Gopal Lahiri- Two Poems

 Ecstasy

In your house the shadows
chasing the full moon and trappings.

the bricks, the iron grills, the stone wall
stand in attention,

along the narrow path in the garden
the frosty night steps in silence,

not much haemoglobin in our veins
already tainted with guilt and pain,

perhaps we need the charcoal fire inside
that scrubs the dead cells,
that brushes aside the blocked arteries.

perhaps we need to burn in inferno
on a painstaking, pensive path-
all the rushing of blood, an ethereal, pristine joy.



Ruse

I am in sleep, sleep is a trap
once useful like a rubber toy
now archaic.

there are times when
night can’t resist in spite of best efforts
to outsource lights
in fear of darkness.

a wound recalls clause and phrase
as relations,
not taken much of notice
rather chosen to ignore
accusations, grievances, self-pity
buried in silence long back.

the whips of west wind persists,
celebrations are not over
in devising
the mind’s convolutions.