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It's been raining for weeks in this city,
where every house wears the mold-and-soot
veneer of decay like a medal -- a city where
a fresh shower turns every street into an archipelago
of soiled skies. Nights have been reeling
under spells of the frogs' lustful chorus, the moon
a truant understudy in their arduous sitcom.
Elsewhere, wars are being fought and lost.
In this city, days slink by -- one on the feline heels
of the other -- in wicked and crafty ways,
without so much as a ripple on the satin-
smooth skin of the analgesic air they breathe.
Crows caw day and night like an alarm
gone wrong, as July pores over the blue-print
of desolation's awkward architecture.
Eugene
Datta's poetry and fiction has appeared in "West Coast Line" (Canada),
"Poetry Today" (UK), and Heist Magazine (Australia). A sometime
journalist, he works and lives in Calcutta, India.
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