Hiraeth Series 8-12
A Poetry Series by Kushal Poddar “Hiraeth Series” for 1-7
8
Rain. I murmur the fact
as if you have sewn eyes
and are born without ears.
Still the petrichor will
shove the rain up your nostrils.
You do not know my tongue.
This needs no vocabulary.
Rain. I say.
Two bikes, black, wait for us
in the shade. They look siamese.
And sad.
They have been adopted in
different families.
Rain, deus ex machina, intervenes,
prolongs the moment of togetherness.
Do you smoke? I ask.
I do not. What’s the point
of the question.
Nothing. Nothing.
9
The nextdoor daughter
claps “if you are happy’
and I know it.
I know my rain.
Someone throws razor blades
from upstairs. Now you see those.
Now it bleeds.
I wonder if those might
have finished the job for my sister.
I clap myself out of one bad memory.
10
Sky streams river Styx today;
I renew my subscription
to our panes.
Oink, oink. One pig
runs the lane.
I wonder about if its origin,
but nothing is beyond reality in this city.
The rain and the blinking autumn
flowers - probably Nycanthes -
stare at me in the manner of one
mid career actor. His eyes browse
the audience. His craving has
no hunger. He is not really looking
at the people as a group or as individuals.
The flowers anticipate the usual response -
thunder from the clouds.
I can use a little snacks.
The door-light of the refrigerator
beacons me – that faulty lighthouse
on a desolate shore.
I can use a little shopping, I decide.
11
They call him Im, and he
runs away with
his father’s third wife,
or so they say.
The sticker lingers on him
even after it is found
to be a coincidence –
two people disappearing
from the neighborhood,
tanning leather, dust, highway
within the tight compartment
of one single day.
Imon, he extends his hands.
I shake.
This is the Neverland.
We are lost boys and girls.
12
Again that season,
people adopt God and hope,
take home the trees and decorations.
Divine nests and lays eggs.
A sudden heavy autumn rain
quashes the steeple and the stone,
pillars and stairs where I stand.
In one moment I am
holding my shivering father
together between my tiny hands,
and still he melts and slides,
all mud and chips
choking and slaying.
Here we exist in both beliefs and doubts.
3 poems by Kushal Poddar in memory of fallen friends through the Pandemic
Fevers of the Mind 
8 comments