GOPAL LAHIRI

 

GOPAL LAHIRI

Long Walks In The Rain

 

There is flight in all of us.

 

Park street can never be more solitary

than in the rainy night,

 

Then after the rain,

freshly cut grass in the park is looking for empty nests,

fists of flowers on the boundary wall wilt,

 

The street lamps expose the naked pavement

craving for daylight, steps, paws and dirt,

 

Looking for footprints, the open window is

taking deep breaths,

 

Shadows crumble poems under the branches,

night distils into silence,

 

And you can sketch it, always

an inky blot against a bed of lights-

 

Hum it, carry it along, your wound, your loneliness.

 

Kolkata tiptoes the noisy past beneath the retreating stars.

 

Spotlight

 

Morning is still unborn,

 

Cloudy curtains like crushed Sarees disappear

after the rain,

 

The sky is now awashed with

hope and innocence,

 

A row of spotlight nails to the boundary wall,

Stone lamp glows in front of the Kalighat temple,

removing darkness,

 

the city is at its most beaming, noiseless,

festoons hang on the doorway

tramlines draw the traffic patteren.

 

The green leaves hide

against the silhouette of trees,

the wilted bakul sinks, longing for sunlight,

 

Somewhere a tiny voice cracking

the first sound,

 

Morning has never been such a restless infant.

©gopallahiri

 

Cobble And Pebble

 

A hyphen rests between the cobble and pebble

there is this soft light dips and rises

draw the movement of the sun,

colour has other laws

snatching saturation of hue from the twilight.

 

Sand scatters on the gravel beach

night draws the footprints on the bank

of crushed silt,

there is the heartbeat of the moonless sky

breaks into a lullaby.

 

the dark print of the many lives

outside the walls, on the street

dimness, stillness: that is the sense.

 

nothing enters, nothing escapes

from the old-world canvass.

©gopallahiri

 

GOPAL LAHIRI 

GOPAL LAHIRI is a Kolkata- based bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 22 books published mostly (13) in English and a few (8) in Bengali, including three jointly edited books. His poetry is also published across various anthologies as well as in eminent journals of India and abroad. He has been invited in various poetry festivals including World Congress of Poets recently held in India. He is published in 12 countries and his poems are translated in 12 languages.