This poem is a Fountain
I take up a poem
Written in a foreign tongue
And much like searching in the dark
I bump into its
Metaphors and idioms.
slowly I roll the letters in my mouth
Savouring them like expensive wine
Only to lean onto a chair
To settle my nervous heart.
This is a language
I am just learning
Walking into its crowded city
Open on all sides.
This poem is a fountain
In that city square
And I am by its side
A map in hand, in which
The places are marked
In different shades of the night.
Class Work
In class, Mrs D' Souza wrote
A few words on the board
And our task was to identify the smell
We associated with them.
For Winter, some of us wrote oranges.
Pickles at nicely with grandmother
Napthalene was ably supported by old books
And tungsten yellow bulbs paired with fritters sold on a rainy evening.
After class, she read out our answers
And we all went home
Wearing each other's words
Like a dab of attar
Behind our ears.
Travelling Barefoot
The city has pulled down
The shutters of the day.
It is now almost 11
Even on your terrace.
The rich summer night
Has been brewing inside your apartment.
While I'm shooting
Crumpled sheets of paper
At the moon.
Someone is compiling
A list of the names we call each other
In our dreams.
The dogs are still barking at the moon.
I travel barefoot across nights
In which I don't dream of you.
Sayan Aich Bhowmik is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Shirakole College, West Bengal. He is the co-editor of Plato’s Caves Online, a semi- academic space on literature, politics and art. He has recently published his debut collection of poems, I Will Come With A Lighthouse.