At the gates of the body (translation from Gagan Gill)

At the gates of her body

she awaits him

Outside is just as dark

as inside.

Oranges (a translation from Jibanananda Das)

Once I leave this body

Shall I never return to this earth?

May I come back again

On a cold winter's night

With the pitiful flesh of an ice-cold orange

At the edge of some friend's deathbed.

Burning Deck (after Casabianca)

I know why he stood on the burning deck

He needed to set it on fire.

Or combust himself from all the ire.

Here's the original poem: https://poetryarchive.org/poem/casabianca/ 

Reeds

 

Take that, AI!

Try failing with no eloquence

But with the stutter of awkwardness--

Like ants scurrying between limp morsels

Like a dizzy bee buzzing in bizarre circles

Like renters trying to pack up and rush

At the lee end of a dried up lease---

Take that, AI. Try (being) these!

For a rainy day

Things we keep aside 

For a rainy day—

Leftover joy

Unexpected dessert

An extra teabag

Money, love, travel, sleep

And our ability to say

Yes or no…

Oh and before you go

Like an unsure Desi

Ever on the lookout

Carry that umbrella,  ले लो!

On the shore (translation from Utpalkumar Basu)

An airy day of wispy clouds flies past, like love,

like a land deed.

I have pulled back the nets of my fears,

And the nets of my vision toast in the sun.

And yet, where are those who tend to sing?

This life is for wounds, for bloody arteries.

Allow me a breath, just a few moments

Been so long since I last waded into the sea.

Mid-April reminder of Dr Roy

I'd wept more than I thought I would

And had gone for a wake as you would insist

And imagined you smirking and smoking away

Floating upon some Cimmerian mist.

Mushrooms (in response to Giti's seasonal haiku with bombs)

What's not to love?

That rich umami coating on my tongue,

This truffle lingering like a tune well-sung,

Those enoki like spring lives fresh-sprung,

And that biiig cloud, blasting earth's lung.

Musings on Walking (post-op)

To only talk and not walk

Or to walk only to stalk

Or to do neither but lie still as a rock

Congeals all muscles

Like the last of the pasta stock.

This spring I'll try

Simply walking the walk.

Growth (for Bhaswati di who generously admired my brevity!)

My poems have shortened with age.

Mayhaps a writerly roadbump

Or just a shrivelling stump.

Easter 2026

There is no crack

left in dusks and dawns

No easing into evenquiet or morningmerry.

Light comes and goes like an attack

unknown, like that treachery.

Scar, Tissue

 Scars from minor battles

Tissues from a minor cold

(& nightsweats, slime, blood, and grime)

All that scartissue can hold

10/30

A third of my life lives far away

A third of my mind only happens in dreams

Another third is scattered 'tween oceans and lands,

Less than half but always there,

Like a third of the poems that April demands.

This Haiku is an Island: To ADG

This Haiku is an Island: To ADG

Far beyond all that

there'll be an island to chat

Where all tempests pause.

Translation from Ogden Nash

খবর পেয়েই যাই 

​

আজকাল খবর পড়ার খবর জানার 

উৎসাহটা আর নেই। 

ঠিক যখন মনে হয় যে এতই অবস্থা অন্ধকার 

যে আর হতেই পারে না, আরেক পরত কালি লেগে যায়। 

​আর সেই জন্যই খবর ভালো লাগে না আর, কারণ 

আজ অবধি এমন যুগ তো দেখিনি যখন 

সব কিছু এতো ঠিকঠাক চলে শুধুমাত্র ভুলভাল মানুষদের জন্য।

A Letter to Dr Roy (a VERY English department poem)

There's a medievalist in my department I like very much.

She is fun, a little bit rambunctious, and reads the past no less

than with a postcolonial smirk.

No activisty impetus in her as such.

But just a little nod here and a smile there

When Jane Eyre hates being a "suttee" or sits like "a Turk".

Recently she wrote about transphobia and the pardoner's tale

and how Joanne Kathleen was another pardoner, god bless.

"Have you read much about the Canterbury Tales?"

Thanks to you, I said yes.

Planned: Translation from Bengali to English

 

Does anyone shower before dying?

Or smear vermillion as carefully

Or buy fish for the family before killing themselves?

People rush forth on the streets. Enormous, massive surge.

On the bridge (not street!), bottomless, no handrails.

Who knows when the man walking by you wants to jump?

(Could not find the Bengali title, but I have given the English a name)

মালপত্তর (a translation of Andrea Cohen's Freight)

মালপত্তর 

কোনটা বেশি 

ভারী 

এক কেজি 

পালক 

না আশার 

স্মৃতিকণাটুকু--

যদি উড়তে 

পারি। 

Therapy-aunty

Therapy-aunty

In therapy these days

she makes me talk to a younger me.

With softness I am to speak

and pry out the secrets of my past

But all I see is an older woman

looking like me waiting for me,

softer skin, meaner heart,

questionable traits.

In therapy these days:

she is readying me for my past,

while meanskin aunty awaits.