3.
sometimes a sudden rush of cold wind
inside your auto, on a hot summer’s day in
delhi is enough to escape rhyme.
auto rickshaws in mawlai, covered in black
leather robes, eyes hallucinating, smoke,
umbrellas dripping mud, shivering rain
under a hollow shillong sky. heat rises up
from the hell below, melting stones, covered
in tar inside your shoes, leaving you alone
and dry, as those cars keep exhaling
bad breath through the dusty ringroad
under a broken traffic light, as you decide to
fly. rain, soaked mawlai breeze, can send
chills through your spine. so, after dark,
seven passengers share the same pine
washed winds. faces disappear. only
cigarette lights —to allow some humour,
and company to hold on to through the night.
7.
a river starts here
frozen, blue
a lump
of ice
bleeding water
leaking breath,
white smoke.
a river that would carry
all the six seasons
dead bodies, trees,
dead birds, rocks and bones,
stones and filth, remains from the temples,
time.
a river starts here and it washes herself
clean
disappears into breeze. a river starts. right here.
Author’s Bio: Goirick Brahmachari’s debut collection of poems, For the Love of Pork (Les Editions du Zaporogue, Denmark) won the Muse India – Satish Verma Young Writer Award(Poetry) 2016. He is the winner of the prestigious Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize, 2016. His chapbook of travel notes, Joining the Dots, was published by Nivasini Publishers, Hyderabad in 2017. His self published his third book of poems, Wet Radio and other poems via KDP in 2017. His poems and essays have appeared in various journals, magazines, blogs and pamphlets. ‘A broken exit’ is his latest book self published via Pothi.