SUDEEP SEN: FOUR GHAZALS

Night Jasmine. Photograph by Kamal B Nandasena

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Monsoon Apertures

Each drop scripts a silence I cannot explain —
the monsoon writes letters across my windowpane.

Your absence is not void, but a humid breath —
it stains my shirt-collar like turmeric or rain.

Even the wind hesitates before touching me —
a lover once bold, now distant and plain.

I measure the light through leaves like time,
each flicker a stanza, each shadow a chain.

The jasmine unfurls — soft, slow, deliberate —
as if memory bloomed only through pain.

We spoke in ellipses, not full stops —
what survived were pauses, not what was plain.

Tonight, the moon leans in like a lens —
focusing grief, Sudeep, not to entertain.

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Between the Lines

The sky folded its wings and fell into night —
no sound, just a cloud drifting in silence.

You turned, half-lit by a hallway’s light —
your shadow said more than you did, in silence.

Letters unopened, postcards without flight —
memory moves slower when held in silence.

Rain traces your name with tentative sight —
each vowel dissolves gently in silence.

Not every wound demands to be right —
some truths are best spoken in silence.

The body remembers what words will fight —
touch is a language learned in silence.

Sudeep, let the poem breathe, not recite —
what’s sacred is shaped best in silence.

{ The repeating refrain (radif) is “in silence.” The qaafiya (rhyming pattern before the refrain) is night / light / flight / sight / right. ]

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Anatomy of Absence

The wind touches bone where flesh was once thin —
I walk through your name without skin.

Silk remembers your scent where lips begin —
but longing is raw without skin.

I press my ear to the walls within —
each echo is sharp without skin.

Was it desire, or a cleaner sin?
Love is less soft without skin.

The night folds clothes like a next of kin —
but warmth unravels without skin.

Sudeep, even poems grow pale and thin —
when they must speak without skin.

[ The radif (refrain) is “without skin,” and the qaafiya (rhyme) is thin / begin / within / sin / kin ]

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Archive

The spine of an old book breaks in quiet trust —
history flakes into the air, a script of dust.

Your wristwatch stops — even metal knows rust —
time keeps its most honest minutes in husks of dust.

I still hear your voice, though I know I must
translate it now through the veil of dust.

The house breathes — a curtain lifts in a gust —
fragments rearrange themselves in gusts of dust.

Some loves don’t die, they simply adjust —
stored in corners, like relics of dust.

Sudeep, do not sweep too clean — we’re just
brief visitors here, made mostly of dust.

[ The radif (refrain) “of dust” and the qaafiya (rhyme) as trust / rust / must / gust / just — ]

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Sudeep Sen [www.sudeepsen.org] is a leading international poet whose prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Penguin), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury), Anthropocene (Pippa Rann, Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize). Red and Rock completes ‘The Eco Trilogy’. Edited landmark anthologies include: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi), and Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (Pippa Rann). Blue Nude: Ekphrasis & New Poems (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize), Rock, and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. His photography represented by ArtMbassy, Rome/Berlin [http://www.artmbassy.com/artists.html], is part of private/public collections. The Government of India awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature.” Sen is the first Asian honoured to deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture and read at the Nobel Laureate Festival. Sudeep is the International & Poetry Editor at Ars Notoria Magazine