rant

sometines people pick up reputations for nothing
aflazur, the grey haired youth once slept with many
women. love, he says does not teach the difference
between the musky fragrance of different flesh. Inside,
his long nailed companion flicks gold dust off her filter
ipped fag. she thinks it prevents cancer. and else.


you know my love, I feel lost in these wounded roads
that lead to nowhere but the living dead. while you
walk, every stone round the corner comes off as a false
god hanging on to afailing strand of faith. everywhere,
stray thoughts of women asasult me like a childhood
dream my mother says that a woman can make me
go weak inThe knees. little does she know that I cherish
love hate exchanges with ten of her kind. i wish she would
know by now. i would happily eschew all pretensions of regret
i am sure.

somewere around the corner, my eyes twist
like her unkempt hair, on a chilly, rainy day in shillong

Poem published in Gloom Cupboard #115

Here's the link.

To read this poem on this blog, click this

Night

Empty sounds emanate from
Elongated lobes, like torsos of
Desireable women with plastic smiles
The wind is an unwelcome guest
At this odd hour, shattering any
Hope of ennui on a Sunday night

Candles flicker like half grown
Adults eager for love. Smells of
Fish fry aromas signal the fall
Of some unkempt bachelor’s
Bastion to womankind. Flies
Survey my banal diet with
The pure interest of capitalists

Meanwhile my old gardener
Romances the blossoms to the
Haunting orchestra of twilight

Street

There is no fragrance of flowers
People do not fashion some things
Anymore. Somewhere winter
Lazes around, like an idle snake
In hibernation, refusing to stir
Thunders taunt with no promise
Of rain. Everything is stoned

Crows head home like failed
Clerical missions. The sky is
Crimson with the dying day
Clandestine gazes exchange
Messages in twilight.Only
The street bears silent testimony
To a stray catfight.

Somewhere a lovelorn loafer
Seduces passing women
With a sly smile.

A Poem Comes Of Age

We cannot walk together anymore
Man and woman. These days it
Is not safe to say things in the open
There are revolutionaries out there
And Patriots . Sons of the soil
Who may not like us, taunt us
Earlier no one cared who loved
And lost. Which king advanced;
Or the fallacies of nubile age.

Instead we can communicate
In this indifferent clatter.
I can very well understand
The language of these lazy
Womanly aromas invading my
Nostrils. Another bomb blast
And we shall very soon pretend
To like this banal silence

Meanwhile, while each day recedes
Into a drunken lullaby, I understand
The wisdom of love. Just another
Futile, distant possibility in twilight

Winter

I never understood these mute chasms
Which separate us in this hopeless exile
These shadows cast by the fire in our hearts
Many long winters have passed and
Yet I brandish this forgotten childhood
Like a talisman to ward off evil

My mother is concerned with rice and gold
She wants me to go to the fields and reap
Hope in this wintry haze. But beloved, only
You and I know the pains of this indifferent
Existence, living like strangers
In this misty rain

Meanwhile, Winter comes like a
Shy widow, unveiling its lust in
The smoke of an early morning fag.

My mother makes tea for me

Voyage

I love the smell of smoke in the mornings
The stony stupor of this vagabond mind
Sometimes in these macabre afternoons
I embark upon a lowly odyssey in some
Scarecrow alley, haunted by some failed god
Armed with this futile obsession to unearth
The ancient pain of this widowed night

I love to watch these hills in winter
Clothe themselves in ragged shawls
Of white. Like old women, these hills
Know things more important than
The fear of hunger or war, or love.

And as these lines die into the sounds
Of this breathless ramble, beloved
Let this evening wind confine you in
The lifeless thirst of our hearts.

Winter

These days are long and dusty
Do not blame me if I turn to stone
Like a false god. I have seen many a
Sullen afternoon die a slow death
Baring themselves to the hungry night
Like unwilling women selling love

This day, beloved, will it be any different?
Today, like other days, you shall not rouse
As this indifferent commotion recedes
Into the lull of this sunlit funeral
Today, I shall roam these streets again, this
Ancient burden of being a man, weighing
On me, like an insipid, forgotten sin

And we shall remain mere tombstones
In these dusty graves. Will this winter
Promise another bout of hazy memory?
Only these lifeless lines shall banish us
To the hope of this brutal love, and us...
Strangers in this tepid, misty rain

Pain

You do not cringe when you are young
It is a crime for men to be afraid of
Death; or things more dreadful
Like the barrenness of manhood
Before the skies became too alien to bare
Myself to its prying eyes, I never understood
The pain of being a man

Since then I want to be young, again and again
Sometimes in these desrted lands, the clouds
Come tumbling down to caress my breath. Seven
Summers have passed and still I dread
The solemn oaths of these dusty evenings

And today, when I have loved and lost
These effigies of the past still beckon me
Like a whore with whom I had shared
A wintry night in Shillong.

Poem

These times do not attract me anymore
Like old women, like faded shoeboxes
These days do not deserve love. Sometimes
In the wintry pilgrimages in this ghost town
The nefarious breeze resurrects itself from
The whirlwind of these lazy Sunday afternoons

Time and again, I have seen this town
In these faded plaques of memory. In those days
You could play with fire and dust. Now people
They do not speak of the monsoons anymore
Or throw caution to the wind. As ma says
These times are bad. You evade their company
Like the gazes of whores

Instead we talk about things which don’t matter
The insignificant ramblings of life and death; Or
The eternal promise of a poem at the oddest hour
With which I’m smitten.

Promise

Beloved, this dying day is no different
Like muted gongs, this child of the stony night
Promises no sound of rain. How many more lives
Do we offer on this hungry altar that knows no prayer?
How many deaths do we die like withered spirits?
Only this road, this fiery eyed beast shall know

Beloved, let this dusty wind break at your feet
This wind deserves no mercy. Beloved, we are tied
To these white sands that offer no warmth, this nightbird
That sings no song to the children of this cruel night. Beloved
Only the promise of this failing dawn shall keep us alive.

Beloved, this night is a bereaved widow
With wounds that refuse to heal. How many more births
Do we live like barren souls? How many scalding nights
Shall pass like this howling wind? Which gates shall guard us
Against the cruel insurrection of this frigid adversary?

Only the quivering flames of my ancestors’ pyres
Shall promise us another barren answer

Tawang

Tawang, this snow like forgotten widowhood
Speaks very little. You do not expect warmth there.
Only the shivering remains of our unholy sins
Only the tepid prayers of these doubtful monks
Can rid you of your manly fears. In Tawang.

There, you want to be young again.
And my mother spoke in silent whispers
Making lukewarm gestures to the Buddha
Tawang, only the staring rocks, the screeching wind
Can remind you of your sublime male fears.

Tawang. There, you do not question the law of the land
You do not engage in idle talk of life and death.
In Tawang, only fear will show you the angry sun
And only the silent waters of this promised land
The white mirage of this cruel earth
Draw you to this forgotten pilgrimage. In tawang.

Spirit

Beloved, these mountains are my brothers
They are the sins which confine my breath
These mountains do not know mercy
Unless you satiate them with virgin water
Drawn from the frail bosom of my widowed earth

Beloved, yesterday we went up to the hills
There my grandfather’s spirit rode on fire
Drawing angry glances from the hungry rocks
There you can buy happiness from the crying stones
With the offering of rain and the earth

Beloved how many pilgrimages do we live?
How many births do we take
In the span of our unholy love?
Only the mossy remains of our fiery lust
Hold the barren answer

Letter

Hill, today I question
The sins of your blemished birth
The unholy union of tepid rain
With the hungry, crying dust
Today I question the echoing water
Which made me fall in love
With the soil of my promised earth

Hill,I am a mirage
My roots are like false promises
Which women use like charms
I am the child of this craving earth
The love of this blossoming flower
Hill, I’m the childhood
Which manikda deserted
After he became a widowmaker

Hill today I question
The barren wombs of our forests
Which once bred echoing dreams
The sweet breath of the golden water
Hill, Today I question
The robust bosom of my beloved
Which blossomed like a shy virgin
Now wilted like our widowed earth

Ahem!

Dear All, I'm delighted to announce that I've been published by Creative Saplings, a leading literary forum. Here's the link to the poem.

Thanks to Dr. Shaleen Kumar Singh for giving me this wonderful oppurtunity.

This is what the noted poet of Indian English Poetry, Ananya S Guha, had to say about this poem, and my poetry:

"Trauma'' by Anurag Rudra is a deeply sensitive poem, embedded in a silent pathos, but not without hope. Anurag is a poet of fortitude, and his similes are like the famed metaphysical conceits."

I think I'll drop down dead! :)

Revenge

Beloved, only you and I know
The secrets of this strife-torn soil
The desires of this famished earth
Only you and I know the tales
Which spring up from the aching bosom
Of this whispering mountain

Beloved, all these are ours
These hills and mountains, rocks
Those tepid clouds floating above
Like fallen virtue stolen
From outside the door of a whore

Beloved, only we unravel the sins
Of this wounded street
Only we traverse nine lives in one journey
Let us conjure flames beloved
Flames on these tombstones
Tombstones, which once throbbed with life
Now turned into lifeless dust

Hunger

Beloved the time has come.
Tonight we shall draw fire
From hungry stones
Tonight we make the streets
Bleed with the secret understanding
Of rain and the earth

Beloved, it is the season
When rain ceases to pacify
The growing anger
In stooping trees; and
Women will bear children
Like dead white termites
Beloved, let us befriend today
The chill of the lonely night
Creeping on deserted hearths

Beloved, your eyes
They speak a thousand words
Like ancient magic parrots
Use your blue eyes beloved
Seduce the sleeping gods
Satiate them lest they unleash
Their hungry breath
Upon people with limp skin

Beloved, let us walk today
To the destined streets
And witness the game
Of fire drawing breath
From the silent earth

My first bengali poem

আহত শিশির

আজ তুম আসবে বলে-
নিল আকাশ নিস্তব্ধ
সেই নিল পাহার চিরে
ছূটচে না প্রান খোলা হাশি
তুম আসবে বলে
আজ মদু আলো ভিজিযে দিযেছে
আমার মনের খোলা বইটী
তুম আসবে বলেই তো
আজ মেঘ শান্ত

তুমি আসবে তো ?
অনেক দিন হলো
এখন আমি
আর আমার আহত নিরবতা
তোমার অপেক্ষায রইলাম্
আমায নিরাশ করো না....

River

Don’t touch the river beloved
It is sorrow, pure
Strained through a dream sieve
Woven with memory
The river is sorrow
Made into thick ropes
Like notes flowing
From a stony flute

The river talks to me beloved
The river loves me alone
For I can whisper life
Into silent chimes
Made of the cruel earth
The river loves me for that
And pays me back
In the dabs of silver
Streaking your hair
With each ageing day

Beloved, let me drink
My red crusted river
Like hungry stones
Wetting themselves
With silent tears

Deception

Beloved, I can’t lie anymore

You lived in my red river
Like a forgotten dream
That was the time, mellow
Soft rain danced on trees
And you lived in my pauses
My moans and my white hair
Demanded the touch
Of women with taut skin

Today is March beloved
And April is yet to come
I’m sure you’ll understand
Today, the road is dusty
Like old brass, an ugly
Canvas, bleeding with
The secret understanding
Of rain and the earth

I grew tired of you, beloved
It was time that took
You, out of my blue eyes
Taking you to the green fields
Yesterday, they spoke to me
Of the mautam[1] coming again
And the elders drank beer
Served by ugly women
In jars carved with deft old hands.


Three long months will pass
And august will come beloved
August will come
With the promise of rain
And men will dance
Like light footed whores
By the light of their lamps
August will come beloved
Like an unwanted child
Creeping from within
“She grows within me”
“She grows within me”
And all will rush to you
As if you were seeded
By the dark night. Beloved,
Only the rush of the cold night,
Will shelter you from my breath
And hold you in confinement
Beloved, the road will bleed again
A canvas seduced by the heavy rain

It is night and the gods are mourning
The night breaks with the roar of guns
What’s this life worth beloved?
A life without tunnels, which
Once roamed the vagabond sky
Now widowed and destitute

[1] Mautam : When bamboo flowering occurs, associated with destruction of crops by rodents. Mautam is sometimes observed in the North Eastern States of India, particularly in the state of Mizoram