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feet in a hot-water bucket black and brown mongrel pups curled up on foot walks bliss of moonlight on meadows I will postpone this second nocturnal visit to the bathroom let children with overgrown thumbs video graph snow-clad mountains and birch dark with promise that will spark tomorrow like firecrackers in the hands of a small village girl in an overgrown frock and coconut oil in her braided black hair the water pipes are noisy I cannot sleep for want of dreams rhymes that have so much meaning are nonsense clouds must be dark and low and convex and pregnant clouds must cover up all that is jagged clouds must descend into your nostrils and meaningless eyes pleasant with smoke and with the knowledge that this road meanders and blabbers but goes nowhere so barren these pups will grow cottages and picture postcards with chimney smoke specially portrayed in black and white in contrast with floating islands on an emerald lake recently dredged of shadow from weeping willow ©Ashof Niyogi Ashok Niyogi is an Economics graduate from Presidency College, Calcutta. He made a career as an international trader and has lived and worked in the Soviet Union, Europe and South East Asia in the '80s and '90s. At 52, he has been retired for some years and has been cashew farming, writing and traveling. He divides time between California, where his daughters live, Delhi and the Indian Himalayas. He has published a book of poems, TENTATIVELY, [ISBN : 0-595-33935-2] and has been extensively published in print and on-line magazines and in Chapbook form in the USA, UK, Australia and Canada. |