Ten Poems / Kushal Poddar

An Apolitical Murder

The body, flesh now, a shape

that nears the shadow once it cast

or an arid bough buoyant

in the shallow water, oscillates

to the rhythm of the ripples.

Its lungs are mud-filled.

The sun crowds the horizon.

Shadows do not move. Crows call

no one specific. The body, a metronome,

regulates the song of the nightfall.

If I would have painted this

it would have been both a self portrait

and a landscape. Here dream

sniffs one's sleep; the killer hunts himself.

Do Not Search For Any Meaning, Reason

Yellow ochre soccer jersey,

cheer-friend and sunset

are a few things that plants

a shrub in your chest

that rips apart as it grows

and days decay.

You will never admit,

throw a bottle and crash it.

I shall say some platitude

about sadness, something

psychosomatic. Doesn't matter.

Sun hits the net held by three posts.

Sundial to Sundown

See, my shadow, shoes,

little stuck figure blue,

one or two unreasonable griefs

or freaky grooving moments

spilling out of the frame

I keep them tucked in.

Sure, can tell you time,

but why?

You may flip your phone,

look at that sundial,

pass time entertaining

the algorithm at your door

showing you every fruit

in its carpet bag

hoping one might hit the spot.

My shadows wane.

I stand awash in

the sundown - no longer

a pointer of time that never existed.

Brother Blood

The brother who opens your id

and loses the key,

makes you drunk and piss

in your own yard as your wife

watches from the first floor boudoir

returns.

You know the grey. You know the why.

You know the honey

and the sting he hides.

You lower your guards in the ring,

let the blood ooze, trickle

down your chin and yet do not wipe

the corner of your mouth.

He offers your children lift

to their school,

takes them for fun instead.

Nothing sharp, not more harm

than one pale ale too many,

your wife sees a blade

whenever sun catches his glasses.

He returns. He disappears.

You know where. You know why.

In The Orbit of An Obituary

The widow of handless Tony

lights up candles in the rum bottles

he left. Evening comes to their porch.

This moment every evening

her neighbour shakes his head

because he doesn't know

how to play an oboe.

The Ephemeral

The paying guest college kid

sinks his teeth in his

morning pizza, the first order

of the day for Mrs. Ray's.

The porch shines beneath

the newsworthy clear sky.

The paper reports about a city

choking on orange air.

Not this one we have today.

We too have the other kind of blue

when lungs shrink and hearts hurt.

I watch the kid. A flying ant writhes

on the cheese melt. The red

of the tomatoes stream to no place.

Waiting For The Rain

The summer burnt leaves

garland the boughs and the twigs.

Rain hasn't arrived. Nothing

can oust the worshipping deceased.

I wait for my wife in the shade.

The nextdoor balcony holds up

a murky mirror to my torso.

It shows only my contours.

A low pressure system represses rain.

I wait for my wife. Nothing arrives.

Browned leaves' vesper shivers in the trees.

The Opposite Word In Your Heart

On an opposite-word-

in-your-heart day

I stravaig, my consciousness

enunciating 'Darkness'.

It is mere a word.

The sunny day highlights

an army of ants locomoting

a green yellow leaf

up the tired stones of a temple,

another century for the deity

waiting for that single leaf full of glow.

My tongue hopscotch the word.

A crow turns its head.

"It's mere a word." I explain.

Waiting

The clock unwinds silence;

in the embrace of our pillows

we sleep off twelve gongs;

snow swirls to settle on

our tropical forty degree Celsius land;

a singular apparition

holds its crow mien and fettle.

The mango tree writhes underneath

its unaccustomed white sheath.

Patience waits outside, leaves

its footprints on the snow

although in the morning we see nothing

except some wet roads, cars,

greenery and feathers, nothing that

can make us believe in the myths.

The String

Why the road and the pavements look wet?

Rain remains absent in this plain for awhile.

Do we sweat this much? Oh so wet!

The kite whisperer friend lets it be

a white stingray in the almost-white blue.

"Report back; bring back the messages of the clouds."

The news from the sky sounds fake; we misread it.

"If you misinterpret something fake," hope says,

"what you perceive might be true."

The boys reels and pulls the string.

Sometimes the thin line cuts the skin.

The asphalt glistens. Do we bleed that much?

Bio

Kushal Poddar

The author of 'Postmarked Quarantine' has eight books published across the globe to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and ex subeditor of Outlook and editor of 'Word Surfacing'. His works have been translated into twelve languages. Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe