Sarban Bhattacharya

Anxiety and Escitalopram

Let me make a plan of it,
Whether or not to utilise the time
Before it starts off again,
The sudden feat of descension
Into the abyss of numbness.
Let us make a plan of it,
Whether to rewind the reel of time,
And retrieve the joy of new-found life.
Let me be quick, and you too,
For longer I cannot ponder upon the joys,
It hits me back with precarious attacks
And the deepest breath of unknown fear.
A momentary prospect of happiness
Takes away the simplest of pleasures,
With fear unknown.
You are the most beautiful,
You are implored to make a plan for me
When the SSRI reigns in the brain
For a transient period, so that your perfume
Might emancipate me
From this vicious gyre of ravenous angst,
Leading the tired neurons toward
Peace and tranquility.

The Bonfire on the Day of Saint Valentine

No matter what the people say, 'tis not a merry day,
The hyenas growl with a long, long howl; whence hither do come they?

Some natives shout, 'love's in the air', then morose became all,
An old man yells, 'Don't ring the bells, good omens won't befall.

Such is the evening spright today, replete with life and joy,
The rustic youth don't know the truth, he greeteth all, 'Ahoy'!

No dearth of happiness they found in flames of roasted beast,
When all is well, strange things curtail the long unholy feast.

A flock of eagles flew past the fields, I glimpsed the vacant sky,
And ho! Those men extend their ken to where the eagles fly.

One circled over heads for long, as though it sniffed a prey,
No beast was there, we shook with fear, except the ones we flay.

Grim darkness has devoured the bowl of skies so soon tonight,
That its large wings with sharp coverings, none took within his sight.

'Oh cease at once ye unlearned folk', the old man warns at once,
The omen borne by a bird forlorn, its power it doth enhance.

The fragments of the piglet's ribs that were with blood befouled,
Did move at will up from the grill, his sundered head hath growled!

'O mercy me', one of them cried, he felt his legs benumbed,
As if it drowned on a soft, soft ground, to the evil he succumbed.

Sarban Bhattacharya

Sarban Bhattacharya is a poet and academician based in Kolkata. He has received his Master’s degree from the University of Calcutta. Several of his previous works have appeared at SCP, an American journal and the anthologies edited by the Poetrysoup community. Besides writing poetry, he loves listening to European classical music, reading gothic novels and engaging in psychoanalytical studies.