Three Poems | Madhu

Definitions

I never understood definitions,
or relationships.

I do not know what I will do during the day
or in the days to come.

As the day unfolds, I might catch up
with my old fellows

or end up alone having a cone of ghoti gorom. 
I do not question myself and

I don't have the answers if someone else does.
'What are you doing this evening?'  

I may sit and squat the flies
that hover over me like spaceships.

There is never much on my list
There is never much I can risk.

I know this is not how organised people live.
I never said I was people-friendly.


Tongues 

I somehow manage to fall in love
with the wild, unruly, untamed,
unmannerly, and unloved.

I will write a poem
for you in love
on love

I will barely cast it
in English
as you lie beside me
and hum to me

a poem

in bare Bengali.


Durga 

There is no remedy for love than to love more. - 
Henry David Thoreau

I'll forgive you for anything
if you have a beautiful smile

I know of a Durga who forgives Mahishasura
when the artist decides to
make weapons for neither.

Sarbojonin pays for it, and
they both undergo
the same heat to get their clay forms.

Tell me how a mother could kill a child
even if he was evil?

Kiss me on my forehead
turn me into a better being.