Three Poems By Gopal Lahiri

 

Blue Hour

 

There is another world inside this one.

Grandma’s natural neem wood comb 

smells hair oil, smells skin of the scalp,

memories of growing into the soul exist 

now beyond the four broken brick walls.

 

I see as if my grandma stands its ground when

something happens, throws seeds to the pigeons

gather at the dark corner of the roof,

The morning is fragile enough to see

the time bending in her weak hands. 

 

The coconut tree near the wooden gate gives

an anxious look while the tiled roof receives

radio waves of passenger crows late call, 

the white saree with black border records

the blue hour time every summer day.

 

Possibly something no one meant to see,

comb’s teeth pulling through white hair

to untangle, to decorate her stylish look,

yet the easterly wind comes to dishevel it,

never refill the magical moments.

 

@gopallahiri

………………………………………………..

 

Surreal Night

Tonight, there will be no sleep for me,

no words but the memories fall from the leaps

of night and capture the strong wind,

a star drops at the corner of the eastern side

 of the balcony, 

with it comes a clump of meteoric dust.

 

A cactus bush grows on my hand, a needle

sprouts on my skin.

The sky is now a bottomless sieve and an estuary 

forms near the front gate,

high tides pull back my blanket and fishermen

leaning on my bed collecting

the shopping bags of wishes.

 

I’ve always here under the roof at life’s beginning,

from the heaps of rubble

year by year I gather your images,

observing at these things 

moving in your roving eyes.

 

@gopallahiri

………………,,,,,……………….. 

 

Ancient Storytellers

 

Walking along the windy forest path I do not

look back on anything.

The sleepy mist and the scent of the rock soil

above the wooden turf sip weak sun

The narrow path is deeply stippled with humming

 

silence of the teak and bamboo trees

and still up there

two skipping frogs stare at me and

I look hard at their wet eyes

searching for their desire to stand erect.

 

Uphill I knock at the wooden door of

the derelict temple,

a few bees still circle around the abandoned

beehive and engage with darkness

and migration in stillness.

 

On the temple top, alexandrine parakeet

and jungle fowl

swallow history and scream like the

ancient storytellers,

the grey afternoon absorbs all metaphors.

 

Rajpipla hill does not see anything,

It collects only animal pawprints,

broken nests and incomplete footmarks

I lie down on the grass and then stand up,

start my silent walk all over again.

 

*Rajpipla Hill is in Gujarat state of India.

 

@gopallahiri

………………………………………………………..

 

Short Bio:

 

 

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 32 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than one hundred fifty journals and anthologies globally. His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 16 countries. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021. He has been conferred First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award on literature in 2024 for his significant contribution in Indian English Writing. His collection of poems ‘Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets.’ has received Pan Asian Ukiyoto awards. His Selected Poems was published from CLASSIX,  New Delhi recently.