Mridul Dasgupta, How Silkworms Break Their Eggs: Selected Poems
The Way To Thinking
The way to thinking does not cross the tongue. Yet the world is vulnerable.
There are as many words as bosoms. At the prodigy’s turmeric dip,
I watched myself fall into a poetic cataclysm.
This is the shade of darkness. Yet on many a night, the wagon stopped
outside strange houses.
The muffled voices resumed, I solicit your ears,
oversee the oven’s order
Dig up all that is illustrious– its rawness will
enchant you someday.
Blindfolded I will cross the border, still
I will look back.
Translated from the Bengali by Anindita Mukherjee
Sarah Dixon, A Bit Like Falling in Love
My body as an aging indie mosh-pit
It bounces nostalgia and lifts me.
It hangs around the edges
pushing others upright
at the times when full immersion
feels too much.
It headbangs enthusiasm.
Dances like it is seventeen,
when it first heard these songs.
It wonders if they were always this loud.
It wears the t-shirts
some judge it should have moved on from.
It is happy in a tight squash of elation
and it carries more pounds
than is healthy.
It sweats tide marks
onto new merch
and decades old, treasured tees.
It doesn’t try to drink pints.
It isn’t here for that.
Before. After. But not in this moment.
It doesn’t wear hats or headbands.
It wears sensible shoes.
No steel-toe caps.
No stage-diving.
It knows it is too old for this
but adrenaline says it’s not.
It knows it will ache tomorrow
but it wants to live in the now.
Tomorrow is for bruised ribs
and trampled toes
and it will carry itself
into the week
with a scuffed invincibility.
It will be recalled through You Tube,
Facebook and front room discos.
It will be dreamt about.
It knows it will be a highlight of the year.
Alan Price, Unknown Woman & Other Attachments
Stella
In the museum Stella was aroused by a statue.
She couldn’t resist patting his boyish buttocks,
wishing to be him for a day, exchange bodies,
fondle different psyches, stroke fresh genitalia.
He was beautiful with all his parts so intact.
This youth might awake and daily chase her
until he grew tired, then she’d grasp his sword
and pursue a Greek holder of marble charms.
Stella didn’t give a hoot for the voluptuous.
Aphrodite could sag in her afternoon amours.
Yet this ancient boy she’d ravish at dusk.
A crashing of plinth. Pygmalion high jinks
It's not easy getting a book or pamphlet accepted for review these days. So in addition to the regular review section, the One Poem Review feature will allow more poets' to reach a wider audience - one poem featured from a new book/pamphlet along with a cover JPG and a link to the publisher's website. Contact the editor if you have released a book/pamphlet in the last twelve months or expect to have one published. Details here
Reviewed in this issue
Share
Print