First Birth

The two owls shout from the rooftop
A hurricane of bats flies around,
A father devours his own child in silence.

The rising stars struggle to breathe in
The first to go out in the dark is the slum boy
knowing no one is waiting,

A monster exchanges a bunch of flowers with a kid.

There are flutes and fiddle
A plenty of percussion stomping
The tram line is still wrapping the lone street dancer.

What if the moon melts away and shower silver coins
What if a blue-eyed cat start singing love song in a baritone.

The house and mansion drifts past each other
The pavement flies away, the lights turn dim
A martyr wears a joker hoodie,

The leaden sky seems to hold its breath,

We laugh, we cry, we break laws,
We have not been handcuffed, we have not been punished,

Slowly the night gives birth a poem in my secret diary page.

 

 

 

Gopal Lahiri was born, grew up and lives now in Kolkata, India. He is a bilingual poet, writer, editor, critic and translator and published in Bengali and English language. He has had seven collections of poems in Bengali and eight collections in English and edited one anthology of poems in English. https://www.facebook.com/glahiri @gopallahiri