Sunday Morning with My Daughter

Poetry By Abin Chakraborty

SUNDAY MORNING WITH MY DAUGHTER

I'm halted by leaves
That flow through the streets 
With dry brown banners on high.

They chant their slogans of expired dreams
And sing to the tunes of decay and dross
With posters of others' bright claims.

Drained, I trudge and balance my books 
And sink within sofa and sloth.

But suddenly she bursts with laughter and light
And tramples my checklist of loss with her dreams
That range from the towers of wizards and kings
To spaceships in canyons of Mars.

I jump on her broom and fly
And bin all my "items not found".

LAYERS OF GREY

At times the days are all blurred.
Calendar and clock, melt into shapes
Of one grey blob
Sprinkled with fleets of yellow fallen leaves
Which sweep like ghazals of long buried loves
Here, along asphalted planes.

Slowly and slowly, they creep into my veins
And drain all the pigments through pores.
So, I flap and fumble in frustrating files
And fiddle with the fables of fate.

Of course, it's not always such.
There are bursts of crimson and Cobalt and mauve
That light up the dark of dog-eared days
With splashes and patterns of light.

But all seems distant and loose.
I flutter and rattle like windows unhinged
Or knobs that are no longer in groove.

Only in mists of grey, pallid strokes
My pages of misshapen woollens are laid
Like hoardings of outdated ads.

I cuddle and smear their shades
And grizzle into layers of grey.

Abin Chakraborty teaches English Literature in Chandernagore College and his poems have been published in different magazines. A collection of his poems, Unlettered Longings, has recently been published by Ukiyoto Publishing.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL