Piku Chowdhury: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Dr. Piku Chowdhury teaches in a post graduate Government aided college. She is a research guide, editor, author, painter, translator, singer, poet, photographer and mental health facilitator.

THE SUBTERRANEAN 

At a juncture you would pause

With a vast stretch of arid sand engulfing your route

And you would turn back. 

If you see a river behind

Instead of the vistas traversed

What would you say?

A mystic silver stretch of fluid 

With suggestions of oblivion,

Secret sweeps of silver tails 

With tales of yore and gore and sore 

And much more, perhaps with 

Hints of salt and petrichor.

All the words and clever designs 

Inundated by serpentine

Bends of river and you are lost

In that spot of helpless quiet.

Strain your ears and catch the notes 

Bubbling in the deepest crevice of heart

May be they will tell you now

How rivers can flow beneath a desert 

With redemption of the subterranean. 

***

FIRE AND ICE

Burning coal on your tongue 

Would emit smoke with stench of pain

You would breathe out smoky tales

Of lies and pretense and deceptions. 

Icy caverns in darkness clad

In layers beneath the frenzied phrase

Preserve the silent truth forgotten

To be exhumed at the final showdown.

***

UNDERWATER

They say you don’t hear a word

When you are underwater 

A strange lull surrounds your brain and ears 

And senses, escapes, hopes and fears.

Pack up the sun and stars and cloud

Pack up every resolve loud

Pack up self-image in shroud 

Illusions of cruises, shore,

Verdant gardens, petrichor;

Let’s just drown to icy depths 

Of silent voices – ghostly, strange

Floating weeds and crabs deranged;

Madness in the gleaming scales

Your vanity hit by swishing tails.

There you hear a silent song

Of wonder, magic and meraki,

May be you then stare at you

And find your stranger reality.

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