Two poems by Shinjini Bhattacharjee

Triptych

A rock fell from my brain
to dimple the crowd of dogs,
scattering their roars
over hunchback epithets
we use when our names
fall sick.

The clock strikes emotions
and the tick-tock stops.
Swallow my bones like
the branches of a tree.
It is easy to mix lies with
petrified mattocks,
calcified moments stuck
between your teeth,
like the river
hanging loose from
a cave stone.

Unpack the truth from
the seeds of an apple
because commas are
a wonderful way to say NO

We walk on the wooden muscles
of the cannibal stars,
thump thump thump
their matchstick dinner falling
on eternity’s stretcher,
gone without a trace.

Broken stones cannot be fixed.

Tap zero hard.

One stolen from infinity

is the world.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Sequestration

Sow the sky fields on my iris,
the sea shell kingdom walls
echoing broken grief hidden
in deep pockets of forgotten clothes,
a lonely worm consoling
the bruised fruit,
the frown perched on your smile
like the  red ‘X’ mark on the calendar date.

Peel the words till they become you.

Capital letters

are foolish veterans
scraping valor off
our cheeks like toeless deserts.

The pilgrims always
clean their shoes
on the surface of outside world
hard as the bedroom walls.

The two legged animal your tongue wears

is my castle on Sappho’s paper boat

when I lick the stars off my plate.

Plastic emotions bend
easily when we apply force,
one decaying wind at a time,
and the gnarled branches will
tell you how to effectively use seconds.
Mandible works best

when we are toothless. 

Matter lost will always be found.

Author bio: 

Shinjini Bhattacharjee holds an M.A degree in English Literature and is a self professed jabberwocky who loves to explore the poems garbed in emotions of varied hues every moment of her life composes. Her works have been published in, or are forthcoming in The Stray Branch, Nostrovia! Poetry,White Ash Literary Magazine, Poetry24, Pyrokinection and Four and Twenty Poetry, among others.