An author, journalist, and a father, Kushal Poddar, editor of ‘Words Surfacing’, authored eight books, the latest being ‘Postmarked Quarantine’. His works have been translated into eleven languages.

Lineage

"Here I go.
All my fallacies and verity.
All I can forgive. All that makes me
a sword and fire."
My father murmurs as he seeds, 
lowers the possibility in a hole he made.
He whooshes the birds, sways
like a spring laden scarecrow.

And I grow.

I Used To Dislike Eventide 

Sun sets the honey hive on fire.
This is still earth, here, 
a little more ornate, a shade of bride-fresh.

I cover my mother's hand with mine,
hers ever tinier, shrinking further,
becoming those of my daughter's, 
still large enough to drown the sky
if held before my eyes.

Gone River

Along a long gone river 
roves my memories.

The rhyme of ducks, ashes, ashes, 
and the old stone bridge that stays

loyal to those who dares to cross,
hisses, "You may stand on the devil's arc 

but there will be no shadow 
to forge the hole, not in whole."

Who am I who tour the echo? 
Why a revisiting hollows out 
spaces hallowed?

A Tale From My Memory

We play memory-game today,
pretend we do not know this place
and form O with our mouths
when we find all the hidden keys and knives.

On A Seismic Scale 

I sewed my lids tight against 
my rapids of eyes. Earth quivers, 
people already pouring into the thoroughfares,
avenues, roads, streets, lanes, alleys behind
your moss and mess. The couch canoes in a vortex.
A falling jar of silence crashes even before 
hitting the floor. What are we now? Where are you
when the earth shakes? My friend calls me
to say his mistress doesn't know what to do with
his body. Bury in a debris? I whisper.