My father was forged with fire, if he saw injustice he fought it through he walked on burning coals and argued for causes by the time it was passed to me the fire had quietened. I do not rage against dark nights my nature is more amenable, even selfish I like to stay out of…
Tag: poem
Welcome 2017!
Sometimes I think I will surely throw myself off these walls that blind my soul. Sometimes I search for that lone song that adorns my house and makes it home. Sometimes I walk by the salt sea spray and wonder at footprints long gone away. But most times, I’m only me trying to prove…
A Sunday evening walk in the city
The sidewalks are taken by hawkers brewing pakoras and tea the smell of smoke cigarettes, kerosene, open fires, the smog of tiredness like a dirty chadar on the hands of the beggar lady forever turned upwards. Petrol fumes… of course how could I miss that? “take shallow breaths,” I tell myself, as a horn blares in…
Minto Park at dawn (from BVC)
If I look hard enough I see you striding along the path your denim shorts and white shirt striking among a sea of walkers. As your pace quickens, I fall behind till you come back around. I toy with a stone watch the crows flapping about. Early birds and all that jazz, isn’t that what you told…
The moon knows
the moon hides not the ravenous drooling of the malevolent dark the moon shies not from the claws at her face that found their mark the moon only waits waxing and waning naked and stark watching lest our souls are consumed by night’s hard casque for the moon knows only the moon knows that the…
The five senses
Winter came early this year. Across the city comes the smell of smoke and naphthalene as boys light fires and sweaters shake themselves out of trunks. The moon swims among the clouds as I walk the empty streets, the pavement dwellers are gone, they huddle behind doors deep inside the narrow streets where moonlight never…
Rituals
Tired of reality I search in verse for words that falter bend and break untouched by years of quiet acquiescence. I return purified. In wanton disobedience.
The festival of lights (Diwali)
You go about bursting crackers, heedless of the swirling smoke you laugh at what you cannot dispel oh once, won’t you look? …into the longing eyes of the homeless child who stares at that whirling disc of light, his clothes are torn, his fingers worn from the bricks he carried high on his head…
The wedding
The veil is lifted a shy bride waits a hint of a blush a prelude to the day The guests are waiting the groom strides in a processional overture let the ceremonies begin. A whispered prayer an union of eternal souls whispers of ‘forever’ the recessional explodes. The guests scatter in the wind soothed for…
lady
This lady stalks the skies tonight masked by the wail of creatures pretending to be human. Bury yourself in a scrapbook. Quick, before she makes you hers and hers alone.
Sustenance
I close my eyes feel the soft sigh the creak of a chair as you sit at my bedside laying silent vigil upon the long dark night. Morning comes eyes half open I watch you slip away into the day taking with you the demons of my night The light is yours, the dark…
ipsita banerjee 