What if no one ever reads this
Unlike a falling tree in the forest
Not reading makes no a sound
My self has made an investment
What if this stuff gets plagiarized
My vanity suffers from such fraud
Let us not bring up posthumous
Covered by humus, I’d not know
I’m heartened by my own reading
I already read this more than once
She knew her place
at the end of the food chain
starting with blades of grass
nourished by the sun
an organism born
just follow the trail
and you will know her heart
taste her blood inside
the pages of a spiral notepad
splattered here and there
the remnants of love preserved
like a pressed rose
leading you to why this matters
in the end the grasshopper
is eaten by a snake
For love
of poetry
I sat on ledges
a stone gargoyle
of hesitant
romance
I hid my face
gave myself
a new name
kissed
a storm on its
booming forehead
made peace
with more than
a few excuses.
I do not wish to simply
write my will upon the backs
of other people’s words,
like forcing weight upon
the shoulders of camels
Sometimes when grading
a paper or providing a bit of feedback
there is that moment when I use
my pen like a weapon,
glittering edge
Invading the tiny space of letters
with new ones, removing
some phrases and planting them
elsewhere, heartlessly.
They rise early, busy
hands scribing, visiting
then revisiting,
coding cautiously,
each small sound caught
in the filter of the exchange,
straining at verb, glimpsing
at meaning, hinting
at overall patterns, painting
findings in paragraphs,
poems, brush strokes, then
starting the process
all over again for clarity.
Lately, I’ve grown tired
of the way I write…
weary of the bells that jingle
on a hell-bent sleigh ride
of black scribble
across the white snowfall
of the page.
I wince as Mother Goose
slams one door after another
in closure.
But I like it too:
The comfort of order.
No art without the discipline
of a well-watched border.
Transgression has become so common
as to become commonplace.
Use a rhymed couplet
and many editors are unforgiving.
But remember:
Tradition is the living faith of the dead–
traditionalism: the dead faith of the living.
More at https://about.me/dklawitter.
We play with words
Turning sadness into beauty
Paper is our canvas.
Words that inspire change
Impressionist images
Dance vividly.
Calling out injustice.
War, famine, hunger
Societies failures.
Baring our souls
For all to witness
Recording the beauty.
Unseen, unheard, unspoken
Truths alive for eternity
Whispers in the wind.
Empathy, sensitivity, kindness
Being the norm, to empower
Others to think, to realize.
To see their strengths
Will prevail, impact upon
An often cold unjust.
World.
I throw myself
into writing, into a written
world because it is better
than stewing in lament.
I look for healing,
searching for the weaving
of words to mend me
and help with next steps.
So many years
at the altar
of unsure consonants
and quiet vowels,
diving headlong
into that vast landscape
of impermanence
where the remembered
and the invented
become one,
where all things
are one,
where nothing disturbs
the crystal symmetry
of silence and quarks,
where we return
each night with clenched fists
and even the wind
evades our grasps.
—–
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’, and ‘Leaves of Ink’. He is currently enrolled in an ‘Integrated PhD’ program in Physics.
The ars poetica
The poetry of it
I walk on measured
Tones of poetry
Of nothing
Out of pavements
Of stark loneliness
A man in grey coat shouts
By the pavement
He is a poet expressing
His ephipany of freedom
No one says anything
No one looks at him
No one smiles
No one calls him mad
Somehow his madness lingers
On me
I reach home half drunk.