Eggs of Brexit, by Kushal Poddar

The hard side of this, and the one soft,
remains hoodwinked in the shell
as the things boil. 

“How will you prefer your eggs?”
I remember Gulliver
once stranded in an island
with a run of hard border,
say, “What if I am too full of eggs?” 

“The choice,” regrets the cook in portent voice,
“Doc, is limited.”
One may enter in the eatery
but leaving without a reverie of will disregarded
seems an antithesis.

..

Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)

Author Page – amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

Valley of The Lost Planes, by Kushal Poddar

Before the war and after

the paper planes nose dive

into the valley,

and history seems soporific;

 

almost never his begetter

reads the daily paper

to his mother kneading doughs;

no one cares, knows

where those paper planes go.

..

..

Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)

Two poems by Kushal Poddar

Cats Don’t Love Guns

The cat waited for her house owner
in the evening after the mass shooting in a mall,
an usual gloaming midst all the palaver
about the climate change, dictators, stalls
of sugar inaugurating besides the sugar stalls.

The old man returned not; the cat did
on the following day and night,
ate from another resource, moaned
at those swaying summer leaves
casting susurrus shadows on the stairs.

The house owner waned away from the cat’s
immediate mind.
People listening to the news heard

,,,

Basil

Basil recalibrates the summer.
The aliment consists salad and breeze.
We lift forkfuls of good heat
and before we digest the mass shootings
life nourishes life. Because I feel the sting
I am alive having a summer dish in your company.
We both know moon rises somewhere
behind those acropoles; life may end life;
gun may reproduce sons of a gun;
basil for us, blessings for the demised;
because we discuss we live to discuss some more.

..

Kushal Poddar

Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)

 

Author Page – amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

Loony Tunes, by Kushal Poddar

Nn-Nn-Nn, a tune
turns you into a loon
albeit if you
recall the stew words ferment
you will get free
and also be caged –
now how can you place your obscene phrases
on the ditty and let
the dappled run of its hide hide the coyness
one meets once mated
while round the lane’s bend
three years old is cudgeled
because of the faith his pop bears.

..

Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)

Author Page – amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

Two poems by Kushal Poddar

Psychometrics of a Refugee 

I

Nothing borders
the inkblot of teen secrets.
Doc, it looks like a cave
to stow away
a summer whose red plastic ball
still tumbles heartbeats around.

II

In the empty space
God resides, and inside
an abstract of my tenement.
I negotiate its staircase.
My hands barely hold those vacant cartons
you want for storing my home.

III

Doc, playing tarots
with my pet witch?
Last night I counted Four, Three, Two…
to lose sight on
my shadow, pagan, mating with my
other silhouettes at the Stonehenge.

IV

I shall always see a butterfly in a Rorschach Test, and the word ‘Memory’
will feel my nostrils with the ghost fragrance of a zoo.

 

A Bullet Not For The Bystanders

 ‘A wrong blood’, they say to the widow.
The bat in the brittle heart of hers battles the harsh
daylight. What is a right blood? 

Meanwhile one bullet that missed the bystander’s chest
shadows its own failure, fails to settle down.
Who did it want? In the dark someone
climbs up our stairs. We hear the knocker. 

‘He can be an angel or a wrong blood’,
you say. ‘Should we open?’ Silence.

..

Edited the online magazine ‘Words Surfacing’.
Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), A Place For Your Ghost Animals (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), Understanding The Neighborhood (BRP, Australia), Scratches Within (Barbara Maat, Florida), Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems  (BRP, Australia) and Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems (Hawakal Publishers, India) and now Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel (Alien Buddha Press)
Author Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

The Bogger is Mimed, by Kushal Poddar

If you imagine a tale
chronicled well
the protagonist may come alive,
God, omnipotent, and
a few thousands years later
people may kill in his name.
So you write?
..
The names written on the walls,
comrade, fade with rains.
Is it about your reign
that fire crackles,
lit with the waste of the land,
mind, shape and size of our hearts?
..
Imagine, your temples throbbing
with the summer sun, the trident
of rays seeking the resting roofs,
doves and pigeons all vaporised
to reform when the breeze cools the blaze.
..
I read your myths written
in the papers, rocks, scissors,
on those half torn pamphlets,
burnt slogans, interviews, debates.
I forget what I read, all but the gist,
and then that too- pardon me-
what was the lesson?

—

 Edited the online magazine ‘Words Surfacing’.
Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), “Understanding The Neighborhood” (BRP, Australia), “Scratches Within” (Barbara Maat, Florida), “Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems”  (BRP, Australia) and “Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems” (Hawakal Publishers, India)

·         Author Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/

·         Twitter-https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

War and Pieces, by Kushal Poddar

A thousand bombs away
two empty cabs cross each other
on the rebuilt bridge bathing in
cones of orange light.
..
It didn’t rain, and yet my feet
sinks in shallowness of my shoes.
The place between my ring and little finger
moists the coldness it holds.
..
I stoop to pick up a coin
slipped through the hole in someone’s pocket.
It cry a moon.

..
Kushal Poddar authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), “Understanding The Neighborhood” (BRP, Australia), “Scratches Within (Florida, USA)”, “Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems(BRP, Australia)” and “Eternity Restoration Project, New and Selected Works”(Hawakal, India).

Mice Running On The Hot Wire, by Kushal Poddar

The white mice of dreams

gnaw through the resistance.

Breathe in. One. Breathe out. Two.

Let the sleep in. The white teeth

of the seizure flash the torch to seek

a grain of the grain in the forest within.

..

The cat becomes a purring machine.

I drop my coin of heart to retrieve

a soft stirring. The street vends

heroin to the overdosed.

The siren leads the runners to a wall.

In the well of calmness the white mice

gnaw in. Gnaw in.

..

Kushal Poddar authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), “Understanding The Neighborhood” (BRP, Australia), “Scratches Within (Florida, USA)”, “Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems(BRP, Australia)” and “Eternity Restoration Project, New and Selected Works”(Hawakal, India).

Tijuana Couple, by Kushal Poddar

A couple in Tijuana

snowballs depression.

..

Their daughter just flies over

the furthest tower,

over the border.

..

The thing about the pigeons is

they have old man hidden

in their voice and they look like babies.

..

A snowball in Tijuana

exchanges two kinds of mindlessness.

,.

.

Kushal Poddar has been featured amongst the poets for the month December by Tupelo Press, Vine Leaves Literary Journal’s Best of 2014. He presently lives at Kolkata and is the editor of the online magazine ‘Words Surfacing’. He authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), “Understanding The Neighborhood” (BRP, Australia), “Scratches Within” (Barbara Maat, Florida), “Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems”  (BRP, Australia) and “Eternity Restoration Project, New And Selected Poems” (Hawakal Publishers, India)

A Tale of No City, by Kushal Poddar

You began feeding them,
thrice a day at first,
and they had their wilderness,
tiny nails, teeth more or less. 

Once a day then. Boredom
caught the morning sun.
The flooded streets laid eggs of dry patch.
Sam’s mom complained
about the animals living in your yard.

You began fading,
and they did not comprehend
the magic that spells waning away.
As if to be God one must
appear to disappear, build
someone’s fortune and draw a circle of fate. 

They begged, meowed,
crawled and leapt inside your house.
You shooed them, told them
not to make love or even if they did
not to birth rights. 

And one day you found kittens,
eyes still unopened,
under your bed, your old shirt
forging their camp.
They cheered at you, wondered 

why you would not wave happy hands,
after all you gave them once,
but because you gave you can take as well.
You started a fence around you,
in your house, on your bed.

Kushal Poddar presently lives in Kolkata and edited the online magazine ‘Words Surfacing’ and authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), “Understanding The Neighborhood” (BRP, Australia), “Scratches Within (Florida, USA)” and “Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems(BRP, Australia)”.

Immortals, by Kushal Poddar

People here have forgotten to die.
Their tiny village sleeps
through the meteor showers
..
and late night chemical slip,
blasts and those blisters
that appear to eat flesh.
..
They live through murders, rape.
People sleep. Wake. Rake their gardens,
and as prescribed by Zen,
they undo their heavy work.
..
I meet people all the time,
forget their names,
and they do not mind.
They live through my id.

While his guitar by Kushal Poddar

We light a frail candle.

Waves. Canopy. Phosphorus.

His strings garrotte 

the darkness.

A dying blaze traverses 

the nighttime firmament,

and you fix a wish

with your finger tip

calloused from working on me.

Music. Bonfire.

Everything is as unbroken 

as everything ground

again and again and once more.

Bombers In The North Korean Sky by Kushal Poddar

You rubbed off a name from my wall.
I strip a tissue from your brain.

Today rain mocks time’s movement.
Sleep mocks coma.

Here I scratch a street.
There your Bible salesman seeks a door.

North of all music,
cold, my umbrella huddles with yours and listens

to a dying jazzman’s cigarette-hand.
You remove blue from my song.

I operate on the rest of the notes.
Sleep hiccups- good day,

and we dream- every soldier sings.
Every singer battles within.

Kill-gay Day by Kushal Poddar

Do you love
or
do you love?

Today is a kill-day.
Today they summon
your birth parents
and say, “You failed,
and we shall erase
your mistake.” 

Do you love, babe?
Or do you love?

Hide your feelings
somewhere in the water.
Tell the morning wood
about your absolute dreams.

Today they shall obliterate
what they don’t comprehend.

Leaving, Entering by Kushal Poddar

Half of your flipped truck

reclines within the border.

I watch sun lift

the hem of the barbwire skirt,

sniff at your merchandise.

We shall be late to

clear the vigilantes, bro.

We shall spend cold

in the cave of night all darkness, waiting.

You light up the pipe of talk.

Peace, I say to the circling eagle.

Not Too Famous Fables -3 by Kushal Poddar

As if I lost my eyes,
regained them again,
I stroll past the abbey.

Monks pray in sotto voce.

A neon sign knifes
the silence.
I stroll past the field
where my father
still seeks his only son
who won’t return home
after a game.

I Think This Is Too Liberal by Kushal Poddar

And my city 

opens the door

in chemise,

its evening coloured 

undergarment showing,

its sleepless children

pulling and pushing 

their toy cars, trams.

You lower your suitcase.

You can live at its heart.

The Alien by Kushal Poddar

While you close your door 

and open your window 

to keep an eye on me I shape-shift 

into a pair of pruning scissors 

or a tool to mend your broken outside. 

An outsider, I am. My stars witnessed 

a harsher landscape. 

Evening brings in them here again. 

I stare at them. Those windows of the Infinity. 

Doors are closed black. You sent 

your white spaceship to knock at those. 

I wonder if they will strip search 

the shaft for the bomb 

called humanity.

Africa by Kushal Poddar

A puff of dust

emits a child.

I am so small

in front of him.

Even those baobabs 

stand puny.

We play battlefield.

We play hide 

and vanish.

We play lions

and poachers 

after their hides.

I am so child 

before the future.

Dust winds through 

ashen baobabs.

Midsummer Violence by Kushal Poddar

In the dream about a blonde

and a cafe coiled

on a cobblestone corner

 ..

he dreams about an unstable gun,

serpentine, wobbling, hissing in his hand,

only a press on its trigger making it hard,

stiff, quiet, warm.

 ..

In this dream red bougainvilleas

bloom over the clouds, and blood

on the street.

People screams to wake him up.

The muzzle of blast turns

towards his temple.