Two New Poems by Kushal Poddar

 

Orange Deadlight 

 

One morning often caws 

in my cranium - 

My stubborn demand asked

for some now forgotten treat.

 

Mother, oh mother. 

Mother, my asthmatic mother.

 

Some fare, my dreams 

now alter it every night, 

I desired in lieu of our regular 

ration of toast and marmalade.

 

And I made my mother throw 

the glass jar of citrus preserve 

at me instead. 

 

Sometimes I duck. Sometimes it hits -

that awkward projectile - 

that cylindrical shape. 

 

I kneel down in slow motion 

and turn my head; 

the glass jar bleeds orange 

across the carpet.

 

Mother, oh mother.

Hold her. She had a bout,

and still I hate orange.

 

I say this to the monarch.

It sprawls its orange wings.

Now here. Now on the pansies.

Its legs are full with some 

other blossom's pith.

 

 

Drinking The Funeral

 

I drink the funeral, mumble 

my seventy five characters eulogy 

to the wrong widow, 

but in springtime, even 

during this pandemic 

where we appear at the funeral

wearing plague masks and some relief 

to have an excuse to visit 

an old friend, alas dead now, 

it is hard to believe in death. 

 

We pass away. Pith to pith. 

Here is the pollen of one memory

spreading yonder.

An author and a father, Kushal Poddar, edited a magazine - ‘Words Surfacing’, authored seven volumes including ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, 'A Place For Your Ghost Animals', 'Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems' and 'Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel'. His works have been translated in ten languages. 

Find and follow him at amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet

 

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Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe