Poems by Sreejata Roy

Living in a house made of loneliness

In the midst of a city of unmet desires
Being thankful for the roof over my head
For the ever receding ground beneath the feet
Once in a while, a stranger or two walks past the window
Stopping by to exchange a bit of warmth
I bottle the moments in perforated glass
Like fireflies, to cast their glow
In half – hearted winters
When the smoggy sun sets to make way for a grey moon..
And the city descends to a drowsy slumber..
Or rises as blurry waves from the heated roads of an ever unquenched earth

I wonder and wait for the air to turn sooty enough

For a lone spark to erupt the city in flames

A Warning

Someday I am going to rip the throats
Not of those who bulldozed our possibilities
Through policies and bills,
Who profited from our blood
Spilling onto the oceans
Snuffing out millions of habitats,

But of those
Who derived no gain,
Who did not just stand and watch
Yet acquired a pleasure
by scraping
Us layer by layer
In doses of everyday matters

Who deliberately ignored small requests
To heed which they were paid
In the first place

It is such bricks
That make those pillars stand
Over us.

Frightening Possibilities

I saw it crawl toward me
Bit by bit
Eating my insides out raw
The loneliness approached
As darkness grips
On the palling twilight
Falling falling falling
Gaping as a howl
That devours the sunshine
To nothing

Creeping around you
As phantoms of a presence
That once was
Loneliness arrives
As you try to busy yourself
To distraction

But the porcelain vase rolls
Striking the ground with a shatter that breaks the silence
To reveal the emptiness it held.