We are the ones, the now generation
The very ones they keep talking about
We are the few without a clue
The face in the crowd without a doubt

We are the social to the unconscious
We are the ones that sleep suicidal dreams
We are the few who out there among us
Have seen life roll around but don't know what it means

We are the line of the consumer
Set out to buy the latest thing
Not sure what we want so they must tell us
Letting us in on what we all need

We are the hope of the next generation
Taking ten fold beyond previously
Perhaps the end that's in the making
Not really sure what to believe

Except that we are the ones

Sometimes you have to be alone to escape the loneliness*~ Amitav

You are the book I always wanted to read
From cover to cover, deciphering every word
The soft leather cover gilded and bound
You have not been read before, the pages untouched
You were there at a desolate corner
Waiting for me to lay my hands on you
Covered with a dusty veil, away from prying eyes
The moment I saw you, I was transfixed
The faint rays of sunlight falling on you, through stained glass
The slight glint from you gilded cover was attractive
As if giving away your inner beauty, scorned for many years
As I carefully pulled you away from years of oblivion
I dusted the covers to reveal you inner beauty
Yearning to delve deeper into your world
I could smell the freshness, intact, even after years of neglect
I took you home along with me, to set you on a pedestal
As destiny has bestowed me with the book I wanted to read
My life would have been incomplete without the knowledge you have provided
You are the book I always wanted to read


© Amitav (Radiance)

The multitude is flowing ahead
Teeming with dreams and hope
Crammed, with little place to move
There is dearth of space in the mind
Physically, we are reaching fatigue
What do we have for choice?
The power to choose is taken away
Our choices influenced by publicity
Duplicating a parallel world of feel good
Yet, deep down we are queasy
Something is not right, not identifiable
Blinded by the dazzles of show- biz
As if, all the actors are being directed
Chosen to play a role, not ours to choose
Memorizing written scripts, to deliver
Speeches which are not ours, we feel
Our dreams invaded, and manipulated
Our originality, suppressed in the makeup
Masquerading, our inner thoughts and ideas
Repeating the same role everyday
Delivering the scripted dialogues
Keeping in mind that we are here for audience
Our originality and individuality torn apart
Our original script has gone down the shredder
Who has the energy to pick up the pieces?
To join, the strewn dreams and live in a new way
We are just a created avatar, directed, indirectly
Of what we love, wear, eat, and live our life
Swept away by the waves of multitude
Individuality is relegated to the dark confines
Where can we start searching, our real counterpart?





© Amitav (Radiance)

ask your blood
your limbs, your breathing feet
what Poetry is -
a phylogenetic anomaly
in light’s discontinuity

or just…
the strange yearning of hematopoiesis

ask the silence in your lungs
the bursting DNA, reinterpreted
how it allures memory inside your bones
how it treads conventions of sleep
with the weight of a sigh

if you ask me
what Poetry is
I’d say: breath calligraphy
a winged dream of depth
on enchanted retina
the bitter-sweet art of airy harmony

ask your hands
what Poetry is
perhaps they’ll take a moment
to bloom

The revolution will not take place in McDonald’s
Born out of lethargic, flaky or fickle bodies

Words and actions, powerful ammunitions
But vessels, our bodies, control those manifestations
An armament, the body
Matter without which revolution cannot happen

Us who struggle, while we waste away
Those invested in maintaining power and privilege
Don’t only safeguard their money
They protect their bodies too
And only that of the offspring
Invested in perpetuating power and privilege

They not only monopolize learning and leadership
As mechanisms of dominance and control
They run and eat to fuel that constant fight

Man, wealthy or poor
May give into the vise of fast food and intoxication
But those invested in control
Conscious of power and privilege are no fools
Fortified not only by lawyers and henchmen
But by doctors, fitness trainers, fresh harvests
Having the choice and access to fresh produce

Us colored children from the hoods, the barrios
Our moms, or dads, or single parents
Working month to month
Frustrated because we don't eat fruit and vegetables
Instead eating frozen, canned, chemically enhanced
Microwaveable dinners and junk foods

Skinny, chubby, or obese
Eating our twinkies, doritos, and coke
Can’t even run a block without running out of breath
Diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, asthma, obesity
Not even looming in the back of our minds

We need youth to represent our communities
We need youth to fight for our communities
We need youth whose minds and stomachs are filled
Not with fodder and capitalist waste
But with food, ideas that fill them, fuel them
Not out of a temporary desire for satisfaction
Rather a prolonged political exercise to fortify themselves
As agents of a transformative process in the world

Frozen, canned, chemically enhanced lunches at school
Soda fountains, fried food, fast food, junk food
May always be subsidized, marketed, made affordable
To be part of your breakfast, lunch and or dinner

Still never reject an apple, orange or pear
Those with power and privilege
May not even have to think about
Their regimented diets
With endless fruits available to them

But for us, a single fruit made available to us
Has to be a daily reminder
An act of defiance
To chose to strengthen our bodies with it

A slippage of those invested in our chains
When the owners of industry
Have socialized us to think
Coca cola, pizza, and burgers
Are parts of our cultural identity
A modern industrialized upgrade
Our diet decisions driven by capitalist consumerism

There may be no specialized fitness trainers
Expensive equipment
Lush parks, jogging tracks, bicycle lanes, or bicycles
In our neighborhoods
But there is a space right next to your bed
Or a piece of floor where you live
And you have your body
Just do a few jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups

You need to have the patience and love
To protect and fortify not only your mind
But your body
To know that the more you fortify yourself
The more you are going to be able to fight exploitation
The more you are going to protect and fight
The ones you love, and even the ones
You won’t even realize you have saved as a result

We may not always have the access to healthy food
But we have the choice to request it collectively
In educational spaces and to take the initiative to exercise

The sensuous drool from the luscious lips
Dripping on your chin, and confluence
At the *****, where, eternal love resides
The glistening stream of consciousness
Only the two conscious souls are waiting for
To take a leap of faith, and drenching the souls
With the crystal clear consciousness of love
Where passion resides at the bottomless bed
Entwined like the eel, slithering to further depths
Exploring the pearls of sensuality, cocooned in shells
Hidden away from the worlds, only for the One to
Take away all the spoil, the bandit of the heart
Who uses the sword, with not the intent to ****
But he uses it deftly to rip open more passion
Leaving the mermaid wanting for more
She is still unsatiated, and the game has just begun
Gasping for breath, underwater,
In synchronization like the ballet, they both emerge
For a while, oblivious of the world
Concerned only about the treasures, deep down
And together they dive down, again,
The bandit is always eyeing the treasure to be exploited
Ready to drown, along with treasures of the heart





© Amitav (Radiance)

Intense passion
Ignites burning desire
Reveling in the transformation
As two entities melt into one
There is no duality anymore
Devouring all the potion
This intoxicates beyond senses
Opening up to each other’s world
As all the shackles have been broken
One world, one territory, one passion

I remember her hands turning the knitting needles like mercury. Beating yarn into fabric.And in her wisdom, she'd spin her words into gold. I studied each line on her brow for truth. Reading the creases like India ink. Dark. Permanent. Earned. And she hums along with the record, knowing each warm pop and crack like lyrics. Like history.

We skip generations like the songs on the album and I am more like her than I'll ever know. A vinyl copy. Pressed and shiny. But she was gone before such things began to stick.

She is like the smell in a well used kitchen, even when the oven is off.
An afterthought.
A sweet recollection of a melody you hum under your breath.
But I am drawn to her like warm covers.
Like a soft glow.
And me, mid-life, and still with wet wings.
And she prepares me for the world with these moments. Keeping each second accounted for.
One pearl stitch at a time.
We listen as the room melts to afternoon sepia. the song lifts and sways. Kissing my ankles like the tide. Stroking my face like wind.
The woman makes the music sweeter with each rock of her chair.

"Why does the album skip sometimes Grandma?"

She laughs. Doesn't look up.

"Because it is old and eventually it won't play anymore at all."

I knit my brow up like her blanket.

"Then why do you listen to it so much? Won't you use it up?"

She organizes her work, spreading it across her needle as she does the same with the words in her head. The album sings out to her.

"Because it tells the truth."

I listen harder. Looking for hidden words between the notes.

Nothing.

"It doesn't talk, Grandma."

She smiles at how little I know. Sad for me. And says,

"Yes it does."

"What does it say?"

And our game is done. I now have Grandmas eyes, smile, and attention all to myself. She sets her labor in her lap and fixes on me. I am now her project and she will knit me together with the same love.

"Listen. That part says that your friends won't forget who you are. Even when you do."

And they won't. And you will.

"Ah. This part says, You, My Love, are the prize. Not them. Remember that."

And I am.

"This part says that Men don't cry. But if she loves you. If she really loves you, she'll hold you when you do."

And she will.

"This part knows that God is not counting on us as much as we are counting on him. He knows we will let him down and loves us regardless. Remember this part of the song when you are a father."

And I will.

And Grandma sat quietly. Her fingers still seemed to be a blur of motion. Her mind, even faster.

"One day Grandma will quit playing too. I've already begun to skip."

And then we sat together. Quietly.

And sepia became blue. And blue became black.

And all at once, the music stopped. Replaced by a motor whir and a methodical thump.
A one legged tap dancer, facing finality.

"What do we do now, Grandma?"

We sat, listening to more time pass like music. Clickthump. Clickthump.

It was in this moment that I would finally se the jigsaw puzzle for the beautiful picture that it was.
All creases and landscape and hello goodbyes.

Grandma reached over and cast magic as the years in her hand settled the needle into the groove once more.

She answered all of my questions as the music whispered it's truth to me a new.

"We let the song play out."

"Why?"

"Because it's romantic."

Sometimes we are made aware of beacons in the rest of the dark.
Like stars littered across the attics we trap ourselves in.
Sometimes we chase rainbows with beggars eyes and wishes like children.

Some people are like soup soaked bread crumbs and wool mittens with the fingers cut out.
The rest of us are chimney soot.
And they are ‘chim chim cheree‘.

They are song filling every corner of the antique shop.
Silver under tarnish and weights and measures
balancing on the hands of the scale
suspended from the spear of a woman in white robes
with blue eyes that match the sky when we stare at it
and it usurps the corners of our eyes
and we are made aware of how small we are
as we get lost in how complete it is when it is with out clouds
with silver linings that never seem to follow through to rain.

And some of us?

Some of us are rain.

And thunder that shakes your soul.
And images of gods in black and white that burn themselves onto our minds
for us to study with our eyes closed.
And some of us are doing the best we can.
And some of us are not us.
But are the others.
And we would be lost without them
to point beyond red sails on sundown ocean horizons,
just before the world turns blue.
And some are the pops and cracks between the notes of Coltrane on Vinyl.

And you.
You smell of confessional walls and a nursery.
You smell of camp fire blankets and bruised roses.
You move like corner of the eye shadows
and windshield wipers with no chance of beating the rain.

You write like stone tablets and feathers.
Blown bubbles and spun webs.
And you feel like chance.
And love.
And strength.

You change like ropes on ship decks and tarot meanings from gypsy to gypsy.

And you are beautiful.
And beautiful.
And beautiful.

And everything.
And everything.
And everything.

Strong like ropes on yard arms of old ships in ancient seas.
And you go and you take us there.
And we go, because we want to see too.
And we want to be full on wild flowers and raspberries.

And we want you to show us the line on our palm
that separates the dark from the light.
And we want bed time stories and lullabies.
And with my eyes.
And with your own too.
And more importantly.

You.

You are the place where there is hardly no day time and hardly night. Things half in shadow and things half in light. On the roof tops of forever. Coo. What a sight…

Big World

Our hands met in a mess of rust red. Pressing the clay into heart shapes as they reached into one and other for something to believe in. But our journey began before then, in fits and starts. In passing scenes of first act exposition. My wondering eyes and yours of gloss and experience on summer nights of velvet lines.

We would be forced together, it seems, by happenstance and wine, like a passing note on a harmonica that you hit just right for the first time. And we would become fluent in our own drunken language of 3 am metaphor and sadness.

So many times, my lips began the journey to yours before we crippled them with “what for’s”. But still we’d share winter constellations and whispers and moments so perfect. Me on my knees, drawing your portrait on the path with handfuls of sand.

Even half a world away, my drink still seemed to rearrange itself into letters spelling your name. And then you asked me.

If the world seemed smaller.

And my mind was.

And my hands followed suit.

And then my frame began it’s descent.

But my arms stayed the same length. Just long enough to hold you.

I’d written the answer on the inside of my forearms, so I could press them to your body when I held you.

And my own joy of words, that only you would understand, I scrawled on my palms to serve as affirmations to myself when I covered my eyes to see no evil. Words like:

Majestic.

Precise.

Serendipitous.

And these words sent their letters to my mouth, asserting themselves in phrases like:

It’s a big beautiful world.

It is a big beautiful world.

And still we dance around our imaginary fire of ‘not good enough for you’ like a binary star. Beautiful but incomplete.

So, I loosened my tongue with women and foresight and raced the blood from my eyes to my core and pealed back my layers, until I could find the answers written in God on the insides of your forearms.

And now I know the answer to your question about the big, beautiful world.

And I don’t mind telling you.

I.

Don’t.

Mind.

Strong, stunning woman with hands covered in soil from the roots of the world she tugs on…

It is in your stride. Leaving wakes of timelessness behind you.

You seldom see, dear one, that you are the world. Not the child. And if I ever stoop to lift you, it is only due to the mountain you’ve erected beneath me, so that I can always see you. Across any distance.

You are reserved for made up words.

The story of your life is written on pages of gold.

I breathe honestly into the wind in hopes that it will touch your face somehow far away.

Tonight, I write by moonlight. My fifth glass of port wine is by my side, turning my blood to something sweet. I have no time for less.

I would whisk you away with me, but you are where you need to be and I haven’t found that yet.

But if you ever want to go, I would take you and show you the whole strange world that I see now.

No, my heart.

The world looks bigger.