DEBARSHI MITRA - POEMS

Debarshi Mitra is a 21 year old poet from New Delhi , India. His debut book of poems ' Eternal Migrant' was published in May 2016 by Writers Workshop. His works have previously appeared or are forthcoming in anthologies like'  Kaafiyana' and to literary magazines like 'Typewrite', 'Thumbprint', 'The PoetCommunity' , 'Leaves of Ink' and 'The Lake'. He is currently enrolled in an 'Integrated PhD' program in Physics.

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                             31st December
 
Today no one dies,
nobody is born.
The women they huddle around
the fire in their eyes.
Nothing escapes this room
not even time or light
only the sky tilts a little,
only the constellations move
along the fate- lines
from one forehead
to another.
 
 
                                                        Climax
 
Once
the body
bent in surrender
its underside bare,
the animal
out of breath
gradually receding
wave after wave
along the shorelines
glimpsed all
in an instant.
 
 
 
                                    Separation
 

A clear
‘pin- pointed’ stab
of that
which lies inarticulate
underneath the waters,
of that
which solidifies
into ice. 
 
 
                                       English
 
I used to wear it on my head like a crown
when we went to my father’s ancestral home
on some Sundays, the railways leaping in time
several centuries
taking us away from the city and to that other world
where concrete was sparse and the pale yellow of disease
left its unrelenting trace everywhere. Growing up in the city
there was little congruence I could find there.
Inside the house, surrounded by other relatives, sometimes
my ( now dead) diabetic aunt would drag her body across
the hall to pick up a fruit kept on the table,
her eyes gleaming while she looked directly
at me and asked, “ What do you call this
in English?”
 
 
 
                                                 April , 2000
 
​
When dawn breaks
I know I'll have to move away.
Outside the spring has ever so gently
come upon us unnoticed
and the fragrance
of those flowers withering with memory
on my mother's grave
never seem to drift away.
I wander between faces,
between rooms and decades
like bees drawing nectar
at the cusp of dreams.
To you too, I make no promises of fidelity,
leave no creases under your sheets,
and yet something in you stirs
but stays silent,
something in you absorbs the night,
content for now,
with only the moonlight between us.