Poems | Dipanjan Chatterjee

Credits: Amrit Ghosal

Moon loop

Light shattered on our souls,
Beautiful blue light yellow mellow light 
It landed on our backs and ricocheted
Against jazz
And coffee, her eyes
Stretched from moon to moon
I know this Bombay breeze
It is love against my skin
Without notes,

I love the
Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta
Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta
And the
Ta Ra Ra Ta Ta Ra Ra Ta
Ta Ra Ra Ta Ta Ra Ra Ta

“It is all so Bombay”, she says
And I half remember the sad woman
With self-harm fantasies

Then
The sea came over
 To us with carpets of colours
And communism, with crescent symbols,
Held a mirror to us,
Sharpened our skins
With the sickles,
There were more questions
Than answers, when
I was asked
To choose between love and revolution.


Animals

First
I must become an animal,
Eat like Aghoris, do like the bunnies
Swoop down like a crow on the filth
With a longish beak
 I must peck
At things,
And people
On the heads
In random insecurity.

I must live without a name in the beginning

Then I can learn
About an egalitarian society,
Leftwing politics
I can see it wet my skin,
Go down
Slowly, trickle in my eyes
Finally, when I am baked
I must command
All things to stop,
Time too.
Else,

1. I will develop the tumor of false diction,
Fatty liver of language, cancer of correctness, suave vocabulary
Vernacular allegiance

2. I will make bad representations of the Northeast

3. I will write like some woman in lovely skin and fancy clothes
About equality and privileges, about fake orgasms,
Pretending to fit into other’s shoes

In a language that would stink of imitation

So first, I must   become an animal,
Kill and pile, scrounge for my next meal,
Learn about territories,
I must write
 In my incomprehensible language
About fascism
In the animal times,
Until

I tone down,
Round up,
Enter structures
Without assuming names.