Hallucination

Someday the river will explain the delirium.

The evening speaks unfamiliar words, a sudden fury comes over,
turn to the rain again,
flow has become a torrent now,

Sitting on the top of a wild date palm,
the crescent moon
can’t disentangle itself from the raging clouds,

The banks are the lurking shadows, the boats
in the middle, toss and bump, rock and roll,
begin to dissolve,

The stormy wind charges in with a faint of hiss,

Waves after waves,
full of scary eddies and swirls,
tides swell, grown into high-decibel songs.

Missing faces gather, drained of colour, crumble,
begging unconditional shelter,
the passing breeze pauses and murmurs.

For there is much death here as well as life.

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Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, and translator with 33 books published. His poetry is published across more than 150 journals globally. His poems are translated in 18 languages. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021 and Best of the Net for poetry in 2025. He has been conferred First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award on literature in 2024. His poems were included in the Penguin Book of poems on Indian Cities. Some credits– The Madrid Review, The Poppy Road Review, Amythyst Review, Ink, Sweat & Tears, One Art Journal, Shot Glass Journal, and elsewhere.