2 poems by Rishi Dastidar

Little exorcisms

I thought they were the keystrokes, the penstrokes that got the 

word bombs out but no, as it turns out they’re Brer Dream, arriving

at 4.41am, or as I shall now call them Brain Purges a/k/a Calendar

Invites for the Astral Plane, where you can make appointments at

cash points in car parks to meet soon-to-be-dead-then-arriving-here

relatives, find wardrobes stuffed with suitcases of memories that

fall on you, and end up in a lexicographical arm wrestle with an empty 

yellow circle around whether you should reinvent the word ‘loophole’

as ‘loophoop’, ‘loophope’ or ‘hopeloop’. Let’s go with the latter, as that's

the only way I get an epiphany out of the torrid streams last night.

My ghost speaks iron

oh the elemental sadness

of having a lover come back

to your mind unbidden,

summoned up by a word,

say ‘iron’, a fine cell thought.

You wait for a revelation, not

realising the epiphany of her is

always there by never being there.

_________________

A poem from Rishi Dastidar’s Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry

2018. His second collection, Saffron Jack, is published by Nine Arches Press. He is also

editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches

Press).