Poetry

By

Gopal Lahiri

Commitment

This morning forecast lacks commitment

In the shade of clouds,

The lilt of a tiny bird,

The first notes heard in the blue,

Mother Nature comes short.

We stroll on the long shell beach

After exhausting all our early morning energy,

Searching for mollusks and brachiopods,

In filigree rich golden yellow sand

At every opportunity,

We settle for a lonely corner.

Wait and watch for the tall waves

To submerge our tin-wrapped soul,

Until the white sand beddings get used to

Peptide chain finger printing,

We preserve the ripple marks and current history.

Dismal overhaul our search and discovery

Dipped at its lowest azimuth,

Rustle past murmur of defoliation,

And Fail to connect any dots for rain prints,

Our movements are sluggish.

It is with a heavy heart

We walk back slowly to our resort lounge

And start to sip black coffee over a newspaper

That rare feel with gene manipulation and blatant lies,

Ready to throw more gasoline in fiery mind.

Unhurried Music

We do not know where it ends.

At home we never talk about hungry tides and footprints

perhaps a reason,

that keeps us burning,

Because it makes sense,

We always float like a summer leaf before the dry winds.

The shining stars with their messy speeds

and energy

look for a hint of a curved moon

Walking on a trinket shop

We never wait to get upstairs to sing a love song.

Now the light of the orange vapour lamp hit

the water of the narrow canal.

we know what it means to be resting on each other.

For a moment between the two eager souls,

echo from a fort wall

breaks into tiniest pieces

And evoke a sense of unhurried music.

Gopal Lahiri

Gopal Lahiri was born and grew up in Kolkata. He currently lives in Mumbai, India. He is a bilingual poet, writer, editor, critic and translator and widely published in Bengali and English language. Anthology appearances (among others) include National Treasures, Indus Valley, Concerto, Poet’s paradise, My dazzling Bards, Jorasanko, The Silence within, Indo-Australian Anthology, Homebound, The Dance of the Peacock, Illuminations. His works have featured in journals Indian Literature, Taj Mahal Review, CLRI, Haiku Journal and electronic publications Arts and Letters, Underground Window, Muse India, Poetry Stop, Debug, Eastlit and Coldnoon Diaries. He has jointly edited the anthology of poems: Scaling Heights. His third poetry collection ‘Tidal Interlude’ will be published soon. He can be reached at [email protected] and gopallahiri.blogspot.com.