I was always homeThrough summerwinter and squallI strolled with youStamping onshed autumn leavesSat with youWatching TV newsWhen war wagedAte with youThe finest turkeyAnd when nightcame downI slept with youRunning fingers throughYour curlsAnd yet you awaited,A homecomingMumma, PapaYou shriekedIn cold sweatSilencing…

“Where is Abba? Ammi”Under the scotching heat,She roams through jagged, crumbling alleysWaiting for him to come.She has waited for centuries-Or so it feels. She wavers, wanders, pleads, whispering in the void beside the gutter. They sleep beneath the blackened shack,huddled everydayin biting…

Coming down out of the dense blue firmamentthe white bird touches the green earth, shutsits eye and smell the grass on the roadside. Ignoring the watchful gaze of the autumn skythe shimmering feathers drip drop by drop,water-like dreams and dream-like water. Here…

love’s mendicants become monsoon’s pour—cornflower blue horses on a cloudy day—hasten towards the laguna of gelatin skulls,you gently prune solar leaves in meadows of clay orisons; the feather is a wakened gypsy whom the unhinged, carmine wind lulls. Inam Hussain…

I am standing by the slope, looking around;Greens… greys… and browns…Absorbing the magical hue of the sky that lures me, keeps me bound.I try to look to the horizon— far and beyond…But the fog blurs my lenses.My vision struggles to…

In the heart of Amritsar, not far from the border that divided more than just land, lived Ayaan, a quiet poet whose verses never saw the light beyond his old leather-bound notebook. He wrote in silence, for a love he…

I love my city’s unique identity- hesitant,flawed and fragmented.In the faint light of the street lamp, I invitethe ghosts of yesteryears. One of the two roads that led to my house,may be the shortest, go to the sleep early.In the night,…

In the obtuse bend of timeI walk the lonely city lightsAnd each step keeps me moving,Till I see beyond the mirageOf nothingness beyond the heightsOf unknown troubles of noisy horns;And the calm melody of the storm;And drowsy lamplights,And the rain…

These tears in the eyes, they don’t belong here,The city smouldered in the heat, so severe.Suddenly, a flood surged forth,What is the source of this torrent’s birth? Countless pebbles will pierce the feet,Such is the journey of life, bittersweet!Where is…

Tucked under their arms, they carry it around,Treasuring every pain, without a sound.Pressed deep within their chests, they hide,Yet walk with pride, never to confide. Each sees the other as a fool,Eager to appear cunning, maybe as a rule.In the…

The table is ink, serviettes o lyrical gymnasts,the barmaid is queen moon—sharks observed from quarter light. The majorette sweatingdream, amorino breathing tattoos. Floatinghead in xenon lamp,trussed arch nightand Andromeda. In a corridor,a muse erupts. A stylus of solid perfumepaints a…

Your face invades my memoryon a certain stormy night.While a song sways rapidly in therestless winds!Your body flickers inside thesoft wax,when the current betrays us.My drunken eyes give way tothe mystic jar, and I turn soft.So soft, so gentle! My heart…

I had a hand-fan once.The air rose,and the mosquitoes fell withits swift stroke!That pujo filled with countless heads;How gently you removed your hand,from mine.Now suddenly, this vast emptinessin my hands!The next day, you asked for the hand-fan;And once again we…

I didn’t always feel this way.There was a time I believed in the system—truly believed in it.Get a good education, work hard, climb the ladder.Build something.Buy something.Become someone. And for a while, I did.I watched my parents save every rupee,…

Arthur B. Cardozo Essentially an advertising professional with a creative bent of mind. A freelance journalist and cartoonist/artist with over 5000 published works to his credit. An actor, poet, a script writer for ad films and theatre, I have conducted…

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick Inam Hussain Begg Mullick is an award-winning Kolkatan poet-editor, photographer and polymath. His most recent book of poems is The Magical Life of Inamorato (Writers Workshop). For many years, he wrote in The Statesman. He is…

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick Inam Hussain Begg Mullick is an award-winning Kolkatan poet-editor, photographer and polymath. His most recent book of poems is The Magical Life of Inamorato (Writers Workshop). For many years, he wrote in The Statesman. He is…