remains

For R.D.

what remains free:
stories you wove in the cold breeze
as we sped down congested roads, a patchwork
strung together by laughter, commas and silence.

what stands firm:
stone churches, white churches, chapels
and flowers wired to pews and altars, as broken thoughts flew
and formed wordless prayers for strength.

what remains trapped:
A face in candlelight,
A touch that broke through my dark dream,
tears that fell on the road i wished i'd picked up
but feared i had no right to,
unspoken words
that translated into refrains of songs,
fear,
time.

and what do i do now?
sever etched pathways,
run through the desert, for the arrows
are beyond me, within me,
and wait for Orion
to open his portal and let loose
the angel of death?

For nothing remains...

MIDNIGHT COLLOQUY

Long after the others have dined
you pad in on pussy feet.
Night’s your time, and your meat
the worried carcass of my mind.

***

Nurturing an Argument

Turn your head just a little bit
You'll catch it out of the corner
of one hollow, ennui-swollen eye
Move nimbly towards it

Pounce quickly!
Before it slips through the doors
and out into the quiet night
where people linger with jazz
by firesides
and feel warm.

Pounce now. Hold it tight,
your fingers clenched around its
soft, prickly texture
like a ripe lichee.

It's thin now
but if you keep it warm
look at it many times,
touch it with warm fingers
before you sleep,
it will grow voluptuous.

It needs intense attachment to survive.

It may be your last chance
to be voluminous, to speak
your many words, like helium balloons
they climb air.

When it shrivels
your life will return
to the usual rhythms.

© Anindita Sengupta

Transluscence

You did not tell me those were tear drops
that stained your eyes, you blamed dust
and told me it was normal. I believed
your lie and then joked about things
that made you laugh and forget,
for a moment, the terrible pain
you carried inside so silently.

I nearly guessed the truth once
but your explanations were clever
and so beautifully wrapped in evasions
that I failed to understand things
and did not probe deeper into the hardness
of your self-defence, and instead
remained comfortably gullible.

But if I only knew, would I have acted
differently or even changed the course
of events completely? Maybe or maybe not,
but who knows? Time makes conjectures
such an easy and convenient exercise
like the poetry we read and write to seek
explanations for the inexplicable in life.

But I do know that, if nothing else, the flowers
on this stone would have sung a different song
because you would be sleeping more peacefully.

6:30 a.m. 2nd february

    perspicuous poems       or poetry opaque?

    perspectival viewing       with angles oblique?

    snow falls so seldom here!       who recalls a flake?

    morn arrives too swift now       like snow on my cheek