Ars Poetica
(Paro, November 2018)
When you touch me there are words for that—
I do not remember those words but I remember there must have been words. Breaking a line is the only way to complete it.
Where there are no anchors in the drift of this world there are words.
There are no words for when you do not hold us.
To speak of the end of the world we will need words.
My cords sing from saying so much nothing.
Rig me the clarity a sharpness then the blur of too many words.
If I were to tell you I love you what I am really meaning is I have small hands.
Elegy
(Gandikota, August 2019)
When all our ghosts come
down from their gorge
they translate us over you through me.
We have so many gods
and yet
I trust your thighs.
On Speaking your name, I peel two ways of getting things wrong I look at my hands— This persimmon brown-spotted & sweet ripe Water is excess: I remain as bare & as brim.
Tuhin Bhowal’s poems and translations appear or are forthcoming in adda, Parentheses Journal, Poetry City USA, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Night Heron Barks, Bacopa Literary Review, nether Quarterly, and elsewhere. He currently serves as a Poetry Editor at Bengaluru Review, Sonic Boom Journal, and Yavanika Press. Tuhin tweets @secondhandsins.
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