Somoshree Palit
The waning moon on the restless sky
Smelt of fumes as fragrant glass,
Among the leaves the ravens cry –
Should I stop, or gently pass?
Like altars in pagan halls of Greece
Stands silent graves, they wait, atone.
In a grave of darkness, broken dreams,
Embers of ignited flesh and bone.
“Here rests in peace a valiant lad
Who feared not death, but God.”
And beneath the ground lay all he had
Gathered in a foreign field abroad.
Busts of Caesars, gods and men
In silence sing their notes.
None would know if, how and when
Maggots tore through their throat.
In the winter moon’s waning light
A barren tree atones.
The pale lips of smoky night
Kisses a ground interred with bones.
The ghostly angels, a waning night
Stand waiting like some fallen suns;
Here violets musks like humans fight
On grounds of bullets, sinews and guns.
Here the rose bestrewn like corpses smell,
Like fires that level lands to dust.
Imploring love, sweet love that fell
Like incense ashes on a dead god’s bust.
Ancient hands, ancient lands,
Ancient voices’ predatory note,
Ancient souls their rest demand
With ancient hands at my throat.
Far off in a kitchen a mother feeds
A child that waits for the world to be known.
Like a ghastly yawn the sea recedes :
The roads of slaughter lead to the throne.