Poems Niederngasse Issue 84 - January 2008

Ashok Niyogi
Because I Was Obstinate Last Friday

they’re not for me
these girls with fashionable breasts
already under strain
of school going children

not mine
those toes
with painted nails
hopefully slipping
from heeled sandals
onto asphalt road

where pebbles meander
under police stare
monitored by media glare

engineering
is what meditation whispers
into shirt shoulders
that the tailor has narrowed

assuming a certain
individuality

a refreshing
intellectual unnerving
with the unfolding
of a ladybird’s
most colorful wing
in an optimistic winter sun


Ashok Niyogi is an Economics graduate from Presidency College, Calcutta. He made a career as an International Trader and has lived and worked in the Soviet Union, Europe and South East Asia in the ‘80s and ‘90s.  He has one book of poems, Tenatively (ISBN: 0-595-33935-2) and has been extensively published in print and on-line magazines and in Chapbook form in the USA, UK, Australia and Canada. email: ashokniyogi@yahoo.com