with deific defiance, wedded to wanton desert skies

Unconnected. Unannounced. Unsolicited. Undeterred. Which isn’t to say, unexpected

Bodies blossom rabid beneath the cosmic collage of rush, crushed, and yet the cab rolls on

 

The Mirage Express. 350 miles an hour to oblivion. One last ride for dishevelled souls

Hanging on to the last vestiges of their ragged glories, solitary wayward caustic stories

The old city bred this long road that bred these soaring skies that bred me, no more

 

Billboards speak in calories, sugaring the dullest of messages with the most garish of colours

Vanity screams at you from billows, determined to trap you and keep you under its spell

The seven deadly sins are laid out on a roulette table, a celestial game of chance and compel

 

Hotels rise, revelling in the rise and shine rhythm of their corporately corrupted reflections

Lovers dissolve into illusorily happy unions, nursing silent crushes for the one that got away

Love itself whispers softly, afraid to let an honest word slip through, and yet the cab rolls on

 

Aliens filter onto the streets, lazy percussion filters through the air of rage and rose

Curious tendrils of breeze dance along their merry way, strangers find a way to hold on

Sudden bursts of punctuation interject random conversation, and yet the cab rolls on

 

Ether cries out for absinthe, the blues cry out for some jazz, the dry streets cry out for rain

Amidst three million anonymous voices, one cries out for one particular name

All of which lends itself to a thrashed out film script, or bad poetry at the very least

 

And yet the cab rolls on

 

 

 

 

 

Rush Nocturnal

 

When there are but three hours of night, rush,

roar, slake, and rise try and make the best of

it. But what three hours! The shires, the ravines,

the meadows, the valleys lie still, perilously still,

but Loch Ness and Loch Lomond stir, wet

passion aflutter in their eyes, their aches and

their ardours dappled with shimmers of the

moon’s kiss, shivering kiss, a three hour court-

ship, leaving behind the residual embers of

slush, slaked desire, a whisper or two, and the

longing that leaves scars on open hearts, that

longing for three hours of night, nothing more.

 

 

 

 

 

Extraordinary Lovers

 

The love we share, you and I

It’s not the usual, it doesn’t bathe in colours prearranged.

 

It lingers not in the lavender of soft whispers

Treading softly on crumpled drops of rose;

Ours dances in textures dipped in dark evasion

A portrait in black sewn from the embers of Arabian dusks.

 

The love we share, you and I

It doesn’t count time in ordinary ways.

 

There are no forevers or ever afters,

Of eternities and ever and ever, not a word;

It embraces the mortality of its fragile existence

The time-bound reality of its sinews, its flesh, its blood.

 

The love we share, you and I

It doesn’t court ecstasy, as love is wont to.

 

It doesn’t scream in joy, it doesn’t chase moonlight

It doesn’t dip its feet in crystal waters set to symphony;

No, ours is a divine disturbance of soul and skin

Its heart a flailing aftermath to things it has left behind.

 

The love we share, you and I

It doesn’t believe in anniversaries, as etched in lovers’ hearts.

 

No birthdays or Valentines or do you remembers or did you forgets

No when we mets, no one year on, no lingering ghosts of long ago;

It only remembers the day it began and tonight, its destined demise

A thirty-day dance of tormented hearts, the summer flush, no more…

 

No more flesh to consume

No more desire to douse

No more words to exhale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Siddharth Dasgupta is an Indian poet and novelist who also articulates travel and culture for the likes of Travel+Leisure, Conde Nast Traveller, and the Dharamshala International Film Festival. Siddharth submits himself regularly to writing’s myriad moods – prose poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and free verse included. He is currently finessing a collection of short stories, together with putting the finishing touches to an experimental collection of poetry. Find Siddharth on Twitter and Facebook.