Three Poems by Gopal Lahiri

 

Eye’s Memories

 

Someone distorts my image on the wall, skimmed

by an earthen lamp’s flame.

 

Someone laughs at it, moments rinse the colours,

what more is there to say?

 

Surrounded by shadows, darkness sinks into iris

so, I wait and more wait.

 

Now that I have seen dim reflections in my corner

I am done with the therapy.

 

Perhaps I am weak, punished, unknown to my life,

nothing can want me to protest.

 

Sometimes whispers are like the long fluttering silk

weaving the death wish.

 

I find calmness and peace in its perpetual silence,

sad it is to many; it brings the end.

Soul Music

 

I am going to give back now.

look at my window sill.

it’s littered with handprints.

 

hands beckon to each other:

a primeval language

deaf like a stone, a downpour.

so close is your sleep dust eyes

then my mandible on your shoulder, my ear

against yours, our noses pointing away

to the cliff.

 

skies holding various shades of colour

the flowers fade, smell is gone. The voice

of the trees like any meanders,

sinuous bends, loops, curves, turns,

winding in the channel

a simulacrum of soul music.

Blank Folder

 

A thin sheaf of no more than a dozen pages

spilling from the accordion folder,

documents are scattered across the desk.

 

Neat and cursive on the handwritten confession,

the bookshelf talks in whispers to its shadow

under the mottled ceiling lights.

 

The sightlessness tassels words into responding beam

warmed by the anxious flights,

where sunset quivers outside in the Palm trees.

 

Memories draw out the killer lance tips,

drafting the stains on the wall,

old conversations debate the angle and colour scheme.

 

Between summer afternoons and evenings

unknown darkness continues to count,

the broken stone steps, sorrow’s blue weeds.

 

My home is now an exile’s grandeur, that

bends to receive the abundant solitude,

there’s still fire in the silence filled vessel.

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 24 books published, including five jointly edited books. His poetry is also published across various anthologies as well as in eminent journals of India and abroad. His poems are translated in 16 languages. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021. 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. His latest collection of poems ‘Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets.’ has received wide acclaim.