Kolkata (2024)

A personal take on the shifting scenes of 21st century Kolkata, of the aesthetic struggles underlying its pomposity of imitations - can the truly new break out of the logic of nihilistic repetition?

What haunts thy sweet evening's blue?

Thou pale to whose unseen eye?

And hang thy charms by whims undue-

Swindled by slippery times...

Where amber spells of lamps disperse,

By blinding whites, as endless days,

That 'vade thy night with probes perverse,

For sleepless drifters and castaways.

So scents of yester-evenings brew,

In a dim-lit window's incense trail;

'Neath unmanned shelves, of foul residue,

Bid their time at worthless sale-

For time stands still by lustrous grounds!

Where objects blink, in brightest haze,

Then sink unto banal surrounds...

As wanton blooms to a floating gaze.

What confused dreams claim thy skies?

With starry scaffolds as frozen fumes,

Seek fervent eyes, midst passers-by;

Lest melt unwatched to rootless gloom...

Memory limps 'long plastic scenes,

Mauled by measures of mercury times,

To sums of senseless smithereens,

Thus separate in anxious night-

By obscene turns, to nameless ways;

Where silence shreds to atonal screams!

As breathless homes in broken space,

That fall asleep to borrowed dreams.

While doubting hands on walls appease,

The grimace of graffiti scrawls,

To advert smiles, and pleasantries;

For the eye of innocent dawn.

Specters search thy silent night-

Through layers of stubborn disguise,

Proud thy imitations abide,

By patterns since timeless old-

For whispers of a forgotten new. 

Reviews

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

amazing work. i love writing about a city. and i have no doubt Kolkata is special among all cities in the world. i have never been there but i could get a glimpse of her beauty and contradictions. and i have no doubt that this place has a special meaning for you.
i also love my city and i intend to write a poem about it one day, inspired by this.

[Swagato Saha]

Thank you for the kind review. I look forward to reading your poem.

[Daz]

Brilliant poem. Very well written.

[Swagato Saha]

Glad you liked it.