Chaitali Sengupta’s Two Poems

Chaitali Sengupta is an emotive poet with a heart that feels, expresses and tries to heal. Compassion is woven into beautiful images that gives shape to the pain and the promise of healing. Scars are versified as a seed that grows and gives solace to the heart. The depth of the phrase ‘informed scars’ rings a bell in the reader, reminding of past associations. But sometimes the sorrow is too deep to negotiate and it is difficult to keep up hope. In ‘Home in after life’ the images are violently cold and frosty with no inkling of the warmth of home. The poet shatters all illusions of homecoming with an interrogation.

Whisper your tales

Whisper your tales, in the space

between life and death,

O broken soul,

for you know not which

part of it, shall be a healing balm to

the other. Which of the scars, like

a seed, would sprout and

grow, in the heart of the

other, with the force of a

promise, rummaging in our souls, lulling

the heart. You know not, O brave soul,

who would be restored,

by your informed scars,

and for whom, it shall

a moral compass be. And for whom,

your tale shall be its last dream,

breaking the illusion of this world.

Home-in after life

A frosty loneliness,

sculpts the land white,

dripping cold snowdrifts

crawl into her skin. She thinks

of home, blurred, lost

in the map of war. Wailing

memories, at the edge of her

past, whipping at her face, like the

bitter gush of wind. It

scours her homesick soul,

raw- clean, but in the war-torn

land, her body is restless, bleeding,

a hostage to everything

that were forever gone. Far

away from home, she cobbles up in dream.

The urge to return comes

back, each night, like a staggering

drunk, seeking his home. Seasons turn.

Between her two worlds,

there is a lifetime. Her world

in exile, smells of the wet soil of her land.

It sweeps over her being.

Towards it, she runs. Drugged in

her dreams. Home. Is that real? Or, may be

real only in afterlife?

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