Poetry from Shome Dasgupta

Photo: Anelale Nájera

Path of the Petals

Soft thuds against beaten mud,
horse’s hooves, crashing red
breath, dying creek full of pebbles,
eroded banks, irrigated souls travel:

find paths—forgotten,
years from now, the way the petals
fall, sad and thinned, wiry
branches, embrace air, gleam,

Find nothing but nothing, nothing
works well when not seeking,

Circles, spirals—waves
bring the memory of us,

We were dirt clumped
together: all that we wanted,

The calmed horse sinks its head,
The creek crept—sunken, wooden
arms like aged pastels, comes lit sun:

A sigh a neigh a beam of particles,

in clods, there was us,
Growing roots glowing:

heat and ash,

And nowhere else,
there is nothing,

Chlorophyll sprouts forth
from horse’s eyes, outward
until there is no reach,

Traces of light
synthesize, twirl
within world’s breath,

Engulfing us all
in an acorn of dew
.

.

Shome Dasgupta is the author of i am here And You Are Gone (Winner Of The 2010 OW Press Fiction Chapbook Contest), The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India, 2013) which has been republished in the UK by Accent Press as The Sea Singer (2016), Anklet And Other Stories (Golden Antelope Press, 2017), Pretend I Am Someone You Like (University of West Alabama’s Livingston Press, 2018), and Mute (Tolsun Books, 2018). His stories and poems have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Puerto Del Sol, New Orleans Review, New Delta Review, Necessary Fiction, Milk Candy Review, Jellyfish Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. His fiction and poetry have been anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press), The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing (&Now Books, 2013), and Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 (Gival Press, 2009). His work has been featured as a storySouth Million Writers Award Notable Story, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best Of The Net, and longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. In 2018, he took part in the Innovative Fiction panel, as a featured author, at the Louisiana Book Festival. He lives in Lafayette, LA, and he can be found at www.shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.