My younger brother, Matteo Banerjee, will graduate from the University
of California, Berkeley next year.
Matteo is a fantastic rock guitarist and an insightful poet (if I do say so myself).
Last year, his poem, “Funerals” won First Place in the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Teen Poetry contest.
Funerals
By Matteo Banerjee
I’ve drawn the heavy lines of life and death,
And lightly traced my fingers down each one.
I’ve crammed my pages full of tiny lines
And pinned them to my walls, and crossed them out,
I’ve blurred, and bent, and broken them apart.
In here I’ve watched the clocks, I’ve smelled, I’ve
seen
The rotten gloom of artificial light,
I’ve slaved beneath its false, idyllic warmth.
And in my search for balance in the lines
I missed the flowing of the sands of sleep
To read and write my versions of the world.
And now I need to rest below the ground,
Where damp and darkness cool our angry bones,
In which the worlds above are undertones.
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