Poetry: Lahari Mahalanabish

Lahari Mahalanabish

The Predator

Where the craggy bank zigzags

like the pell-mell gait of the prey

and the river fumes like the sweat 

on its velvety skin

where the dragon-neck tendrils 

are smoked by fiery breaths,

petals wither; stamens snap; 

blackened pollens pepper dry stumps

where the grass-songs are muffled 

by the thud of toes and deafening heartbeat 

where the earth gouged out by two pairs 

of clawed feet 

showers on borrows

where the sunlight is bayoneted

by pointy branches until the night clings on,

the day cremated in the pent-up flames 

of rocks exasperated 

by the sluggish pace of evolution

 

where the swelling contours burst through the trees

a trunk arcs back like a sling before the hurl

and a swarm of leaves with stout stick-like veins

descend down the flaming layers of sky and buries

the undergrowth

where the moist air offers its last swipe 

on a sea of convulsing muscles

before a shadow stuffs itself with another,

an incessant scrunch as if the fibres 

on roots have sharpened to teeth

and the unit of time altered - from the interval between 

two heartbeats of the hunted 

to the pace of dripping blood 

waterfalls born, 

with the river leaping across eras-

from Triassic to Jurassic,

from Jurassic to Cretaceous to _

 

In a clearing, now the predator stands,

its long vertebra

a corrugated path of evolution,

the ribcage a basket spilling speculation,

but those sharp teeth still bore through

a mind of crammed visuals

till those huge empty sockets pass our stares  

to the other exhibits on the wall behind.

***

Wool and Solitude

Your tawny curtain curls around

the night like an imploring pet;

the flickering candle flame slants 

- a squinting eye,

and a rivulet of wool slips into the cleft

between knitting needles.

 

Your hunger doused by the cabbage soup,

oblivious to aromas from the roadside tandoor.

The minute hand ticks

sweeping across the digits, 

the gecko clicks its tongue

tapping on the cob-webbed loft door

loosened red wool traces the undulations

in the roller coaster of sound waves.

Bookshelf glass panes mirror you

when you undo the grey bun,

the nameless road wound up in it all day

trails back 

and back;

tales from a bygone era

that are stowed and replicated within the folds

of your numerous wrinkles spill out 

and mist the grudgingly sanitized walls 

memories deceptive like refractive rays -

a long slide down the slant it takes 

to land on near-truths of your youth;

the cardigan now a coarse strip –

a caterpillar clinging along the needle

.

 Ever since the music failed you,

only the wool underlines words from noise,

only the wool unfailingly tethers to routines,

the wool reigns in against rose-glass impossibilities

and loops into the wavering boundary

of the post-fairytale land you identify as your own.

 

Line repaired, lights sizzle back,

the first flicker on your man’s keen eyes

a moment’s bliss of life regained

till the brightness weighs down upon the photo frame

facing the fluorescent lamps

that would soon swarm with November bugs

what remains is only solidness of oak 

against death’s disdain

and your cardigan a burgeoning garden,

golden buttons trailing clues of a lost sun.

***

Imprisoned

I pummelled your essence 

into flatness, 

I supressed and supressed

till you became weightless like

a paper, but the paper was a wrapper

sheathing my thoughts in you.

When diced into pieces, you scattered

all over me,

when drowned in spirits,

you lingered in my taste.

Uncrushed by the onslaught of memories

and untrammelled by the elephantine load 

of my daily deadlocks 

you entice me to the sea separating us,

the same sea which had left its dampness

on my bed,

the same sea which enters me at night 

pretending to be you

- throes of passion, heights of pain

till my mind turns a labyrinth

from which you can never escape.

***

Bio: Lahari Mahalanabish (Chatterji) is the author of the recently published short story collection Tales of the Anointed Skeletons and Love (Ukiyoto Publishing) and One Hundred Poems (Writers Workshop, 2007). Her short fiction was long-listed for the Grindstone International Short Story Prize (2020); poems were shortlisted for Mslexia Poetry Competition 2021, Erbacce Prize Poetry Competition (2009 and 2010) and short story collections for Eyelands Book Awards (2019 and 2020). She blogs at http://theserpentacursedrhyme.blogspot.com.

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Setu, June 2023