By Anjana Basu
Abhimanyu Or The Mythology of Gyres
Like a circle in a spiral
like a wheel within a half heard song
from a womb
my father talking strategy to my yawning mother
and the son seed within her
tales of gyres and labyrinths spinning
on a needle point
clockwise twice pause twice more
then counterbalance
two slashes discus on needlepoint if not finger
and then? this work will set you free
but mein fuhrer father
from this spinning heart of fury
gas seeps slow creeping through my veins
till the light dims into a moon
and my life runs rings around it
this work will set you free
mother tell me the end of it
my father’s voice silenced by sleep or a kiss
you were bored and I the seed
plucked before I could bud
the fluid holding me spinning me
lullaby rhyme
counter clockwise twice and then
the clock’s hands spinning in a mad race
to holocaust time
suicide bomber detonated at sixteen
by an unfinished story
nothing sets you free
.
KALI 2
the wild creature formed from night and blood and the pale gleam of stars edged with steel a whirlwind of darkness darker hair and a tale of lolling tongue as destruction spirals into a force and form not woman at all or a she shaped before the elements known to the night stalkers plea of mother ending in a whimper the calm I cannot find within the storm
.
.
Anjana Basu is a writer based in Calcutta, India. She has 9 novels, a book of short stories and two anthologies of poetry to her credit. Her byline has appeared in Vogue India, Conde Nast Traveller India, and Outlook Traveller.
Borderless 