By: Srijani Dutta

Delusion

I want to be, want to be,
Want to be all alone,
Amidst the sunshine
And at the dark sea shore
Where wind passes,
Carries news of the murder
Of an Abyssinian soul,
Eyes plucked out
Nails melted,
Neck Twisted,
Throat cut.
Do not stand over the heap of Swollen soil,
Who knows a widow Was still crying in joy
Was burnt alive,
Then buried the half Cooked smelling flesh
Into the chamber of Dead,
Old secrets
Where a raven smokes a
Pipe
And sheds a tear for his lost Love,
That love was more than The love he had been Given during his lifetime,
His feathers create
A buzz of naked Madness,
Of insane rambling of
Less known souls,
His beak reminds us
Of a curved arrow,
That was used by the poets, lovers and Warriors and whores.
Sinking, sipping and slitting the maze of indisposed Truths,
Impregnable silence deafens the noise.
Step by step, the raven will reach the lady,
Away from clamour,
Away from crimes,
It will hold her curls,
Will suck her dry bones,
Translucent and Morbid.
Still, I go,
Still, I stand
Where the soil is coloured as scarlet red,
I will drink the rotten juice of vines,
To shriek out the wish
That I always cherish
Under the rooftop,
In city’s Underbelly,
Of becoming an echo, a Mirror and all,
To delve in solitudes,
To flee from delusion.
2019

The Man

Peeling off the bruised skin of chameleon
Thou can see the flesh,
Parcelled with dripping blood,
Drop by drop,
A pool of masks
Is born.

There was a garland
So solemn, so serene
Like Eden;
Unless Eve and Adam
Broke the wall of its tranquillity,
They wanted to be the man of desires,
Man of knowledge
Alas!
Fell on prey of a murky eye,
Exiled from the lustrous garden.
I exist, you exist
Only for Them,
So, why they be sinned against than sinning?

From falling down on the ground
To rising again like a phoenix,
Someone somewhere writes something
About the evolution,
This process defines us,
We, the human and the immortals.
2019

Suicide

From where do I start
to trace the train of suicides, burning, decaying lives,
under a canopy of a starless sky, in a groaning city?

Recurring maladies, grown out of angst, and turbulence
Like flies swarm onto a shit,
Pale, pale heart stinks,
like a rotten yesterday, Letters are not sent anymore,
world drops dead inside
a wireless box.
From taking expired pills to burying heads,
into the bathtubs,
They are searching for new ways,
to get rid of silent cries,
moaning at bed,
Pillows get drenched
Like a sunflower,
stretching its petal to bathe in light.
Trapped, traumatized song
At late night clubs
They listen
When they no longer find themselves rooted in the reality.
2019

Fate

I am drawn
Towards the empty canvases
Hanging in the air-
So empty, so empty
That I can see my own eyes
Taking the lead to paint;
The eyes that usually shower tears
Are splashing colours and hues
On my fate
That I solemnly search
In the stopped clocks
And inside the dark tunnels.
Oh fate!
Why so fearful!
Torrential downpour waits for you
Only in the hope of making you wet
With peace, beauty
Truth and solace.

Dialogues with Selves

(I)
Let the rivers run
Let the water pass
Through the unknown rivulets
As you never know
Whether it will go to sea
Or will stop
In the midway.
Let the masks be worn
Let the liars fly
As all the things are ephemeral
And we will surely die.
Let people say
Let the words act
Oh, my dear, listen
‘innocence’ has lost its track.
One, two, three
Let everyone go
But adore a ‘diamond’
That once is turned
From ‘carbon.’

(II)
Let the shadow fall behind
You,
Beside your body
Or anywhere else
Or get erased in rains.
Let the bemused ones
Feel clarity
More and more
At the advent of a new season.
Let all the ragged women
And men
Peel off their skins
Layers by layers
Like onion
That causes a self-doubt
Or like orange
That causes a frown
But the inner remains the same
That serves as the breeding ground
Of ideas and creations.

(III)
Let the moist of air
Wet your hair
And make you float through the horizon
Let your weightless body
Reach the paramount of a hill
From where you know
The meaning of life
As you have to cross the valley
To meet the next hills.

(IV)
Let the rubies
That God has given to you
Radiate its light
Onto the landscape
Where you live,
Let the light remind you
Of the celestial body
That you see
In the blue sky.
Unzip your lashes
To eye the dawn
The sun is still there
And you are on different soil.

Notes: The first part of the poem is written by me on 26.06.2018. Due to my nature, I go back to my previously written poems, and start reading those lines. This time, the act of going through the first part makes me write down the rest of the poems, and I have written the two other parts of this poem on 20th August of 2022.

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Srijani Dutta hails from a beautiful place, Chandannagar of West Bengal. She has completed her Post Graduation in English literature from Visva Bharati University. She loves reading books and expressing herself through colours, words, and images. She writes poetry and has published her poems/writings in the journals like Setu, Parcham, Contemporary Literary Review India, Story Mirror, EKL review journal, Plato’s cave online journal, The Antonym etc.  While she is not writing, she paints. Her paintings have been published in Borderless journal, Creative chromosomes, Rappahannock review, Fourth river journal. She tries to maintain a balance between her research and her professional creative practices.