Poems by Kushal Podder

Parenting The Plants

The plants brown, slacken
their boughs. Their miniature 
green clouds rain down.
Your botanist chum and your 
thorough searches on the net
say generic solutions and platitudes,
Either too much water or
too little. They need more Sun or less.
Time does not exist. Life is an illusion.
Death is the other side of your mother's womb.

They do not live in your house, know
the slant of the sun, behaviour of the blood.
They do not ask back, When was 
the last time you sang? Smile? Opened
or shut the hand-gun's safety box?
If they knew they would have suggested 
some childhood treats like sugared oranges
or molasses on toast to seed some hope in you.
Only you can save those plants.

 

After Drowning 

The apparition does not look
or feel like you yet. The light
behind you speaks too fast too loud.
I can guess - in the end the ray
I know as you will speak with clarity 
and words my vocabulary recognises,
and I shall wake up, and my wet attires  
will startle me. It is possible to drown in a dream.
Salt-skinned I brace my pain and see that
the waves have swept me ashore, to your memory.
Now, I need to build life, first 
a fire and then a wheel.
After The Heist 
What did you do with 
the money from your last heist?
Your fledgling finds your gun
cold under your pillow on 
one cloudy night. Your wife 
and you panic, albeit you still keep
the weapon inside your 
dream vending machine - just in case.
What did you do with the constant jolts
in your temple, shiver in your hands,
your occasional screams so silent
that it borrows the vocal cord of the moon.
In the cold wind a hot air balloon 
passes the city roofs one by one.
You drink and reach for the old streets.
The fireflies in the dark deride the insects 
that fly another life into the blaze.

 

Meeting Chaos

I meet chaos again in a busy street.
We both, shivering a bit, hang 
change the pavement and
go ahead, embrace side by side
on the thought-wire. You see,
chaos is my twin, and I suffer this
syndrome, change direction fast
if I face a surprise or someone 
from my past. The eventual 
acceptance takes minutes, hours,
even months. The eagles flights 
hint at the rain. The shop window
repeats my face as if looking ahead
at chaos was not enough. We can
settle for a silent coffee from a kiosk
so small that the thirty millilitre cups 
look like the lake red with the infected Sun.

 

After The Heist 

 

What did you do with 

the money from your last heist?

Your fledgling finds your gun

cold under your pillow on 

one cloudy night. Your wife 

and you panic, albeit you still keep

the weapon inside your 

dream vending machine - just in case.

What did you do with the constant jolts

in your temple, shiver in your hands,

your occasional screams so silent

that it borrows the vocal cord of the moon.

In the cold wind a hot air balloon 

passes the city roofs one by one.

You drink and reach for the old streets.

The fireflies in the dark deride the insects 

that fly another life into the blaze.

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