{"id":1166,"date":"2008-02-14T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2008-02-14T09:04:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-14T09:04:00","slug":"two-poems-by-ritwik-deo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-poems-by-ritwik-deo\/","title":{"rendered":"Two poems by Ritwik Deo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daisies on his pink shirt<\/span>


Daisies on his pink shirt<\/span>
The stone crusher, buttoned up for BBC<\/span>
Hammers rocks into stones and stones to chips<\/span>
Shards fly<\/span>
Anger and spite from the stones losing matter and mass <\/span>
Blisters line the Nubian\u2019s palm<\/span>
One leaches pus<\/span>
The other is a starfish in the white sweaty palm<\/span>
Cheeks pock marked shimmer in the sun <\/span>
Rouged<\/span>
For BBC.<\/span>



Ponderers will ponder<\/span>


Instead of playing<\/span>
That full moon<\/span>
We sang<\/span>
To the broken harp<\/span>

We sang <\/span>
Of broken men and sorrow of the lake lost <\/span>
Of frost framed willows<\/span>
Of moonlit stream<\/span>

Instead of breathing <\/span>
Frigid air <\/span>
We danced <\/span>
In swirling Incense of full bodied hair<\/span>

We danced <\/span>
To the joy of broken men on haunches<\/span>
Bleary eyes and closed palms<\/span>
To the smiles of the destitute<\/span>

Instead of whispering<\/span>
In each others ears<\/span>
We whispered<\/span>
To leaves <\/span>

We whispered <\/span>
To rotting logs<\/span>
Clad in bright moss<\/span>
And viper holes <\/span>

Instead of crying<\/span>
In tears on the crackling fire <\/span>
Bursting with angst <\/span>
The tree with his story untold<\/span>

We cried<\/span>
Of Ophelia<\/span>
And her muddy death<\/span>
Of love lost in strange places<\/span>

Justice comes in coal sacks said the tiny elf. Let me show yours, the elf said. And reached out inside the coal sack and brought forth a chip no bigger than his fingernail.<\/span>

\u201cThat <\/span>
Is what you shall have<\/span>
For coal is scarce <\/span>
And your role in this world menial\u201d<\/span>

\u201cJustice is for men of honour<\/span>
Not men of my extraction<\/span>
We study life<\/span>
Men of honour practice life\u201d<\/span>

And thus I spoke to myself. Words came in whispers softer than the Scottish stars. What, but a clump of manufactured pain. Till it demanded, teasing out\u2026strand by strand. Nothing remains but a shining bland plate. <\/span>

\u201cAye\u201d<\/span>
Said the funny little elf<\/span>
\u201cshed for salvation <\/span>
And you will do fine\u201d<\/span>

Putting the chip of coal in my pocket, I strode forth. For a grand day that awaits. <\/span>


\u2022 Ritwik Deo says “I am a post grad at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Most of my writing is dull and uninspiring; meant for the industrial wastescape. But then, every now and then I jot down the insufferables.”<\/span><\/span>
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Daisies on his pink shirtDaisies on his pink shirtThe stone crusher, buttoned up for BBCHammers rocks into stones and stones to chipsShards flyAnger and spite from the stones losing matter and mass Blisters line the Nubian\u2019s palmOne leaches pusThe other is a starfish in the white sweaty palmCheeks pock marked shimmer in the sun RougedFor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}