‘The river falls into a folded slumber’ – Two poems by Debarati Sen
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘I sketch bougainvillea with the moon. / The clouds smell of dreams today / assorted as per my mood.’
A Serenade to the Rains
Reading a Zuihitsu on a soused June noon.
I sketch bougainvillea with the moon.
The clouds smell of dreams today
assorted as per my mood.
They sit with me on my moth-eaten bed
and speak of old times.
We sip on a glass of old monk and sing a serenade to the rains.
My heart craves to walk along the alleys of Giethoorn
drowned in a tropical languor.
The sun has gone to bed a little early today.
Away from the snarling city crowd.
A sudden gust of wind,
a few rain drops,
mosaic verses, and the innocuous times.
Hiding Saudade amidst my periwinkle rhymes
The sun has gone to bed a little early today.
*
An autumn farewell
At the end of a murky day,
our words turn grey like the London smog.
Pale and lifeless, they trundle along naked and listless
In search of a home.
Evening settles down
on the bosom of a tired city
and our weary eyelids.
The river falls into a folded slumber.
The waning gibbous moon wraps itself with a sheet of melancholia.
It hums a dystopic lullaby.
I ponder over those half-hearted conversations that we left midway,
cold like the leftover food in the microwave.
Once I had painted clouds for you
now they heave with disgust.
The rains gush down the high drain.
The clouds have left my paintings loose.
On my way back from work, I think of those half-eaten ramblings on a sombre noon
That lay between us like the highway roads.
As we kayaked across vast deserts of silence,
our feelings slithered on the empty bookshelf.
Withered with the sands of time and tide
My whinge echoed from the fringes of the sleepy hills.
The house burst into flames of oblivion.
Your soul returns to the sea.
My entire room smells of an autumn farewell.
***
Debarati Sen works at the Presidency University Kolkata as a Junior Assistant. Her debut poetry book Blurred Musings has recently been published. Debarati has been a recipient of the Tagore Award 2022, the Sylvia Plath Women's Literary Award, and the International Poetry Writing competition held by the Elite Book Awards in November 2021. Her poems have found shelter in prestigious websites like The Antonym, The Yugen Quest Review, The Kolkata Arts, Lapis Lazuli, The Das Literarisch, and more. You can find her on Instagram: @debarati_poetry.
