Poetry: Adrija Chatterjee

Tell Me How They Exfoliate Sin

Time bending upon cynosure
The waxed heads of clay mothers
Fingers running about, work overtime.
The miniscule and microcosm of their headcount
Inspiration, warped in amnesia
Preyed about and reined in
Amidst folds of archaic reverence.
Vexed palms that never rest in the chasm of sleep….

Sluice confetti

Upon asbestos roofs washing down the smell
Of garlic, summer shower and hair
Of the courtesan smelling jasmine.
Her breath warmer than the humid creases
Never obfuscating the clay hollow of mother’s eyes.
Philander away corrugated acclaim upon
The roads of sin.

Await gunshots

From the corner where the mothers stand
Overlooking the powerhouse, their unclad uniformity
Of tales that appertained food to the father
How witches not wives left their hair untied
Or piqued wombs that bore mothers of the future
Imbecile behind stifled doors.

Catching voyeurism

The fingers run about the woman, a stranger
Asleep in the depth of dissected dreams
Of invaded skin, hair and everything flesh.
Now skeptical of the privy credence of evangelists
The one sanctifying the earth beneath her feet
And in the next prostrate the waltz of her caprice.
The mothers, their hands spread eagle in clay
Avow justice
As the fingers whisk away the woman dreaming
Into the sacrosanct of abyss.
Sculpting mothers, all the while.

_____

Believer Among The Wormholes

I’d watch you often
Staring,
At the cold moon,
Ravaging the distance
Slipped within the fresnel
From the atheist’s inglorious mask.

In ways the auburn
Let itself wash around
Confounded grandeur,
Resting upon the morbid greens
Into hiatus of forgotten stardust.

You count their blotched steps
Around haloes they run into
Serenading in dancing pairs
Reflected Upon-
hexed blessings,
You overstep
Apocalypse disguising itself tranquil.

Tremors and upheavals later
Spanned across moaning light years,
You’d set free
Speckled mist of atonement…
Gathered upon
Unmasked reverence of the zealot.

_____

BIO

Adrija Chatterjee writes from India. She has been a researcher in Foreign Policy Studies. Her poetry has appeared in Cafe Dissensus, The Alipore Post. Much recently her poem has been shortlisted for an International anthology on Women’s social constructs titled Looking Glass Anthology Vol. 2. Her prose pieces have been published in Active Muse, The Chakkar and other Indian as well as International literary magazines and newspapers.

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