THE GERM: SAIKAT GHOSH Next Poem:....................................................................................................................................... Back to Poetry Index

Incubating in paradoxes

We all are, everybody

And everything multiplies

Needs for paradoxes; life

Death, darkness, light,

Blindness and insight,

Visions of freedom chained

To our memories.

A spectral conscience stands

Guard over these, the inmates’ harrow,

Our asylums make us kneel in awe

And conscientiously be fucked from

Behind, in our darkened cells, sometimes

Forcing open a window for us,

Through it we guiltily spy

Rain clouds, ripe violet

Burst into an orange evening sky --

This, the painful beauty of our eyes.

We all break mirrors at some point

And write lies.

We become saints but disguise

Everyday paradoxes in a faith of despair;

We search for silence in words,

Twilight in the flight of birds,

And the germ in our death, we prize.

This, the conscience of us poets,

We write poetry knowing

The poetry writes us.

Saikat Ghosh was born in Jamshedpur; he has an MPhil in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has also studied in Delhi University. He is currently pursuing his doctorate at JNU where he is researching the formal development of short fiction with respect to the Progressive Writers’ Movement in South Asia. He also works as an editor with the publishers, Rupa & Co., Delhi and writes on South Asian literatures, cultural theory and poetry.

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