Two poems from Balconies of Time (Hawakal, 2017) by Amit Shankar Saha
Cryptology
Two black boats float
under your irises,
like hieroglyphs,
in the sea of your face,
write a crow's feet script
with the creeks of your eyes.
Perhaps everything stands
still in a doldrum
of your low pressure
or the storms of the past
churn a cryptogram
of pain in your chest.
The green of your night
does not die or fade,
sleeplessness sails
with ballast of bags
filled with work and vigil
and no dreams are made.
Recollection
Your eyes become fish
and my hands become depth.
I dip in to fetch
the sky caught in the net.
The moon becomes a lie
and stars mirages.
My hands cuddle the bones
of silverfishes' breath.
Sand and shells all sleep
when night wakes me up.
A fisherman resurrects
to hook the flooding death.
About Amit Shankar Saha:
Saha is a widely published award-winning poet and short story writer. His poetry collections include Balconies of Time (Hawakal 2017), Fugitive Words (Hawakal 2019) and Illicit Poems (Pothi 2020). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Best of Net Anthology 2020. His poems have been included in Best Indian Poetry Anthology 2018 and The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2020-21. He is the Editor-in-Chief of EKL Review. He has a PhD in English from Calcutta University and works as an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Seacom Skills University. Saha's website can be found here: www.amitshankarsaha.com.