Greatest Hits of the War

Side A 

To Biswajit Chattopadhyay 

Ceasefire, the dead fathers 
trudge back home. Life has been 
bled out of them and so they 
keep staring at their progeny 
and their doormats in the same way.
All day they compensate 
for waking up from their cold quietus.

The region suffers a bad insomnia.
One such father salvages some words
and writes to his daughter that
death feels like a departure from 
his disorders. We disregard his letter,
mark it as a symptom of his ailment.
At night, he fires his service gun 
and rediscovers resurrection,
so it is a relief arrives a call, war resumes.

Side B

To Nabina 

Ours is a country of poets who pen about war.
One bard told me once that nobody reads them.
I haven’t yet, and I remember him because 
on the pavement lies the heart of the rain
removed from the firmament, pierced 
with the shards and shrapnel of some yellow flowers.
A long intestine of the clouds hangs loose
in the blue. The pariah of the lane barks and howls.
I cast some crumbs at it. I have been carrying those
for long. Those have gone stale. The dog refuses.
A squadron of pigeons startle me. I turn and see
the heart’s evaporated. I breathe the heart.
I open my mouth and let it flow inside.

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