Poetry: Gopal Lahiri

Gopal Lahiri

Soft Silence

The night falls without notice,
And with every passing
Star stroking star,
Eager and happy
I wonder if they know how
Time breaks on its own.

Then slowly the galaxies feel distant
In the low light,
The planets are looking for
Their own identity,
Do they say anything at all?

Unfamiliar faces speak in silence
So softly,
About their own failures
If only they know how to escape
in the darkness,
How to hide in broad daylight!

Wordless

Sometimes I hear footsteps, sometimes not
you pull the curtain,
we invite vanity, not love.

when words chose you, not me
a meaningless divide,
I want to escape
baritones in wordless conversations

the truth is buried,
how do I tell you?
cloudless evening holds promise
wooing our skin,
you end up with a spherical smile.

what about missing the raspberries?
sugarless mouth
insulates me from your sweet tongue.

Mindscape

Outside
the twilight time stays down
as if in a primordial soup

no water, no land, no life.
on the brow of the hill
the land drops suddenly, you see miles of sand,
rugged cliff, crushing waves

drift into enchanting dreams.
in the druid heritage
you are for scaling the summit
now want to land on the silver sand

a welcoming space.
shadows melt
clouds secure every corner of the sky
the truth is reversed
it seldom is.

Promise and Poison

Our faces are fading away
Sky filling with cries
The scarlet birds dip and swing Still dissolving in the air
The mother’s swollen eyes.

Soon the leaders walking
Towards us
With bags of promise and poison.

They sit beside us
Soon they slit our throats, veins and arteries
They will take everything what they always come for.

Soon against the recorded rules and routines,
the evening rays disappear on the stagnated water.
Night will be ready for aftermath.

Cityscape

In its midst always
The layers of filth and froth
Holding in both hands the begging bowl
With hope filled faces
Striking into existence
The city howls from its chaos and concrete.
There are times when a few pale white birds
Hovering in the smoky sky
And come down
Kneeling in the underworld,
A rapid search between the cracks,
The lifeless ants and insects.
Mithi river lights up the underbelly
In her matchless eyes.
Glass building and beyond the dirt
Quiet, calmly
A loose wind blows under the grey clouds,
Butterflies fly around
In all corners of the nearby shady green,
Grow out of the grave,
in the company of the all shades of dead.

Setu, January 2018