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"The Titillation", "Mistral", "Moody Swamp" & "As The Memory's Vultures Circle" by Kushal Poddar



The Titillation 


A bird has left an azure feather

on our cold red cement sill.

It corroborates the curiosity's tale

about the bird, about me.


The bird must have probed the room, 

bearings, belongings, my chair,

my father's table, crime-club 

book of the month and the silk flower

you crafted in-between the pages

fifty two and three. 


A breeze levitates the feather.

My palm stays open, impoverished.

The whistle from the nearby train track

asks, "Why do you never desire to know

where I go and with whom?" 


I shake the window-frame and flip it.



Mistral 


The leaves gossip 

to the vardar, mistral. 

One white hair entwines a reed.


It is the time for our winter jackets

albeit not quite, not this year.

I try to cheer you up, 


"We know the end, yes, 

but the ways are endless."



Moody Swamp 


The plant stuck in its tub, in 

an ever youth, bears

the burden of my mate's

dry-weather norale, flow state.


The other week he brought a brook,

softened the dirt, that sunk an inch.

The hardest part of the bole

rose up a little.


I hold the tub, lift the plant.

The old leaves yellow the circle.

Sun flares up an will-o'-the-wisp

in the swamp of the room.


In bokeh my friend sits in front

of the tarots spread on the table of fate.

They show nothing but a hand-fan pattern.

Rays spatter like a chicken's sacrifice. 



As The Memory's Vultures Circle 


"Where are you going?"

He cannot answer me 

for the first time or the second.


He has to rake his head

before he can say,

"I don't know." His voice sounds

autumnal. A pale wind brushes 

the tips of the streetlights.


The sky will not tell us 

if it is an evening or a morning

and the city has forgotten

to turn off the lights.

The posts remind me of cacti

in a deserted path. 




Kushal Poddar is the author of 'Postmarked Quarantine' and 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, published across the globe. 


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