Table of Contents

 

2 POEMS

Satya Dash

 

HCF & LCM

keen god of pink skinned thunder happy      with probing erections      parting my
blanket into the soiled trajectory      of failed epiphany      my parents have left
my poems for good     the other day I try teaching a boy      how the lowest common

multiple came to be     he asks is there an easier way      later ice-cream
on our tongues melts away the mediocrity of my lesson      the day I moved in here
police swarmed the flat next door     a love triangle gone horribly wrong

isosceles lives bleeding down       the laughing edge of a knife     sticky flesh written
all over its fate       it was the first moment I realized all movies are made
from life and all lives are made from four-chambered shivers       most days it takes

me incredible seconds of courage     to celebrate truly the success
of others      if fondness is born in this bottomless warren is it juvenile
to yearn       for the measure of its depth?        if I can have here your ravishing

appetite for company     I will be so content to be lonely       nights get sinister
when a hand rests over a breast and no wreath is made      in the ear only squawking     
of the crow's flight over the neighboring graveyard       somewhere in a Mumbai

local train      a man sneezes inside a compartment locked by the definition
of population density     where one square foot equals one lumen of pearl
and years later in a Manhattan apartment his son is lucky to escape a raging fire

I fathom this thinness of film between geographies       by calling it faith or
sometimes an excellent documentary      things go south all the time letting us know
why gratitude bears teeth marks of anger on its wrist       often at home I find

spots of green coriander chutney on my ageless denim     like swatches of a rustic
conscience      like a signature of tidal ripple or fine praise      perhaps our highest
common factors?      to my great relief the boy I teach     exclaims oh I get it now


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BENEFIT(S) OF DOUBT

a caterpillar's dying wish lacing a green blade    or a goat's tough
  hoof nail clicking fine across a land of tufts    by the law
   of conservation of energy     all of it equals the erratic sum
    of each small remorse I feel     equals dread of the next delicious
      consequence    in such equations you need not solve for x    there is
        no x    just you and me mundane    awash in the complex
          composition of polluted air     exposing the grain of polka nights    
          through satiated ripples     how a third of satisfaction
        is the warmth of fuzzy pain     on second thought I have a flight
      to catch     so many places I went    because the ritual of passing
    through airports     soothed irritation     in the walls
  of my bladder     when I flip involuntarily my washroom
switch     it leaks amperes like hormones     at once I grasp
  the sky's dizziness from thunder     would you call blood a scarlet
    current?     a gift of ions we guzzle from an ocean
      of bodies?     for most of the war my grandfather lived     
        underground    for company: two handsome Dobermans
          when the war ended the dogs died    they couldn't
          deal with the broken light above     even pupils find
        it difficult to constrict when they stay dilated
      for too long     once I went to watch a football match
    Brazil v England at a friend's place     soon I found the arch
  of my calf muscle in his dog's mouth     at first he licked warm
but disappointed at the taste of adolescent brine     he slipped in
  as an afterthought    his meat tearing canines
    despite the fleshy initiation I suffered     I think he found
      my salt memorable    eventually any desire    gives way
        to a constellation of pale scars     their texture mellow
          after being creamed sleek    into wings of butter     last week
          someone I once loved got married     on the coldest night
        of the year    and under the blanket I slid late    
      into another's arms      to catch the contagion
    of immediate relief      hoping I would wake
  red faced or blue     in time with an appetite
deserving    of the hotel's gorgeous breakfast spread

 

 

 

 

 

 

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While HCF & LCM is relatively self-explanatory, benefit(s) is a f(x) kinda situation with benefit being a function of s. Math lives on in myriad ways, buried in our lives.