Kolkata Feasts or Firewood: Three Poems by Shome Dasgupta
Photo: Dibakar Roy
‘take me back / to the moss and crawfish, please / Krishna—take me back to moonlit / moss and claws red like tandoori / curry, soft and savory.’
A Rabbit Under The Sun
Pollen covered windshield—
streaked with humidity,
slashes of the sun perforated
a milky way. Through holes:
a rabbit and raised ears.
A quick shift to a Bengali
street kitten stretched
on a plain of a cow, stood
before rubble and litter.
Orange peels and mango
skins—dew drenched
bananas. They looked sad.
Kolkata feasts or firewood,
such rich blessings of streets.
Gentle scratches and claws
of comfort, a home of smog
and smoke. Back: Acadiana
—down the road, scrunched
eyes and squinted jaws molded,
a rabbit under the sun—a mirage
for a crumpled Popeyes bag
full of fries and crumbled
grease, perhaps—hunched
and wilted, on asphalt fields.
*
Kolkata Crawfish Claws
Good Lo’—good Lo’: good Lo’.
Awww now looky look that—
looky that: good Lo’, good Lo’
—good Lo’. Now look that—
looky look: good Lo’, look
looky that. Good Lo’: awww,
now what we gonna do—
what we gonna do now
when no one is around, like
look look that, good Lo’. Now
what we gonna do now then?
Krishna please—Krishna please,
let light let light protect us all
now that we down here in a ditch
full of banana peels and mango
skin—Krishna please: Krishna
please, no moon to cry, looky
look that—no moon to cry now,
Good Lo’, good Lo’, good Lo’.
Take me back—take me back,
Good Lo’: good Lo’, good Lo’,
take me back, take me back
to the moss and crawfish, please
Krishna—take me back to moonlit
moss and claws red like tandoori
curry, soft and savory. Good Lo’,
tender like spice and throat, looky
look that now, awww looky look
Good Lo’—there floats on farm
ponds and river gleams, like Bengal
Bay fish slipping through fingers,
sliced by shell and chingri maach.
Let’s go—let’s go: let’s go, back
home, good Lo’, let go. I’m gonna
go when no one is around to see
the light like light lit near a sun,
singing Bistirna Dupare—sewing
a soul knit knotted for you. Good Lo’
—look looky that, awww now good
Lo’, good Lo’: good Lo’. Good Lo’.
*
Two Dinner Tables
Luchi and aloo: cauliflower yellow
tipped fingers and scraped plates
next to room temperature water—
in a Louisiana home their tongues
lick the memories of a Kolkata
kitchen. Looking at my parents—
the movements of their wrists,
rhythmic and casual while I
tear my naan using two hands—
breathing hard through my nostrils.
***
Shome Dasgupta is the author of The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India), and most recently, the novels The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books) and Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West), a prose collection, Histories Of Memories (Belle Point Press), a short story collection, Atchafalaya Darling, and a poetry collection, Iron Oxide (Assure Press). His writing has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New Orleans Review, Jabberwock Review, American Book Review, Arkansas Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in Lafayette, LA and can be found at www.shomedome.com and Twitter: @laughingyeti.
