Poetry
Administrator
By
Still surviving
1.
Chaos silence boredom.
The angels return from the dark shadows
Empty handed.
Still surviving.
Canary yellow flowers.
Still we ride on the speeding bus,
preaching adorable love.
Still we hurry back home
Listen to the rain song.
Morning licks up the darkness.
2.
Weak or strong,
on a piece of paper
the third world economy slowly
Unbutton her secrets.
They teach us
Stock market sliding,
all efforts will be futile.
Fight within
Where to touch, when,
Skin deep scars in both hands.
Back breaking poverty
Starvation doesn’t understand
the rise of GDP growth rate.
Inhumanity loneliness destitution.
Each stone scripts stories.
Each bird records silence
all the shades of green turn brown
Waiting to destroy the world.
All that’s left
the local train departs slowly
I see the birds fly past overhead
Green and red, tiny, twitting
Going somewhere. I look at my watch
Sharp three thirty in the afternoon.
See a few steel-eyed crows and daily labourers,
who linger late after lunch. Dark clouds
Hovering and a twitch in the
Smile of those who predicts rain today.
The tall tree near the leafy road crossing
Know my bones very well. Comforted and cared
I remember the mantras chanted by the
Priest in a nearby temple, out past the flower garden
not long ago, the little flower nursery has
pinned a paper boat to my shoulder.
Riverbeds long dried up, now only sand mounds.
There is no hurry, it isn’t time yet
to move backward or forward to a destination
still my head whirls with countless thoughts.
Some silent, hidden voices,
sometimes you hear, sometimes not.
I take my loneliness with me, still chasing dark shadows.
Skyline
In a hyperbolic move
The black bird flares up
With the flash of wings
Falling, turning away
Makes her own path,
Let it happen like a
Pause on a wooded trail
Or be soothed by river water,
Every figure inhales
Cold intake air,
Embraces the blue sky
Flying to reach Manhattan skyline,
Time to look inside
A wavering pulse closing off,
The emptiness gone,
I wish beneath the black skin
The knives and weapons
Turn into cherry flowers
Gopal Lahiri was born and grew up in Kolkata. He is an earth scientist by profession (passed out from Presidency College, Kolkata) and currently lives in Mumbai. He is a bilingual poet, writer, editor, critic and translator and widely published in Bengali and English language. He has five poetry collections in Bengali. His English poetry collections include Silent Steps, Living Inside and Tidal Interlude. and five POD books published from USA. Anthology appearances (among others) includes National Treasures, Indus Valley, A posy of poesy, Concerto, Poet’s paradise, My dazzling Bards, The Silence within, East Lit, Indo-Australian Anthology, 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, Eastlit, Grey Sparrow Journal, Dead Snake, Underground Window, Muse India, Poetry Stop, Setu, Debug. He has jointly edited the anthology Scaling Heights. He was awarded Poet of the Year, 2015 by Destiny Poets’ International Community of Poets, Wakefield, U.K.
Back to top
