Kushal Poddar | Poems

Hiroshima Tree

Behind us, one tree flares up
a second-hand memory of Hiroshima.
Behind us, one solitary tree is Hiroshima, the blast-moment city.
We break our breads, sweet, too dolce,
with a promise of the cherries on top
in the middle, but not quite the real ones.
We suck those sugar-glazed red globes.
We have inherited the faux world,
and we feed the bird because life
feels like a taut skin at any moment
it can be singed, peeled away.
We should kiss – we think together.
The air in between us plays a refrain.
The notes scattered all over the park
to the applause of the pigeons.
One moment they are here; in the next not.

Bees

Without the bees
the world as we know it
will be stung to nullity.

I tell my daughter.
Her hand guards her eyes
as the buzz flares in

its sun-like buzz
spiking the ovulating breeze.

Music Left Me

The butter knife I strike against
the dish and the plate with
a soggy biscuit
spills some music.

The newspaper states that there
should be no note left
in my head.
The flash is – the music

has been last seen standing
holding the mast of a bridge
the authority forgot to build.

White Reverie

In the white reverie
of this weeds’ field
on a sunless day

we roll together.
The act of love is grass-bottom here.
The act of love sins,
gently releases thin petals in the air.

One yelping dog stares
from his ninety nine degrees angles.