Voices Within: Amit Shankar Saha

Dr. Amit Shankar Saha is an award-winning poet and short story writer. He has won the Poiesis Award for Excellence in Literature and Wordweavers Prize amongst other awards. He has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize. His works have received commendable mention in Cha ‘Void’ Poetry Contest and Wingword Poetry Contest. His articles, stories and poems have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and anthologies nationally and internationally. He has authored a collection of poems titled Balconies of Time. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Seacom Skills University.

Building the Pacific Ocean

Tonight, I can build the Pacific Ocean,

plunging into a buoyant darkness,

send sonars from my lips

to bounce at your depths.

I can dig deep and hold

water on pillars of patience.

On other days it may take years

but not tonight...

Tonight, is the night when

grief consorts with delight,

an ailing body renews its cells

in an obstinate wait

at the placid surface

for a recalcitrant echo.

The Water Diviner

Your words at the end of the week

beget a month of wordlessness

My words become a tourniquet

on my vacillating forehead

You are the gloaming of the day

slowly fading out on tiptoes

My solicitude becomes frail

as memories starve in the night

I, a water diviner, search

for a solvent to sustain life

A gossamer world spins a web

to entrap my unconsciousness

Atoms of My Psyche

Butterflies in the grass swing from stems

Two storks’ flap over electric poles

The moor by the marshland moan dissent

Far on the circumference traffic ply

A warm wind makes my eyelids blink

A breeze makes a long leaf discontent

From outside the transparent panes

Spying trees look into my face

Shaking in disbelief at the opacity

Of some indefinite influence

Blindness

A pole tilts on stilled breeze

A bare-branched tree laughs at the sky

Climbers climb down the fence in a rotten mass

The metaled road mixes with the red path

A caged fan flips the summer air under a bored light

Plants in pots hide sounds of sustenance

Behind the wind, wind-chimes rehearse being dead

Blindness is the smell of coffee we never had

Voices Within - Complete List of Poets ::  Setu, January 2019