Amnesia

There is the tenderness- the cloudless sky.
and everything you dream is alive,
then it fades, freezes, falls, vanishes.

Grey metropolis embraces the dying siren.
the pigeons read time in reverse.
indifferent to history.

There is a hole in every thumb.
several wrong words appear in my pages
feelings of desolation and despair,

All night the beggars on the street cough.
in the city where I disappear,
some hoarding hold love, some bear empty lessons.

Only my eyes are asleep,
each breath becomes nothing.

No one talks about resistance,
how long can we live in amnesia?

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 24 books published, including five jointly edited books. His poetry is also published across various anthologies as well as in eminent journals of India and abroad. His poems are translated in 16 languages. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021. Read other articles by Gopal.