Coffee meet (after two years)
In the canvas of the café
you appeared quiet as the rain
your silent footfalls softly spreading the smile
that blended with the light in your eyes
that spoke with the syllables
of the quiet ambience inside.
Minutes painted our conversation
into Tagore and Dylan.
Picasso followed with his cubism.
Even your Spanish and Italian tour
sat at a comfortable corner.
Facebook came and went by
before my coffee turned cold
(and you reminded me)
and Beethoven’s 7th symphony
almost epithaped a dying rose.
Your Mexican Mojito
rested halfway through
when academics and careers
appeared on the canvas.
Edging our way through the silence
you finally won in paying the bill.
And when we left
the blended colours of our smiles
gave the last brush-stroke to the canvas.
But when a Keatsian plenty plagued me
I went back
to complete the incomplete painting with the words:
When you left
I found God’s footprints on my floor…
MIXED LANGUAGE
In the mixed language of water and earth
poetry came among sheafs of solitudes
and self.
It reached so many centuries
scaled so many mountains
crossed so many boundaries
that made my friends
drink the dew of wonderment.
Grasshoppers stopped amidst their reconnaissance
dragonflies stood hovering while on their sojourn.
And in the midst of such poetic journeys
my love alighted from my train
leaving me alone with luggage
of clothes and wounds.

Bob D'Costa is the author of four books of poems. His poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals at home and abroad. His poems on social problems and protest have been compared to those of Lorca, Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Majaz, Mayakovsky, Sardar Jafri, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Bob Dylan. He is the recipient of two honorary D. Litt from U.S.A and International Eminent Poet from International Poets Academy, Madras. He has also attended several poetry conferences, including those held by The World Congress of Poets. He works in the field of Education and resides in Calcutta, India. Visit him at www.goabooks.worldpress.com
In the canvas of the café
you appeared quiet as the rain
your silent footfalls softly spreading the smile
that blended with the light in your eyes
that spoke with the syllables
of the quiet ambience inside.
Minutes painted our conversation
into Tagore and Dylan.
Picasso followed with his cubism.
Even your Spanish and Italian tour
sat at a comfortable corner.
Facebook came and went by
before my coffee turned cold
(and you reminded me)
and Beethoven’s 7th symphony
almost epithaped a dying rose.
Your Mexican Mojito
rested halfway through
when academics and careers
appeared on the canvas.
Edging our way through the silence
you finally won in paying the bill.
And when we left
the blended colours of our smiles
gave the last brush-stroke to the canvas.
But when a Keatsian plenty plagued me
I went back
to complete the incomplete painting with the words:
When you left
I found God’s footprints on my floor…
MIXED LANGUAGE
In the mixed language of water and earth
poetry came among sheafs of solitudes
and self.
It reached so many centuries
scaled so many mountains
crossed so many boundaries
that made my friends
drink the dew of wonderment.
Grasshoppers stopped amidst their reconnaissance
dragonflies stood hovering while on their sojourn.
And in the midst of such poetic journeys
my love alighted from my train
leaving me alone with luggage
of clothes and wounds.