Bio
Gopal Lahiri is a Kolkata, India, based bilingual poet and critic and published in English and Bengali language. He has published 30 books to his credit and his works are translated in 16 languages. Recent credits: The Wise Owl, Catjun Mutt Press, Dissident Voice, Piker Press, Indian Literature, Kitaab, Setu, Undiscovered Journal, Poetry Breakfast, The Best Asian Poetry, Converse, Cold Moon, Verse-Virtual journal and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021.
Gopal Lahiri
Exchange
I exchange my filigree of bones with the solid
moon, innocent like white pond-rose faces
of angels, unborn of me,
the boatmen keep harvesting twilight and
eclipse, the sky drops its petals on the bank.
Time thrust in like a broken seed.
Now I curl up, a clump of brown seaweed,
the salt sparkling, far from the shoreline,
sailing clouds are now a postman's beguile smile
in the language of envelopes and letters.
I will visit all the heart-breaking, knife's edge
questions without answers before I climbdown
and count exile years of my father and mother
I know darkness is a myth inside my iris.