Kushal Poddar – 3 Poems

Bees
The bumblebee airships and trellis of chemical blazes
erased by their sketcher’s six year old whim
still populate the August firmament.
The boy tries to draw his mother now –
busying the drones in her checkered gardening apparels.
He desires to draw it in toto, all –
the nectar, aromas, manures, sweating, in the milieus
his father screaming, “Fuck you!” at some distant cousin
over the cell phone, even those rose bush pricks,
one in particular still stained by blood.

Moths
In his teen death infests Tim
with all its illuminated selves;
Tim imagines his death will be
nameless, seamless, a fleshy
manifestation of his death
floating up to ruin a picnic
of his friends and kin, half
not recognizing Tim, dead.
In his forties Tim will live,
love to do so without knowing why
and hating the process,
like one moth sewing through
the rotation of an electronic fan,
avoiding its blades with its million
eyes without any reason.

The Outpost of Chickens
In the scrap metal hamlet
she throttles the gas.
I know what she might ask,
and it matters not.
Here, clouds’ shadows are passed
amongst those begrimed tractors,
discarded tires, spilled crabgrass,
no man factor.
Here, chickens have gone berserk.
It made them placid, unafraid, vulnerable.
I tuck my inane wings in neat bundles
of chromatic feathers,
stoop, peck through the leftovers
of a farm corroding with no one to grieve,
hop at the noise of the car,
still stay at the mantle of umbrage and rot.
I know what she might ask,
and it matters not.