Rita Bhattacharjee

Rita Bhattacharjee
 
The Mist
 
The mist comes in through my window,
handful of sighs who have lost their way.
The mist comes in through my window,
restless wraiths clamoring to play.
 
I
Ghosts of the past risen from the dead
                        fly breakneck on witches’ wings,
                        scattering, fleeing like truant schoolboys
                        when Apollo’s sword slashes at them, now and again.
They return, seconds later—
                        shadowy locusts shrouding the living with a veil of translucence.
 
II
The human mind is a lot like weather, only more unpredictable.
Sunshine one moment, pouring with rain the next.
After the downpour comes the mist—
                        clouding thoughts,
                        fogging emotions incubating in the ventricular terrarium.
Frost sets in eventually, numbing the tendrils of passion
                        till summer infuses green blood into them again.
 
III
Why don’t you stay buried, ghosts of the past?
Are there no gravestones heavy enough to keep you chained to the ground?
Silhouetted against the swirling mists of Lethe,
I saw memories clawing their way out of long-forgotten graves—
Faces long faded, sins long forgotten, peering through the smoke of oblivion,
                        their ether bodies filling my home with grey darkness of foreboding.
 
IV
Demonic faces in the mist scream nightmares—
                        beastmen gorging on women and children
                        predators who kill for sport.
Does the mist come in through their window, I wonder—
like a handful of sighs who have lost their way
like restless wraiths clamoring to play?
 
 
 
Rita Bhattacharjee is a communications consultant with extensive experience in project management, strategic planning, and integrated marketing communications. She has managed corporate and internal communications for multimillion-dollar companies across diverse industries, as well as for several nonprofit organizations. She has recently relocated from the US to India to channel her skills towards social entrepreneurship to increase awareness and reduce disparity in public health through effective global research and training, development of information technology platform and deployment of mobile healthcare and alternative medical solutions. In the midst of it all, she remains a poet at heart. Her poetry has been published in reputed international journals including The Copperfield Review, Contemporary Literary Review and The Himalayan Times.