Poems by Gopal Lahiri

Gopal Lahiri

My Poem

Every day, the words shuffle their feet, they waltz

around the books and shelfs,

Near the open door, the alphabets wait like a patient

for the touch of my hands,

The stanzas get stuck and sulks at times but revert back

right up my alley, crisp and plain,

Days spent digging for some elusive answer,

A cool breeze washes over my face,

The lights and shadows of some other universe 

weave lines and half-lines.

For the poem taking shape in this mothy room

I slide into the evening on the back of a dream,

***

 

Fading Rainbow

It breaks through the morning clouds.

each circle invents some chanted fragments,

How hard it is for the voices to be shut?

It has been there so long, waiting

then under the sky-swarm of stars,

What remains is the desert vastness, 

At the corner of the street, there is a palpable silence

filling up with chip poems; the anger waits,

The whisper of a fading rainbow splits the evening.

All portrayals are vivid, the words and arguments make

way for - decent, dignified, wounded soul.

Dreams are like mist that thins and disappears in the blue.

***

Muted Rhythms

 

In the morning, nothing but a thin layer of cloud floats by

there is the light of connection, a kind of purity of being

And so much humming inside, move in another life

carry it around, the sky does not forget the colour

Blue is not blue enough, how else are we measure

in a world where words are woven like tapestries-

River I know, one that does not flow or changes its course

voices first, then letters soak in inverted colours.

It’s time to open up the secret that we never want to hear

undo the air of loneliness, the leaning shadows

take a few things with them, in going some way

towards sun and shadow. Whispers thicken the air.

Emptiness stirs in another life in absence of light, then

lays bare those unused syllables, those muted rhythms,

***

Tremor

Here the mornings are muted grey and grey

and the clouds I know are like wrinkled lines

over the layered mountains,

Limitless space

I have held it for long in my palm and felt it like soft feathers,

in turn hit the easterly wind path,

Breathlessly I stare at the broken columns and pillars

reminding of the ravages of quake,

I feel the tremor in dream and the scars.

left behind are like still born children,

Wounds and pains are buried beneath the rubbles.

each cry fades into oblivion.

If only, at the end of all this

the twilight steals all the memories and

whispers breaking into an evening melody.

***

Search

A sparrow sits on the parapet,

before our eyes     the clouds carry all the whiteness.

Outside veins are heading towards yearning,

I have stopped holding up walls     of broken embraces.

As I close your window     a handful of sky moves from

one planet to the next.

We reach the edge      write seven alphabets under the eyelids

street lights shed their skin.

I continue the search,

ivy strangling in a fence     the red ants seeking earth.

The evening skies     repeat a smile that burns

and comes through unknown stars.

……………………………………………………………..

Short Bio:

Gopal Lahiri is a Kolkata based bilingual poet, editor, critic and translator and published in Bengali and English language. He has authored 23 books to his credit. His poetry is also published across various anthologies and in eminent journals of India and abroad. His poems are translated in 14 languages. He is the recipient of the Poet of the Year Award in Destiny Poets, UK, 2016, Setu Excellence Award, 2020, Pittsburgh, US and Indology Life-Time Achievement award, West Bengal, India.

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Setu, June 2021