Poem : Day after day i turn

Day after day I turn

Where no turning goes;

Then some knowledge stops me

Where I stand, or lack of it, I don’t know.

Where is that inward play I used to know?

Not here, where every prickling wish into doubt

Or confusion grows; every thorn and shred of bone

That grasps, or bites, or thrusts, leave me more

Alone.

III

In the brooding mimicry of stone, the soft black

Cinders swirl; the thin, rasping sounds belong to me,

My breath it is that tears through the howling wind,

Harping on these twigs the same old tune.

A slag-heap, dead and floating, that’s what it is,

Each death, a renewal, every rebirth a renegade

Frolicking round and round the unfolding layers

Of the rippling air—

Layer after layer, the darkness brings forth light.

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* Published in 2015, in Prachya Review online literary journal, Bangladesh

Omer Tarin