Five Poems by Inam Hussain Begg Mullick

 

 

Six Episodes

 

1.

 

In a raspy voice

the hailstorm

spoke.

The hailstorm

chased

electric mice.

The kittens slept and dreamed

of blue railyards.

 

2.

 

She opens the window

to a silk city.

A goldfinch beaks

the winter's soft

nerve.

 

3.

 

In the streets,

a martyr bleeds

and hears God's voice.

Immortal tigers

ride the sun.

 

4.

 

Two sparrows embrace

in the garden of the heart.

I carry the wind

in my hair

and appear at your door—

my bones illumined

by your gaze.

I know your lips are ageless rivers.

 

5.

 

On a violet dawn,

the sand becomes a prayer.

The Cassiopeia touches and bepaints the earth,

terpsichores.

 

6.

 

A man reads the newspaper

and asks for

lunar coffee.

Our breaths

enlace

at the storm's carnival.

 

 

Talismans

 

Through the night

soft halo explosions,

 

immortal routes

and

inner blooms,

 

space craze boom leap embryo

 

rain, rain

 

thrill omnivores,

this carnival,

 

occulting

light,

 

reason is an acrobat.

 

 

“You said I smelt of dusk”

 

You said

I smelt

of dusk,

 

your

wild wind

at dusk,

 

stay with me

in this

difficult

love,

the stars will come out soon

and the pottery

of light

will resume

in

this hot month's

garden.

 

 

A Nocturne for Inamorata

 

Sky-mermaids yodel

to summer,

we are in

a marshy moment’s

frenzy—

your forests of ochre and ardour.

 

Barachiel

besprinkles

rose upon the hot desert and the dream-eyed camels,

 

Sandalphon guards

the children of a white summer,

Israfil's song

resonates

in moondust mansions and mulberry

orchards—

then our

dialogues in water.

 

“Among this scented tea

and wine,

let’s speak of love,

art and religious warfare.”.

 

You ignore

the rumours

and navigate

through the hair of my history

with tender fingers—the pregnant dolphins of light.

 

I hiss at your nocturnal mouth's solace,

we even breathe

silk.

 

 

Quietness

 

    1

 

    A summer

    rolls away

    towards

    violet velds;

    in the cafeteria of moonlight,

    a kyanite horse

    eavesdrops

    upon the rainy interludes.

   

    2

   

    Blue roses

    in rain,

    I divine

    the extirpation

    of Gog and Magog.

   

    3

   

    Rivers

    of light,

    Akbar's

    ice hockey twilight box.

   

    4

   

    The light of fireflies

    wraps the earth

    at dusk,

    ten flower villages,

    thimbles, Solomon's Seals and klees,

    wildflowers and ghosts,

    my tongue

    is protest's journal.

   

    5

   

    Arhats

    of the throbbing

    forests,

    summer

    is asleep,

    leaf and silence.

   

    6

   

    Muscadelle

    nights,

    asymmetric lunar

    eagle,

    I walk with Muhammad and Musa.

   

    7

   

    Leaves

    in wind;

    Isa brings to life

    the war-martyred Russians

    my valorous brothers,

    no sacrifice

    was in

    vain—

    rising solar meadows.

   

    8

   

    Misty road, greyshine.

    Lamps

    of heaven, infinite waking river,

    waking winter.

   

    9

   

    Golden songbird,

    oceanic heavenly bisonry.

   

    10

   

    Joseph of Copertino

    levitated, chanted the Virgin's name—

    the dance ecstatic.

    The blind eyes

    of Richard Church

    sang with light,

    the people and

    the city

    pulsating ornaments.

 

 

 

 

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick is an award-winning Kolkatan polymath. His most recent book of poems is The Magical Life of Inamorato (Writers Workshop). He is the Director-Founder-Editor, The Kolkata Arts. Inam teaches Creative Writing.

Six Episodes was previously published in The Kolkata Arts and Durgapur Review. The rest were published in the book The Magical Life of Inamorato by Writers Workshop.