Amphan Means Sky in Thai
1
(Sleep Stirs after the Storm)
The tail of sleep whirs. Morning grass.
A clear eye, closer one, sees – there
lies an echo of a hiss, skin
bereft of the flesh, serpent.
Awakening slips. The fall
from the garden seems imminent.
Neighbor’s canine finds a good tree
reclining since the cyclone gone.
The tail wags a little. Means no dream.
Fall seems to be here. A scrap of skin.
I hear the bakery boy seeking
the address of the man died in gale.
The supply of birthday cakes is up.
Sleep stirs. Morning grass. Whispering.
2
(Poker)
Ere arrives the great gale the salt water
has been usurping the farmland; Tim
plays holy pocker now, earns nights and
spends days; sorrows seem cotton seeds,
and then comes the storm; the entrance
of the school building spins away, still it was made
into a shelter, and what you know, Tim plays poker
with the other lost ones and the other half deads.
Storm takes the rest. The cards all wet. The game
acquires the souls. The village buries the violence
of the trees beneath the bodies of the fallen.
Tim plays poker. His face reveals nothing.
A poet and a father, Kushal Poddar, edited a magazine – ‘Words Surfacing’, authored seven volumes of poetry including ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’. Find and follow him at amazon.com/Kushal-Poddar, Facebook: facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/, and Twitter @Kushalpoe