Paper Lanterns

There is a room without windows.
a man cracks the glass doors
a woman drops a pearl earring.

My father’s face rises from my sleep.
He tries to say something but his silent
words turn into paper lanterns.

In the portico, autumn sunlight pools turn
into squares, a crimson splash, a riot
of colour in the trees.

The chaos and noise make a kind of sense,
a few streetlamps cut the twilight,
the city outside is geometric and bare.

Inside the shadows spilling into a rectangle
are we wormholes to the other planets?
No one speaks above whisper.

There is no clear path, clear surface,
not all footprints echo, nor shout
I stand before myself before a broken mirror.

Auburn Moments

I love cupid’s bow lips, rumpled forehead
and untamed hair.

I love watching the butterflies’ yellow wings
on peonies and red roses.

I love dancing in the open courtyards
of Meenakshi Temple.

I love to visualize his bare flesh and bones
traced into anonymity.

I love to see brushstrokes of the starry night
creating smudges on the surface.

I love to compare border and boundaries
with windows and willows.

I love to soak in the golden evening rays
painting my moments auburn.

Whiteout

There was silence all around and then the growing sound.
I went down and found my dining
hall was flooded with snow.
Pure white spontaneity.

The Patio door was damaged, allowing icy wind
inside the hallway.
Frosty fronds simmered in the windowpane.

Ice crystals were suspended in the ceiling.
All my tables, chairs, sofas, bookshelf, floors were covered
with white sheets

From this hallway I couldn’t tell
if the swirling sweep of snow broke my walls
outside the window.

I imagined walking into a kind of ground
strode many times,
and searching for inklings you could have left behind.

I remembered you always wanted to write
a few lines for your existence
in this muffled, mounted whiteout.

In your absence
my world remained frozen forever.
It’s white all around.

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 33 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry is published across more than one hundred fifty journals and anthologies globally. His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 17 countries. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021 and Best of the Net for poetry in 2025. He has been conferred First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award on literature in 2024 for his significant contribution in Indian English Writing. His poems were included in the Penguin Book of poems on Indian Cities. Some credits- The Madrid Review, The Poppy Road Review, Amethyst Review, Ink, Sweat & Tears, One Art Journal, Poetry Breakfast, Shot Glass Journal, Indian Literature and elsewhere.

You can find more of Gopal’s work here on Ink Pantry.