Prerna Kalbag's Poems

 Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 2. November 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094


Muse

                                      --- Prerna Kalbag

The turbulent black muck

Waters from the midnight rain

Shouts and curses

stamping my words

Accusing you,

O witch, you who sit there,

locked up inside my nerve drum

 

You forced me

to hold the pen

And led me right inside your

grisly den

And dumped me inside your

piped, glutinous existence.

 

I have been walking past

Past the many gnawing

deleterious decks, living

cooped up inside your frosty veined rug

Sucking the blood from your

Tyrannical, repressive staple-gun.

 

You have made me incapable

Incapable of having those

frivolous pursuits, of

treading, gurgling, dumping, breathing

Of treading right outside the esophagus

Connecting my gut to your

nude nub.

 

We have been stuck

Stuck with the hatchet

sliding across your shoulder

through my skull.

We have been stuck with

each other ever since you

filled me with the filthy detritus

of your strut.

 

We have been stuck

Ever since you

punched me

inside that nerve drum

With the wet slush

pouring outside

on the grimy dirty asphalt

On the night I was abandoned

and we made love.