The Coffee Shop
Steam rises from my coffee cup
and hazes my vision.
The glass infront is clear yet stained
The wood beneath my elbow is smooth
with the dust of today.

My feet on the cool floor ,
My shoes tossed aside...
My back on the wooden rungs
and the road beside.

The cars rush by,...fast, very fast
They mock at the speed of my thoughts ...which emerge and then die.
I know what it sounds outside,
but inside the glass i hear only....
only the strumming of a few gloomy guitar strings.

The sound of Bone China on itself,hushed lovetalks,the silken fabric rubbing against the coarse wall....,
and the music inside me.
The elite curve of the British lamp posts outside merge with the roundness of the 'roshogolla' in the opposite shop.
I am filled with nostalgia...my city..Calcutta...my heartstop.

Just when I sit alone at this table, my eyes destroy the glass inbetween us and journey afar.
I am enjoying all this smoky gaze,
the nascent smell of love born on a Sunday afternoon,
the look of joy bound by strings...strings to the heart.

All the known faces huddle and look at me like ghosts.
they vanish now and are back again...
Till the drowning sun's glare can make me see no more.

The light comes through the bends of the autumn leaves which hang loosely...
They fall on the ground and are crushed..sanguine red....
I've heard them cry-they lay numb,empty;like my crushed flower dreams
of which my feet still smells.

With as little noise
my hands slide off the wood,
my feet are back in the leathery cover,
my back is crossed by the impressions of the painful rungs ...

I step out into the air and walk away from the crimson sun.

The dust on the road and the pebbles with which the street child plays
fill the hot roads.
The coffee shop is far behind .
Busy yet silent -just in one of its different moods.
Tagore,Lennon ,Elton and Bob ........
are close to my heart........
and so are the thoughts born at the coffee shop.