Aneek Chatterjee: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Aneek Chatterjee is a poet and academic from Kolkata, India. He has been published in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies across the globe. He authored 14 literary and academic books. His latest poetry collection “of Ashes and Persiflage”, published by Hawakal, came out in November, 2020. Chatterjee holds a PhD in International Relations. He was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia, USA and a recipient of the prestigious ICCR Chair to teach in foreign universities. His poetry has been archived at Yale University.

 

Coffee Cup, Red Cherries

A big meteorite is circling
& mocking everyday sojourn
Treacherous drops of the ocean
jump to my coffee cup
My toes, rhythms with girlfriend
finally dance to a splendid vacuity.
& I respond to calls from red cherries
but a Coelurosauria threatening me
from nowhere
Pubs are full of creatures I haven’t
seen in my plate before, eating
every bit of my food
The fork has only joined the ugly
passage of the meteorite

Red cherries still calling
But my coffee cup has
surrendered to the
Coelurosauria


A Grasshopper Jumps

I present my gloom in a
packet of wondering flowers
Sighs of agony melt
in the skies, above green
forest.
A grasshopper jumps into
the innermost space of my
cardiac chamber and says,
throw your last breaths
to a frolicking children’s
park, in the dazzle of
cosmic rays …

in a sudden dusk


Vacuum

Intricacies have turned
virtual in the new normal
Sure you won’t call me a cad
now if I lovingly throw
you in the air
inside my cell phone
& send the best picture of
a peart somebody,
essay a poem effortless
into your brain.

But show me please,
how can I paint
a ubiquitous vacuum
in the virtual space,
in a new normal ?


Lost Book, Purple Sweater

Now I close the door
Now I close all windows
Put out all lights in the pathway.
Now I darken the moon
Now I darken the brain
to see those who walked
the green grass in misty mornings;
who sang winning songs
beside the piano; who lighted the
stove in the kitchen in winter
nights.
Now I see the coffee cup
& the lost book; the purple sweater
with long hands, long enough to
reach a broad shoulder.
Now I see my sister plucking
yellow flowers, now I see friends
in the football ground

Now I close all doors, all windows
to be eligible to see everything 
in front of my dead eyes

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Life, Cognition and Creativity 2021 :: Setu, January 2021