Poems by Kushal Poddar

THE PRACTICAL PRANK STORE

The sunbeams enter
through the duple doors
of the old corner store
and forge a rhombus.

An alley cat sheds
its silk of sleep at the centre
of what reminds me -
the 'geometry of chance'.

The keeper says nothing.
The cat doesn't rub
a customer the wrong way.

The keepers die. The store
stays open, grim, grotty.
I swear I see the cat, the same

since my knickers and gumball days,
ignoring both the dead and alive,
dare not ask others if they too see it.


VERMICOMPOST

Two magpies flare up
their fifteen minutes of flame;
this duet raps on for its own sake,
no information is exchanged.

The squirrels chumble their micro food
in the cleavages of grass.
One man syncs his sinking flesh
with a bench and his unemployment.

The park lights up;
early afternoon burns around;
an one-winged crow crosses the field.
its curiosity meets a gray cat.
I have lived one lifetime here; now, I leave