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                                                                          Issue 8

Page 44

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Infusion And Iron

Late morning. The hangover
possesses half of my head.
The other half listens to the news.

You brew some tea, albeit
by the time I sip its insipidity
it has levelled down to the room temp.

I step out to join the pogrom,
cancel two men.
When I return the gun was still hot.

Kushal Poddar__


__________________

Recollecting Andrew

A memory of a Cirrus
glides by the square sky above
the yard, features
a folk and a murder,
and I agree - a remix
has a better genetic pool than something
pure; pristine is the process - how often
I collect the fragments of you
while piling wood, yard works, laze,
reading about the dark cells
multiplying across and within -
to think about it - we are nothing
but colonies of memories.
Here you go a cloud rebirthing
again and again to shower me
with the purity of a mixture
featuring everything that you have been
and everything that is something else.

Kushal Poddar__


Scordatura

Spring surprises us this time.
"Don't close the door yet," it says,
"Death awaits on the doorstep."

We cover our mouths as if
our emotion will escape
through the orifices, yaps.

Death seems to stoop in our yard,
spread an endless fistful of seeds
and spit to provide them nourishment.

Litanies of leaves recite breeze.
Spring keeps the door open.
We stand near the apartment's end.

  Kushal Poddar__


___________________

Sleep Rocks The Boat

On the boat sleep reclines.
The pipes of the ceiling rocks until
they are all liquid; behind
the thin veil of the cabin wall
a faint forgiving quarrel plops up
between the couple of other semantics.
The couple of somnabulence, waves;
the waves of the seas;
and I think of the war between the propellers
and the water; the shore is
an obscure medal sans any meaning
when achieved.
My grandmother appears in the dream
in her Sunday best for my grandfather
lying in his cheap coffin just to grin
at his bequeath; what he has left rides
the Noah's ark; sleep talks to
the couple fighting. Dream sports
a meaningless medal for its valory

  Kushal Poddar__




Monologue

The bird's monologue demands
nothing of the listeners,
now not being a time for breadcrumbs;

the clouds prearrange their thoughts
and then think them out aloud;
the monologue comes into fashion,

and the roads of this city
drift harking and mishearing
what, one possibility may claim,

could have opened the spaces
only truths can level.
The bird cares not if they listen.

  Kushal Poddar__



____________________

Pills

My father buys my psychiatrist's medicine for me.
His hand ruddy, his cheeks pale, he recalls
buying condoms in his youth.
Everything was sin then.
Everything is sin now.
He will place those pills peeled
on a white little porcelain.

  Kushal Poddar__