Aunt C.

she smelt of moist earth did aunt C.
odd because the mean streets of the city were far from earthy
there were canals
and a winding lane called creek row
wounding its way between old houses
from Sealdah at one end to Wellington Square at the other
no boats though
only yellow and black cabs
and hand-pulled rickshaws
hand-drawn carts with large tyres called thelas
I first met her with my friend G.
her step-son from an earlier marriage
she was dancing alone in a floral ‘housecoat’
her dangling cigarette wore a long suit of ash with a white collar
she danced in complete oblivion
weaving between the dining table
and the three-seater magenta sofa
a melancholy song called Blue Moon playing on her Grundig
a distinct smell of moist earth filled the room

Ash

she sat with a glass of gin between her legs
each night except on Sundays

her perfume had sung in a jazz band it had
learnt to improvise and swirl

wrap itself around her tight satin
legs

seek refuge in armpits that smelt
of last night’s dream or Australia

the rim of the glass hummed a whistle
at odds with the red nails

her feet busy arguing amongst themselves refused
to take her home

the ash of her cigarette was always precarious

For Amiri B.

[For Amiri Baraka]

she woke up the night climbed
out of the grave sat on the
tombstone
at the edge of her bed reached
for the empty bottle of gin
I asked her
if she hadn’t had enough
she peered
at the gaping mouth of the empty her tongue
licking
staleness

have you heard the crickets at the Park Street cemetery? she asked

‘dead
people &
live people
should not mix!’

Flamenco

she had a way of wrapping her left leg around her right
as she rocked her eyes full of smoke
from fingers long yellowed her voice
burdened with the afternoon itch to sin the gin

sing the gin sing the sin sing itch to sing the gin

‘come hear the music die in her throat’
she would cry out in black and white dreaming the noir

her drawing room full of ornate lamp shades without bulbs

the light from the window shadowed her like a jealous husband

car horns from the street mocked the rickshaw puller’s castanet

in 108 Ripon Street Mrs C sat
contemplating a flamenco for the times

Clothesline

just before she wakes up from a dream about a land called Australia
the woman I call Mrs C
 
swims  
between the pillar with the reef knot her
oncesailor husband had twined tightly
twisted sharplike
around the edge of the spiral ladder
turned sharply at right-angles             aimed it at the nail
on the far wall             rusted
from

a leaking overhead-tank        
and completed the square firmly

at the iron bar of her kitchen window
 
her feet tread water  
gathered into a pool from      hurriedly washed
shirts pants skirts bras             coloured underwear   
and a bedsheet with burn-marks

from too many cigarettes in bed

 
boxed in by her clothes line
she disappears

out of view

except for her legs      doing a brisk cha cha cha
and her hands
sprinkling ash              all over that dream

Hailstorm

the hail smashes its head on the street
bounces off the roof
of the car abandoned in the middle of a traffic jam
the dog howls at a dream about a freak hailstorm in baghbazar
while you
unfurl the umbrella hit out at the noon sun pierce light step into your own shadow
somewhere on Rashbehari avenue
the cop in white on his knees outside the Jain temple abandons his two knot two
scurries under a car with no wheels his lips spewing abuse
with a breath as rancid as fear
watching the mob burn tyres across the street

elsewhere

another dog forgets to bark at the loudness of her snoring distracted by the man
taking
a photograph
whose caption in tomorrow’s Statesman will read
‘her head lies fast asleep on the uprooted lamppost on a street called Wellesley’

in 108 Ripon street Mrs C
closeted at home under section 144 carves out a watermelon
with a knife soaked in rust before sinking her teeth into it
her feet kick the red plastic bucket into place on her verandah
to gather the hail

The blind man with dark glasses and the stick on the corner of Free School
and Park street is nowhere to be seen

…

Naveen Kishore, publisher Seagull Books and photographer.