Flesh of the Republic
Body and flesh float away.
Rivulets. Entire sky
seeks an address, finds
my vein instead.
Where will you lose
the threads that sew a quilt,
patchwork, tales?
Winter comes and goes;
frost never melts;
you know what I mean.
Body and flesh float into
my vein, and I ask them for their permits;
they can inside, but can not permeate;
I won’t let them be the citizens
of this rotten republic.
SERIAL
He records his chitchats
with the cab drivers, not all,
those with the ones
he kills.
There exist avenues
and lanes of cabs taxiing
driverless,
and recordings replayed
over and again in his id,
and then
he finds his son working
for an app-cab using
a forged license.
He records his son, as if
his ears metamorphose themselves
into two answering machines,
defunct.
These annals are better
than any psychiatrist’s,
the father of everything
listening to his killer instinct.
BITCHING ANAMNESIS
Deluge, the bitching mistress on our backs,
bites our earlobes as
I sent your claim – I can
efface life memorized.
I can. Only mine. The process
involves adding more, not less,
the same way you do most of the days,
except those when it rains
in the excuse of this balcony or
when it shines and you stare downwards,
see the hissing serpent of the traffic
looking up at you, out of reach.
I do not rerun the tapes, listen
to the protest pops from the Nam times.
Rain writhes to arrest my mind,
albeit an antiquated man has his disinterests.
I say, “Just forget.”
https://www.amazon.com/Kushal-Poddar/e/B07V8KCZ9P for his books on Amazon
@kushalpoe on twitter
