The poetry and prose of Rumjhum Biswas has previously appeared online in Muse India, Shattercolors,
The Bare Root Review,
Etchings (Australia), The Little Magazine (India), Eclectica, Nth Position (UK), The King's English,
Halfway down the Stairs, Arabesques Review, Crannog (Ireland), Clockwise Cat, Chanterelle's Notebook,
A Hudson View (SA), Lily Literary Review, The Paumanok Review, Poems Niederngasse (Switzerland),
Unlikely Stories, Cerebration (UK), Amarillo Bay, Gowanus, Loch Raven Review, and Southern Ocean Review
(New Zealand).
Her poem "Cleavage" was in the longlist of the Bridport Poetry Competition 2006.
She won third prize in a poetry contest organized by Unisun Publishers in 2008 and a flash fiction
was short listed in the Kala Ghoda Literary Festival 2008 Flash Fiction contest managed by Caferati.
In print her poems have been published in anthologies by Unisun Publishers -
The Silken Web, Forward Press – Heart & Soul, Take a peek, and Nature's Paradise
Poetry Chain 2006 Chennai Poets Anthology. Her short story for The Verb Magazine's "Looking at You Contest"
won honorable mention and an excerpt was posted in the October 2007 issue of The Verb.
A link to the poet's website follows at the end of this document.
The umbra of your soul
becomes blue here
where centuries of icy restraint
are converted
into popsicle bright, indigo lush layers
of incomprehensible beauty
You begin to spiral through translucent
filaments of questions - Why
did the dreamer's dream start to turn and elongate
into the bluebird's song? When
did the artist crush cerulean with marble mortar
to pollinate the waters? How
did the weight of Beryline tunnel through teal with a speed of purpose
more potent than a chalice dipped into Lethe? Can anything
be as quiet as the shades that haunt
the silences of this watery world?
We derive so much of succor from the cobalt dish of sky
gently pouring into oceans, lakes and rivers. Yet,
sailors dread that deep dive where azure and ultramarine lie
counting time on ocean washed spherules
swept aside by the webbed and finned,
the fronded and plumed mysteries.
Everything is stilled by the deep
singing a certain unspoken song
of such soul numbing beauty
that you cannot, you must not, and you do not
even try to return to your harsh world
of unquiet colour
© 2008 Rumjhum Biswas
Rapture of the Deep
