Avishek Parui
Dialogues
“Say something”
you throat
across our table
where three plates of grapes and the leftovers
furl a forest
between us
in which something had been lost
or maybe cleverly hidden
like a leak…
And as the butterflies in our tablecloth
begin to soak
all that we had spilled
sauce, juice, wine
lies, grease, guilt;
You stretch your strategic smile
as I see the silhouettes sink…
and think of the words that drop
Waves. Dredge. Pills.
Bridge. Edge. Brink…
The rituals would stay
the patterns will remain
but this time when our eyes meet
I hope to cut across to you
with another strip of silence
that the glass I broke
after they had left
wasn’t really slippery
and the blood that curled
my fingers thereafter
was not very red…
But guess you’d stop me
midway
slit across the stillness
I would have built
and say
“I knew.”
********
Guy Fawkes’ Night
As the boys outside
were trying to set fire on the Guy they’d built
you were thinking of a way
to say sorry to mum
for telling papa when he had asked over the phone
that she had been out
all afternoon…
You know lying is a bad thing
Mrs. Teresa says that in class
that God is very angry when you lie
but you think now
maybe it would have been OK
to say sorry to God later
than to see papa scream “rotten bitch”
and throw his big bad bottle at mum
so hard that you could hear the glass
hitting her eye
and then the cringe
and the cry
when the blood
that began to spread
started to chase
you…as you
ran into your room
so that mum could just feel the pain
and not be ashamed…
“The guy won’t catch fire”, you hear Tommy shout
“It’s the freaking wind that blows it out”
You stare at your colours and the page
where you’d been trying to draw a house
that’s become a birdcage…
across the room
papa is watching TV now
where someone’s speaking on how
the world could be turned to a better place
by fighting terrorism together
with love, care, faith
while there’s still time
you think it would be a good idea now
to go to your mum’s room and show
the big cage you’ve drawn
with all the red crayons you have
maybe you should write “SORRY” beneath it as well
just in case mum doesn’t understand…
********
Quo Vadis
After the torchlights had frisked through
my wet insides
and whistled away
into the greasy night
you came in to stay
having walked
through the heaviness of
grey chimneysmoke in nightair
and shrieks in radio plays
despite the moons and purring cars
you must have met…
I had doubled down my stakes by then
with the knowledge that I would crash
again
all signposts would be strewn across
my tart taste…
guess most of us cave in
sometimes
when the cold grows frills
across the tiles
and the rosebud shows the sled…
But you showed up with
your hair tied back
too neatly
into something like a bun…
You smelled like
someone
who had stared
at the whole of last night
till the rhododendrons screamed a sunrise
between them…
I’m here to stay,
you voiced
till the claptrap is over
and all the axioms flake off
or die
I looked out and saw the frisbees flying
the stars that had dripped across were drying
of course I knew you lied…
********
Spectres
The twilight shrinks
as each day dies
from the cold rooftops
the blood-red tiles
that purple fast
under changing moons.
The hours slide
beneath the lies
the walls cave in
against the tides
the lovers fall
way too soon.
The hotdogs sell
and the salad’s free
see how Afghans die
in flat TV-s
no hideouts found
in the end
the hunters coughed…
Apologies?
Our eyes meet
in guilty streets
white stripes align
strangers’ feet
as the swishing cars
race across
the green-eyed gods
who count clock-beats.
Between love-songs
the RJ says
“Very soon
the nation-heads
would meet to plan
a perfect world
where every man is free.”
You stare out at
the lonely stars
that drink your guilt
and hide your scars
from all that should not see.
********
Avishek Parui is completing doctoral studies at the Department of English, The University of Durham. He is the winner of The Short Fiction Competition 2010 by Platform Magazine, India, the winner of the Poetry Competition titled Journeys by Sampad, Birmingham, UK. He features in the anthologies of best poetry for the years 2009 and 2010 by Forward Press, UK.
