Poetry

By

Gopal Lahiri

Pumice

Burn from the past

the crushed pumice, the glassy rock

holding the only promise of

slipping backwards in the

russet wall of silence.

our voices never scale heights

as if they haven’t seen the ground

from the summit,

the joy of witnessing rugged terrain

bleeding in sunshine.

here everything is interlocked

no room for view

time dilates the look of the frozen night

a world sealing off hermetically.

can’t be hurried.

rustle of banana leaves

erupts into meaning in dark night

emptying our hopes and desire

lie down, listen to the wind.

where is that canary yellow moon?

the face isn’t clear,

the darkness so deep,

not too secure in the pale light.

lingering behind the mute celebrations.

Go Live

On the edge of modernity

The stories of the first world

wooing investors

Like the paper and ribbon memory

of childhood

Buried under the stale concrete,

Too sensitive to endure

The pigeons perch

on the lamppost to settle life

Not to dig wet sands in search of water,

unlike the river plays

backwards with the ripples

Shimmering on the Ganga river

the floating diyas,

The ghats are drawn in fairy lights

Sitting before the wall

splashed with quirky graffiti

The priests chanting Sanskrit mantras.

Fading slowly the echo

in the distant temple spires

With the baggage

of heritage and history

And stinks and filth on the street corner,

concealed by the glory of the setting sun.

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.