Kushal Poddar is the author of “Postmarked Quarantine” has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of “Words Surfacing.” His works have been translated into twelve languages. Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe
Emergency Benevolence
On the day of my daughter’s
third birthday we emerge
from a mid-tier inn, all tired.
I display on my cheeks a shade
of red deeper than I my usual.
My debit card has revealed
an unbalanced jaywalk across
this life we’ve been cast in,
and hence I can feel no pain
when a sedan leaving the parking
runs over my toes semi-sheathed
in faux leather footwears.
My daughter shrieks, cries, mumbles
something we can decode
even without hearing. Later after she
falls asleep, and the panic settles,
and the post-coitus boudoir holds
my wife, dozed off, and me crumbling
in a desire to fix everything everywhere.
An Ode to Nothing
On the road the morning besoms
hum Horatian odes to the leaves and blossoms
fallen. The night passed belonged to a storm.
An ant leads and follows, the marching of one.
I know what these remind and I cannot recall.
A car stalls at the red; no other vehicle
rolls from that side or from this
but the signal stays static.
The First Blood
You will not realise
the first born, a river
with two blind ends,
spreads like a lake unless
you fly high and see
the body of truth with the drone-eyes.
He opens the door for the house.
Others have so many chores.
He grins, welcomes the folks visiting
and drips his shoulders when
winter ebbs, and the gadabouts
become only the feathers they leave.
He is all our mistakes while fishing
for truths. Beneath his rippling skin
lies desires died and secrets jettisoned.
At night he gurgles,” In me
my father sleeps with a stone chained
to his neck.” You shiver.
A swirl of fireflies ribbons
the gift of darkness.
The Field Guide Poetry Magazine 