Three Dark Poems by Kushal Poddar: “An Ode to Nothing”, “The First Blood”, and “You Know These are Questionable Truths”

An Ode to Nothing


On the road the morning besoms

hum Horatian odes to the leaves and blossoms

fallen. The night passed belonged to a storm. 

An ant leads and follows, the marching of one.


I know what these remind and I cannot recall.

A car stalls at the red; no other vehicle

rolls from that side or from this,

but the signal stays static. 







The First Blood 


You will not realise

the first born, a river 

with two blind ends, 

spreads like a lake unless 

you fly high and see 

the body of truth with the drone-eyes.


He opens the door for the house.

Others have so many chores. 

He grins, welcomes the folks visiting

and drips his shoulders when

winter ebbs, and the gadabouts 

become only the feathers they leave. 


He is all our mistakes while fishing

for truths. Beneath his rippling skin

lies desires died and secrets jettisoned.

At night he gurgles, "In me

my father sleeps with a stone chained


to his neck." You shiver. 

A swirl of fireflies ribbons 

the gift of darkness. 





You Know These Are Questionable Truths


I told my friend Amit, 
I forget what I write.
Once a reader queried 
why I wrote some lines
and I vivisected my love like a critic. 

That night we strolled into a fort 
for a drink with a stranger 
who would declare 
a no-man's land between us, 
shoot-at-sight later. 

Did we? Perhaps I fake my life, 
live the lies, forget 
the creation and believe tales as truths.

The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages. 

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe


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