Dozing Doves

13/06/2026

Asoteric Alphabetic Abecedary
— Sayan Guha

A-soteric verses
Stinging like humming B-s
C-s to exist in the moment
While D-s look highly doubtful
E-s into it with joy
Between F-s and buts
G-eez, what a personality!
H is silent but H-s stories are a laugh and a half
Our I-s are the same
J-sting justly with zest
Always taking precaution in K-s
L-s never wish for trouble!
She M-s at her target
With her N-ees always on the ground
O, 'tis so marvellous to look at
P-eace march for the peas
Always making an ex-Q-s
For everything that is R-s is yours
S-he hates the silence of H
T-s is the story of our universe
U are welcome here
V are pleased to introduce you to—
Double U
X-s not in good health
Y are you feeling sleepy?
Z z z

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08/06/2026

SWALLOW THE SUN
— Sayan Guha

Childhood is a bohemian sun
burning our skin bronze
and basking us
in the glory of nostalgia-drenched
Sunday afternoons.

It is the loose grip
of a carefree child
on the handlebars of his bicycle,
the eager slips of the foot
on mundane plastic pedals,
the treacherous push on the back,
the tottering wobble,
and the inevitable fall on the rubble

the sharp, stinging memory
of a grazed knee,
laying sprawled on the ground
on our backs
between a grassbank and asphalt street

laughing so hard and wide
as to swallow the sun whole.

Copyright ©️ Dozing Doves

06/06/2026

Bohemian Heat — Sayan Guha

A dazzling hot terrace
blinding white as paper,
parched leaves
on the cusp of fire.

A motionless
scorched afternoon,
drowsing in the arms
of the blazing day.

An ant crawls
under the sun
in the bohemian heat.
A beetle drifts past
like a shooting star.
A gallery of pigeons—
hooting, fluttering, flapping wings.
One struts with a model's gait.
Then all leave
but one remains
the one with the model's gait.

And we both sat there—
stripped to our thoughts,
burning our skin
in the naked, bohemian heat.

Copyright ©️ Dozing Doves

05/06/2026

MY CHILDHOOD IS AN ASTRAL CAT
— SAYAN GUHA

The memory of my childhood is a cat built from fragments—

Hopping between searing hot squares of flat rooftops
and slumbering baked-clay terraces sweltering in the blazing
heat of July,

Purring past a rolling dime and a scattered game of marbles,

Swaying it’s tail under a dusty tangle of telegraph lines,

Wincing at the clanks of steel spatula on the rim of
flaming hot iron pots,

Blinking at the delightful sight of golden brown onion
chops sizzling in pools of mustard oil in Kaka’s corner shop,
that smelled of tamarind and boiled sweets.

My childhood is that astral cat—

prowling the soft perimeter between

the madness of adolescence
and the sanity of adulthood.

Copyright ©️ Dozing Doves

03/06/2026

In Memory Of Krishna — Sayan Guha

The evening arrives,
pouring from within its bleeding heart
of red and gold
an ethereal orchestra
of conch shells and cymbals
that reverberate in temples,
and upon our praying heads.

Trailing wisps of smoke
from scented candles and
burning incense collide midair,
forming ephemeral sculptures of Krishna
and lingering shadows
of remembered stories

Fleeting as the smoke,
as fleeting as the memories—

burning in my eyes.

Copyright ©️ Dozing Doves

03/06/2026

Dozing Doves

01/06/2026

01/06/2026

BLACK BRAHMA— Sayan Guha

The city is a decadent
death well of untamed
urges frothing and
boiling under the
carbon black—

waiting to erupt from
the distended bellies
of children
like a thousand
burning Brahmas
floating on
black lotuses.

Copyright ©️ Dozing Doves

31/05/2026

Bloodshot eyes of sky
Fear etched in each eyelash

Little black hearts of night
Borne on every blade of grass.

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