Kiriti Sengupta

Sorrow is as amazing as the sky
as it allows rainbows to appear and
I see the flashbacks fill the air
even faster than how a flock of birds
strives to guard the sun. 

And then, agonies are those tiny worlds
three-quarters of whom are the waters and
the rest is where men make castles
on sweat or blood. 

editors note:

Maybe sweet sorrow might assuage the agonies inflicted upon us in our sweat and blood; maybe… (We welcome Kiriti to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission.  Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) –  mh clay

make it alive, I said,
give them the sun and a parrot
if you think right

at least some gay, yellow shine

wish he was listening to me
while he painted the sunflowers on canvas

life would not have stilled
had there been water in the vase

editors note:

Nothing still about this life. –  mh clay

A bit about Kiriti: Kiriti Sengupta is the author of the best-selling trilogy: My Glass of Wine [novelette based on autobiographic poetry], The Reverse Tree [poetic nonfiction], and Healing Waters Floating Lamps [poetry].  These three books later formed Dreams of the Sacred and Ephemeral, supposedly the first poetic trilogy in Indian English poetry.  Calcutta-based Sengupta is a bilingual poet and translator in both Bengali and English.  His other works include: Solitary Stillness [poetry], Reflections on Salvation [poetry], The Earthen Flute [poetry], A Freshman’s Welcome [a chapbook on memoir with literary critique], My Dazzling Bards [literary critique], The Reciting Pens [interviews of three published Bengali poets along with translations of a few of their poems], The Unheard I [literary nonfiction], Desirous Water [poems by Sumita Nandy, contributed as the translator], and Poem Continuous – Reincarnated Expressions [poems by Bibhas Roy Chowdhury, contributed as the translator].  Sengupta’s poems have been widely anthologized, both in India and abroad, in Kritya, Taj Mahal Review, Labyrinth, Grey Sparrow Journal, Dukool, Wilderness House Literary Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Oddball Magazine, Mad Swirl, among other places.  He has also co-edited five anthologies: Scaling Heights, Jora Sanko – The Joined Bridge, Epitaphs, Sankarak and Selfhood.  More details at www.kiritisengupta.com