Seen the stars tonight?
Between the miracle and the blaze
runs an abyss.
On a stolen bicycle
she took me to the churchyard
and brought down the sky on my lips.
Tonight as I see
the Gehenna darkens a storm
with its fire playing the old woods
I turn and wait
for a sad bicycle bidding its way
back to the all-black
with a fading test of a heart
on its rider’s tongue-tip.
Why the stars look the same
on this date again and again,
and the flames
consume memories all the same?
Kushal Poddar
Illustration Nick Victor
Edited the online magazine ‘Words Surfacing’.
Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’ (Spare Change Press, Ohio), “A Place For Your Ghost Animals” (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), “Understanding The Neighborhood” (BRP, Australia), “Scratches Within” (Barbara Maat, Florida), “Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems” (BRP, Australia) and “Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems” (Hawakal Publishers, India)