Poet : Deepa Gopal
Look at the sky—
Flashes of dreams strewn around
No, don’t laugh, they mean something
To someone somewhere.
The horizon is always distant, untouched.
Can you see that it is on fire?
Lapping everything it touches.
The unreasonable rain presents itself
Involuntarily and then I laugh.
The seasons change, and people too
I stand my ground.
Do you smell magnolia champaca?
It only means I am thinking of you—
You are not alone.
Words
Poet : Deepa Gopal
Fresh-wild-alive-restless-lucid-sparkling
Inviting-inspiring-overwhelming
Shrewd-sly-double-ended-cunning
Bruising-hurting-torturing-slaughtering
In different forms, shapes and sizes
They linger for their respective transformations
They create or destroy
Subject to the speaker’s intent
Through words
We lose or gain worlds
Silence is sometimes eloquent.
Deepa Gopal is a visual artist and a creative writer currently based in Dubai. Winner of the Honourable Mention Award for painting from Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, Ahalia Woman Icon of the Year Award for Fine Arts, and Artgram Award, her works are often “mindscapes” – an introspection into the emotional and the psychological. She likes to engage with dreams, visions, and myths. She likes her work to be a confluence of art and poetry. Diversity is her forte, as she loves to explore and experiment with various mediums and techniques along with varied subject matter. In over a decade of her art career, she has conceptualized and curated three exhibitions and participated in several others in India, UAE, Mauritius, and Italy.
Deepa Gopal’s poems have been published in anthologies like “Whispering Poiesis” (2018), “Beyond Words”(2020), “The Kali Project” (2021), “Through the Looking Glass” (2021), “But You Don’t Look Sick” (2021), “Timeless Inspirations” (poem, 2021) and “Strings of Heart” (2024). “I art, I write, and therefore I am,” is her motto.
The Stillness Project 