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Image by Allef Vinicius

In Dreams

Unrestrained joy, full-throated laughter invites the poet into a world of fluff-cotton wonder. But even as he chases this image and reaches out to grasp it, it splinters under the jarring impact of everyday existence.

In dreams I listen to your laugh.

Not that faint chuckle

Which sputters and squirms

Like a squirrel too eager

To rush into its drey.

But a full-throated laugh

With slaps on the cushions

And eyes almost shut

And swellings of unrestrained joy.

And you walk along alleys

Of provincial town

Hand in hand,

In a dawn full of songs

Tasting of lavender and peach.

I chase your laughter

And banners of your hair

And reach for a twirl

In an expectant air

By clasping your light-supple waist.


But even in dreams my arms prove weak

As I yield to the calls of groceries and fish,

That drag me from dawns of fluff-cotton clouds

To cacophonous trains where I drown.

In Dreams: Welcome
Writing an application

Abin Chakraborty teaches English literature in Chandernagore College, West Bengal, India. He has been writing for several years and his poems have been published in Indian and International publications such as Café Dissensus, Rupkatha Journal, Muse India, Pine Cone Review, Acumen, Joao-Roque Literary Journal, Kitaab, NELIT Review, Borderless Journal, Setu Magazine etc.He is also the author of the scholarly monograph, Popular Culture, published by Orient Blackswan in 2019. His scholarly articles have also been published in journals and anthologies from India and abroad. His first collection of poems Unlettered Longings was published recently.

He is the editor of Postcolonial Interventions, an interdisciplinary online journal and one of the co-editors of Plato’s Caves, an online platform that hosts an array of poetry, fiction and non-fiction.

In Dreams: Text
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