“a decade old is forever new, for
truth is never old.”
Pradip Chattopadhyay 


this man, ten years of inspiration, ten years of friendship, here,
on HP,
provides nourishment to my lagging body as it nears eight decades
of Earthly occupation, for
his eyes and heart and his mastery
of the songs of the tongue,
have wrenched me straight,
we, attentive to the tears
he makes me weep, for his insights penetrate my insides,

even now as one, unexpectedly, reflects midst
yet another first poem of the day, my eyelids blink away
the wet,
my brain revels at his pithy, how he corrals,
encapsulates the daily smoke and fire of life,
it truest value,
in words that make one wonder,

what admixture of mineral, chemical, history,
adventures, atmosphere, parentage, spices,
love gives him these super powers to gentle
seize the moment, size our souls, causing my
cheeks to wide smile, while mine eyes sheds
monsoon droplets of feelings so deep, that
my repaired heart oxygenates my very soul,
making me high, my mind reels that a day will
come inevitable
that one of us will be unable to sit by side,
swapping tales of granddaughters, and
other earth meaningful events, to walk his
streets or he, mine, finishing each other’s
couplets.

to think that I awoke with no intention of
composing this paean, but his brief pearl
knocks my head side to side,
and with the
tears, come words,
that age, or an entire
decade,
cannot restrain,
retrained to modesty,
for regarding my friend
Pradip,

my boundaries expand and cannot be
contained, even by my delimited vocabulary,
the paucity of my skill, the insufficiency of
the adjectives acquired over a lifetime, but
do my unequal-to-the-task best efforts,
but without choice, but compulsed, compelled,
one more time, to say,
to my new day,
perhaps my last,
I love this poet~man.
this is one of my truths.
<>
Wed Jan 17 8:31am
City of New York

<>

read the poetry of
https://hellopoetry.com/pradip-chattopadhyay/
<>

easily,
with an optimism misguided,
that both volume and quality
of what lay within was
infinite,

a beaker that could never
be drained, nor overflow,
brimming and believed,
in the always
of a
next poem!

know better,
known worse,
and the only poems that are birthed,
all flawed, lesser,
the curse of worse,
time wrenching
the best words away,
alas!
spend, spent, sent…
it was writ as a hope,
now, a  false prophecy
and woe
misbegotten


<>>

Jan. 13, 2014

a  flawless poem

if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know in my possess

lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his ash,
his flawless poem,
at long last

~
I. Fog Glossaries
'Echoes don't tell lies,'
but inclement weather so often does.
look!
between whales and feverish thought,
between their sparkle and debris,
what is brewing systematically,
right under the surface,
might be terrifying.
or it might not.

II. The Cruxifiers
Time and life are machines that manufacture doom,
their sparkle and debris calculatingly withheld,
like keyholes to dark rooms that they
—in their reserved attack—never let you into.

III. Oceano Dunes
Bedouin princess—Charis Wilson tumbling
with Edward in the sand
—a photo finish.
—a young woman's triumph.
—a naked gift wrapped in sparkle and debris.

IV. Jellyfish Are Murderers
Here's a hint,
needle mark refineries are back,
expanding and contracting
in Baltic Sea,
in sparkle and debris,
smack after smack,
umbrella bell stings send
another pearl necklace
of dreams to its grave.

V. Container Ships
Substance A covers the outside hull,
Substance B is leaking from everyone's ears,
still the captain smiles, sailing straight ahead, ignoring the crew
as they turn into sparkle and debris.

VI. Mouth Guards of the Apocalypse
No one on the submarine is listening,
scopes up, spirits down,
current position unknown,
longer commutes, shorter lives
recede the fear of sparkle and debris,
by hiding out in the guest rooms,
waiting for a messiah drink
or perhaps a palindrome:
'never odd or even
no lemon, no melon.'
It's all so sour to the teeth and gums
of Armageddon's kids...

VII. Womenfish
Lost girls drive rental cars, change identities at rest stops. They shuffle down an otherwise sunny street beneath their own personal raincloud, shivering in an oversized coat. They imagine they're a parable stretched over the sea and not just mere sparkle and debris.

VIII. A Mother’s Book of Hours
At home and in her head
the roots get tangled,
so she storyboards each morning.
the lathe of heaven
must be Morse code
for death of romance.
she hears silent music
as her children sleep,
as whales sing off the coast,
they share their blood,
they share sparkle and debris.
there's a sweet little lie
baking in the oven,
she doesn’t want to talk about it.
she wishes her dreams were longer
and catches an interested eye
at the dream window,
her hands surrendering
their attempt to conceal,
naked is her perfect disguise,
you can hear her repeatedly asking,
“Who have I lived for?”

IX. The Pavilion of Dreams
How often I dream water,
some are lakes and seas,
others Olympic-sized pools,
each a self-portrait,
holding fast to the resurrections unseen,
to the digitally etiolated detail of the comedown,
every chimera ending
with my mind floating
just beneath the surface with all
the other sparkle and debris.
~