When you walk towards me from the distance
Waving those slender hands, ivory white,
Calling my name aloud so familiarly,
I’m always caught completely unprepared.

I’ve been watching you as you move across
The vast room talking to all these strangers,
Laughing at their jokes, whispering secrets,
Holding a drink in your long fingers;

Dark raven hair on white shoulders, it’s like
You’ve walked out of a book I read long ago.
You have streaked through my faltering heart
Like a meteor blazes through the dark skies.

There is so much I would like to tell you.
If you had my heart and felt the way I do,
If you could see yourself through my eyes,
All my purposeless days would be at an end.

But instead, I raise my love weary hand,
With the practiced ease of one long in use,
And put on this casual, disinterested smile
And then nonchalantly wave back at you.

Diptesh Ghosh

This man is not me: someone dark
Has taken over me:
He pulls me towards pettiness
And hollow acts of shame.
I resist much, but he is strong,
And I’m just a boy in a man’s shoes.

He is deliberately mean.
I strike back with kindness.
He talks of drab despair;
But I retain vibrant dreams.
Like a chess grandmaster
I attack with my random goodness.

But only one of us
Will stand in the end.
If you see me and I don’t smile
Somehow you know the worst.

And if I embrace you
With unfeigned eagerness,
Know that I’ve seen the dark side
But returned back, only for you.

Diptesh Ghosh

Silent girl,
Who harbors cryptic thoughts,
I love your inscrutable dark eyes;
I can hear,
The perfect note of deep sadness
That resonates in your silver laugh.
Queen like
You hold back your unspoken words
While I fumble with the poor sentences;
I can read
The ancient scripts, but am illiterate
To what is clearly written in your eyes.
Leave the silent ways to the old queens
And heartless gods;
It is spring already in the mountains,
Let your heart sing.

Diptesh Ghosh

What shall I call you? I do not know your name.
I’ve heard you speak my name in the silent night
The way one hears the blowing wind
Or the rain or the falling leaves.

My heart is heavy, my failures great. The note
Of deep sadness in your voice echoes through me;
I need to see your lips, your face,
To your voice I must give a name.

When you called me
I could not answer.
What shall I call you?
I do not know your name.

Diptesh Ghosh

Like me, evening lingers,
In uneasy balance;
The day is almost over,
And dark night waits.
The dusk trembles, shimmers,
This order cannot last:
One push, one unkind word,
And the red sun will set.
At the threshold, I wait too,
For your final impetus:
I cannot come back to you,
And I cannot move on.

Diptesh Ghosh

We sit in the shadows of the mountains
Under the quivering aspen tree;
The rocks older than all mankind
Watch over you and me.

The constellations unfold, one by one,
And stars twinkle, as if they knew,
Despite the briefness of existence,
The love I feel for you.

Diptesh Ghosh

When I am old (I mean older) I will
Not accept what the young will let me have:
My booming laugh will scare my pretensions
Of wisdom away. I’ll be fun, talk light
And smile at will; when working men pass by,
All brown and stretched by the long working hours
I’ll talk of lazy summer noons and soft
Evenings; I will wash away my kindness.

I’ll spend my fortunes (if someday I’m rich)
On flippant things: maybe I’ll learn to fly,
Or spend my weekends seeking sunken gold
In Bahamas all alone; I will try
New things: I’ll wear red when I please and paint
My house the deepest purple shade; I’ll eat
What I desire, drink *** on afternoons,
And pretend to chase all the prettiest girls.

When I am old (I mean older) I will
Grow eccentric. But still on winter nights
When I’m alone (which will be every night)
I’ll write (till weary eyes permit) the poems
I write to you: that will not change with age.
Like an old fruit, wrinkled and ripe, I’ll slide
Into blank nothingness carrying just your thoughts:
I’ll persist, still unfulfilled, still yearning.

Diptesh Ghosh