Three Poems by Kushal Poddar

 

Near The Red Light

 

From the drunken garden,

from the dancing silhouettes, 

the clients and their mates 

turn their sweaty heads when

the bells of the temple sway. 

 

Summer, and yet the garden-floor

muffles the footsteps

with its layers of fallen leaves.

The fallen ones never leave

here and now - they say. 

 baking is complete.

 

 

The See-through Dress Sun Wears Today

 

The town idiot writes

"I am broke, broken." with

his nails on the staircase.

 

I see his toes through

his open-heart shoes.

His wife-beater reveals his ribs,

and his ribcage the door behind. 

 

Weather dot com says,

it is raining now, and so

I open my umbrella although

sun shows no promise, no veil.

 

Nothing is covered today.

A sculptor has forged the town

with a nod to hiraeth.

 

 

That Last Train

 

Tomorrow's train passes 

the Wait-for-me station

leaving no one.

Songs wear torn trousers;

a tambourine sways in

the cradle of their constellation;

the singer sniffs some nailpolish remover.

 

The girl waiting, my unborn sister,

my long gone mother, 

perhaps seen through my rear window

like a ongoing slow motion murder,

does not stop believing

what she never believed with all her

senses and gnawing.

 

"Roll over." A beggar asks his partner,

"Heart aches." The announcer 

goes berserk with some rotten news.

Night wanes.

Kushal Poddar - The author of 'Postmarked Quarantine' has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of 'Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe