The Captive King and 1 more by Kushal Poddar

The Captive King

The meal for the abducted king tastes
complex, comsists his childhood palace,
gasoline, freedom and the metal railings
if licked after a rain. He has lost his
appetite and reign. On one of the walls
kept him captive moths nurse sleep.
He writes to his one-time friend –
Time is unfriendly. From a great distance
a line of red represents both dawn and dusk,
both fire and celebration.


Skeletal

The particles of the emptiness
clash with those of the silence.
He feels being formed by the collision,
born as a splinter,

and then the first train crosses
the bridge. He dies and returns
as human busy with his belongings
and locking them up before leaving.
The second train will arrive soon.

His footsteps remain on the floor.
We cannot hear those once we leave;
can we? The rising of the Sun
completes the desolation of the single’s house.

Some days, at his workplace, he
imagines the house teeming with absence,
abuzz with hiraeth noises, memories
desperate for fleshes.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

The author of ‘A White Cane For The Blind Lane’ and ‘How To Burn Memories Using a Pocket Torch’ has ten books to his credit. He is a journalist, father of a four-year-old, illustrator, and an editor. His works have been translated into twelve languages and published across the globe. 

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