Four Poems

September 1, 2016

By Goirick Brahmachari

1

Tired isn’t really the word.
It is more like an age of weariness
That has fallen over us.

Days slip, we escape responsibilities,
We eat, we sleep.
Exchange sunlight for a dark December morning
But for how long can we?

***

2

It isn’t about losing a thing anymore.
The time has come when I cannot utter
The words that can describe this black smoke
That forms inside my chest
As I look around and pass my days,
Sleep open-eyed.

Dreams do not come.
Only a mirror.
Faces reappear from erstwhile nightmares, lives
I had led once. Colours of nights on sleepless roads I have passed,
Tastes of cheap cigarettes, thrust.

Sliding rather than walking,
Hiding between the shades of my thoughts.
Time passes by like thin white clouds over my head
And I cannot spread a white sheet
Over that horizon to forget, to forget
All that remains.

***

3 

I have paid my dues at the office canteen
And cleared my room for someone else to get in.
Bill Frisell still hangs on that glass wall.

Time has settled all scores.
I am not angry anymore,
Nor sad nor zen.
Just passing my days.

Anil too has left Shankardev Bhavan.
The new cook reminds me of my hostel.
Except, when he cooks chicken curry with potato.

The love that this place had offered has now wearied.
And there isn’t much more to say
Beyond the usual lunch and dinners.
And the small talk that takes a lot of effort.

I am back.
Sitting on the same seat, where
Five years ago I had started to relearn
Economics, surrounded by the calm,
Smell of old books and magazines
At the office library.

Maybe, the time has come for me
To look for new memories.
Maybe, this one now wants to disappear.

***

4

It is not always the case that you get excited
About your new house. Even though, it offers you
Space and air and light. Sometimes,
The comfort hides in a dark, skinny room
With a wooden window
Of hope, despair, ugly remorse
And a dusty floor that endured my whining
Through three unfinished books and some assorted videos
Of a city I gradually began to fear less and less.
The smoky roof has given up. It leaks memory drop by drop
On to my sink. The staircase is
Breaking, falling apart. Insects
Have taken over the corridor.
Lizards hunt cockroaches.
Like memories, they too shall disappear
When they tear down this place.

Bio:
These days Goirick sits at home and plays Kamicat Football on Facebook. His first collection of poems, For the Love of Pork, was published from Les Editions du Zaporogue, Denmark, in January, 2016. He co-edits The Sunflower Collective. His chapbook of poems, joining the dots, is forthcoming from Nivasini Publishers, Hyderabad, India.

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