Illustration by Arpan Roy
In My Dreams
With hourly news updates,
My old city bleeds a little.
The guns go off like,
Sirens announcing lunch at the warehouse.
A curfew has been imposed on spring,
And the flowers do not even wink at the bees.
News of Killing arrives,
Like uninvited relatives.
The wind blows through the bullet holes,
Decorating my city’s punctured lungs.
And as if in a dream,
I hear the lanes call out my name,
And as if in a dream,
I shut the doors.
Mapping Blood
I move my fingers tenderly
Across the space between the stars
And with an equal kindness
I trace cities on the map.
Cities which were once my own,
Lahore, Delhi, Dhaka.
From the corners of the dog- eared pages
Where history has bookmarked
Years with blood, I can hear,
People walking, women wailing,
And their shadows of who they were,
Whispering and refusing to walk along.
I run my fingers all over the
Political map of the Sub- continent
And the tip of my fingers
Smell of blood.
About the Poet
Sayan Aich Bhowmik is currently employed as a lecturer in English in South Calcutta Girls’ College. When not under the burden of checking scripts and other departmental work, he whiles away his time writing, reading, watching movies and supporting Chelsea FC, and hoping for his readership to swell.
Recent Comments