Pick Me Up Back To Our Old Dungeon !

Paulami Sengupta

Author of ‘Jiwhai Baarbaar Fire Ashe Laban’ (Bangla Poems Collection) Paulami Sengupta (Born: 19 December 1977) is an Indian poet who writes in Bangla and English. she has worked as freelance translator with Sahitya Academi and National Book Trust. Currently working with SAGE Publications (Delhi), Paulami is also part of a poetry group ‘Moonweavers’. Presenting some poems : Being Poet

On her ageing

The head hits the clock
and out come those feathers
‘Best before’.

Before—before breathing heavily under stairs, on cartons and crimps
before laughter, tears, words, wounds and kisses.

Before sleep walking ribbons
get lost in old cupboards
or flutter under wheels of forlorn bicycles.

Hours!
you were never mine
you grew up
moved out.

Cleaning up

Mangled crisp oven words
Trail down the spine
All is fair in lovely wars
Borders meekly whine

Wards pleated neat in clinics
Barbed cotton sleeps
Chairs waiting for our turns
Ether is for keeps

Come out come out
Game is over
Do not hide
I seek
Thy beauty decreases never
Sanity
Span-n-spic

Waiting

‘Revenge, revenge.’

A red wasp stings when I miss the 9 o’clock train.

Teenage strums
on the verge of thirty
still clutching to endless tea cups
in a forest where
logs, twigs and delicious leaves
kiss fire at ease.

Empty railway tracks
cipher the past
I can recall old squabbles
like tables of 6 and 7.
Cousin X taunting at her place
Aunt Y smirking in M's marriage
Bully B roaring in tears...

Me
the whining demon
cribbing along the suburbs of Kolkata
gaping at the foothills of Aravalli
confessing in Darjeeling
and
venting ink on fresh faces in Kalyani

A degenerate queen
shooting twenty arrows
at my ugly brains
while drinking
fifteen yellow minutes of impatience.

Traveling Light

Smart!
I should be
In white sparkling trains
Under urbane grounds
Plush effort
Pressing need
Kleenex/de-text
Untidy seed
Clean your vacuum
Trim your heels
For travelling sane and sound

Old boards and brushes’ ends
Reels of words
In stubborn lanes
Dead tissues
Of sleepless mane
Thrown safely out of chest
Love poems
Naked bare
Memories with extreme care
Stroked/fondled/caressed
Then tipped off the nest

Neat pieces
Rest in peace
In wheeled crates
Of things amiss
I will see you outside platforms
When I miss all trains
Twelve stations, seven routes
When I learn I can’t commute
You will come and pick me up
Back to our old dungeon