Poems by Chaitali Chattopadhay

 

From a Broken Jalsa

 

 

You push aside the harmonium

saying, "all these are ephemeral."

The words, like drops of pollen,

dissolve into the thin air

as soon as they are uttered.

 

That also gets me worried

for the letters you've written to me.

I can't tell you how stealthily

silence shrouded our January!

 

Well, that's how the ephemeral is.

I just want to let you know

before my eyes get parched,

even after many winters

the music will remain.

 

 

Could have been a Love Poem

 

Eight AM and eight PM are not too

different to me these days.

A bone-chilling wait has taught me how a caterpillar becomes

a butterfly

for a patient Myna waiting for it!

 

The sky gets narrower;

a scorching sun lashes out in the air.

 

As long as a possessed mother holds on to her stillborn baby,

so long I mistake it as my escape route

and keep straying further.

 

The one who rubs shaving cream,

the one who puts up the mosquito net – 

like water, replicas –

on those faces any fear can be floated today, I know!

 

 

 

It had only been a minute since I began to know you as my

redemption.

Slowly as my sickness too, you began entering within me.

Right then

the door in between

was yanked down.

 

 

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