Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Abandoned & Lost


By Netra Hirani

Soft glow of the sun,

warm rays smiling at the silky cool water

running in between my fingers,

polite teasing breeze whispering me to steel myself,

as your hands hold my fabric tight and keep me near,

.

A pearl on my hand,

a star on my neck resting between my collar bones,

ravens on my shoulder awaiting flight.

Smell of fresh baked cookies and a warm brownie,

that hugs your heart, melts the frost.

.

Gentle touches in this white,

your hands warming mine as I slip them in your cloak.

A few more hours until the bridge burns down to Ashes,

as we collect wood and build once again.

The time has its way, crisp and clear.

.

The green striped walls and elevated chairs,

a dash of an old stored marmalade on soft biscuits.

The pebbles on the streets where we wove hands.

Old cream cakes and milkshakes.

Before sunset, goodbye.

These paths and tastes,

remain abandoned and lost.

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Netra Hirani is a sophomore at Thapar University, pursuing Computer Sciences. She has been writing since she was 12 and loves poetry. She is the author of ‘Breathings’, a compilation of her poetry and has a WordPress blog, ‘Scriptechtellus’. She loves music, has a playlist for every occasion and enjoys dancing. She likes solving Sudoku, appreciates good humour alongside a cup of hot tea.

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Categories
Poetry

The Vernacular of Silence

By Megha Sood

The vernacular of silence cannot be heard by ears which are profoundly ringing by the overwhelming tunes of lofty desires. Silence has no shape and a beautiful shape at the same time. It can fit itself in the trickiest of places. It can strip itself of any facades and stand stark naked in front of you and still, you cannot trace it. Sometimes it lives surreptitiously on the edges of the serrated palm leaves bathed by the shifty-eyed moon. The hushed whispers of the moon cleave a story out of the night’s cleavage. The balmy wind carries the whispers under the thick layers of the drapes. We all have a story to tell but only a few can interpret the silence. Silence culled in the bones can birth a rattling symphony for generations to tell. Silence culled in the twisted boughs of the wild oak. An unwanted witness to the miseries of mankind. A silent giant. Sometimes nature has its own lexicon of spoken and unheard. You just need the right pair of ears to listen to. Like the turbulent story of an ocean in roughly carved layers of the conch. I can still hear the waves if I press my ears too close to it. Nature is humming a sweet lullaby. Only a few can hear it. Silence and death are interchangeable the moment you part your lips.

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Megha Sood is an Assistant Poetry Editor at MookyChick and Literary Partner in the project “Life in Quarantine” with CESTA, Stanford University, USA. Works widely featured in journals, newspapers, including Poetry Society of New York, WNYC, American Writers Review, SONKU, FIVE:2: ONE, KOAN, Kissing Dynamite, etc. She has numerous works in anthologies by the US, UK, Australian, and Canadian Press. Currently, she is editing ( “The Medusa Project”, Mookychick), and (“The Kali Project, Indie Blu(e) Press). She blogs at https://meghasworldsite.wordpress.com/ and tweets at @meghasood16

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Categories
Poetry

Silly Questions

Poetry from Nepal by Nabin Pyassi, translated by Haris C Adhikari

Nabin Pyassi

Sometimes I feel—

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Why does the breeze

Not blow only for itself, why

 Does the sun

Not say, ‘I’ll rise only in palaces?’

Why do the rivers

Not say, ‘This comes in other’s frontier?’

.

What happens if

The clouds get angry,

And soils sprout

Only weeds?

What happens if

Our own heart forgets

Our body?

.

I myself stand

In the dock, and question—

.

Why, without any fear,

Do flowers bloom?

Why don’t birds claim, ‘The sky is only ours!’

Why, without regret,

Do roads spill their nakedness

Far and wide?

.

Why does the mountain

Not keep on freezing

But melt as well? Why do

Nights have to take their leave, though reluctantly?

Why doesn’t the winter scream, saying

‘Let no new leaves sprout!’  

.

Why do babies come carrying

A great mountain of suffering

In the wombs and from the wombs?

Who

Do the cracked heels tease

Over and over again, grinning?

Why,

Why do revolutions always stand

On the

Labourers’ backs?

.

Placing my palm lines

On my forehead, I question—

.

Why does the dustbin refuse

To clean its own appearance? Why

Does the guitar not accept

The tunes brought to life 

With my inexperienced fingers? Why

Do our own eyes

Not see ourselves

As ‘beautiful’?

.

Why doesn’t the mirror show

My frustrations, my vanities, and my sins?

.

Why doesn’t

Time take

Commands of people?

Poets Bio:

Nabin Pyassi (b. Dec. 21, 1995) an aspiring poet and an avid reader of poetry, hails from Khotang district. He is pursuing his studies from Tribhuvan University, with English literature and sociology as his majors. Most of his poetic works are romantic, insightful and metaphysical as well as deeply rooted to the native soil.

Translator’s Bio:

Haris C Adhikari, a widely published poet and translator from Nepal, and an MPhil scholar in English language, teaches at Kathmandu University. He has three books poetry and literary translation to his credit. Adhikari’s creative and scholarly works have appeared in numerous national and international journals. Until 2017, he edited Misty Mountain Review, an online journal of short poetry. Currently, he co-edits Polysemy, a journal of interdisciplinary scholarship, published out of DoMIC, Kathmandu University. He can be reached at haris.adhikari@ku.edu.np

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Categories
Poetry

From Canada to India…

Poems by Sangeeta Sharma

The Song of Toronto lake

Raging waters in the lake

Sapphire, black, jade

On the ferry with a backpack

Waves rolling forth and back

Sparkling sunshine reflects

Staring through the waves you feel

It’s not the water but the skies

And millions of twinkling stars

In the waters

Where the earth and the sky meet

Expanse covered with a golden garment

Rolling waves, unbridled

Like a resplendent bright sheet

Spread over the translucent waters

The spray of the icy water

And unpolluted air

Break your trance!

Shevantis (Chrysanthemums)

It was a kind of cloudburst

A rainstorm

Creating flood-like situation

Orange-alert sounded

Rail tracks and highways

Water-logged

People preferring indoors

Nevertheless

The impoverished girl: frail and pale-faced

Shivering and completely-drenched

 Bare-feet waded

Towards the traffic jammed

Shook the bunch of wet beautiful blooming shevantis

Before the halting motorists at the red signal

Of a Mumbai-highway

My heart cringed at the pathetic sight

And I heard a voice within me:

“Can beggars be choosers?”

Monsoon and the Lockdown

Incessantly, the heavens poured

The young bride who had entered the new threshold

With dreams rainbow,

Felt stifled,

By the humdrum of the lockdown, deadened

For four months and more.

She drew the curtains of the French-windows

To let the thunderous rain droplets,

Sprinkle on her façe: yearning and dry

For every drop cool

Drenched her body and soul

To the core

And infused in her life manifold!

Dr. Sangeeta Sharma, a senior academician, is a widely published critic, poet and writer. In 2012, she authored a book on Arthur Miller and another a collection of 76 poems in 2017. She has jointly edited five anthologies on poetry, fiction and criticism and two workbooks on Communication. A free-lance journalist, she is also a Ph.D Guide appointed by the University of Mumbai. One of her books is also listed as a reference in the department of English, Clayton State University, USA.

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Categories
Poetry

Wearing Silk Gloves Once More

By Jenny Middleton

Gloves, lined with silk’s soft blur

write my hands with memory;

their interior warm with the smooth touch

of things held and held before.

.

Creased and tender in their slide

over skin, it is as if we were relearning

our vows, as a language grown old sings

with words once rusted,

seized and deadened,

amongst a tangle of docks and nettles,

or choked with bind weed’s grasp.

.

Now as clay is worked clear,

turned on its wheel to rings

and worn up to the tenderness of sculpture

these words rise from their base vowels

to sentence the sublime

unfastening us from everyday

routine and rhyme.

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Jenny Middleton has written poetry throughout her life. Some of this is published in printed anthologies or on online poetry sites, including ‘The Blue Nib’. Jenny is a working mum and writes whenever she can find stray minutes between the chaos of family life. She lives in London with her husband, two children and two very lovely, crazy cats.  You can read more of her poems at her website  https://www.jmiddletonpoems.com 

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Categories
Poetry

Three poems from Ukraine

By Lesya Bakun

Someone’s Dream

(Translated from Ukrainian to English by the poet herself)

Well then.

Finally, everything is done,

so that someone’s dream

does not come true.

Convene the musicians!

After all, this is hard work:

consistently doing everything

not to give anyone hope.

Or take it?

But in Mary’s poems,

Some weird, not at all like Zhadan’s*,

Angels are step dancing,

And, apparently, they feel good there

in the steppe.

*Zhadan – Well-known Ukranian writer Serhiy Zhadan

Rosehip Bush

(Translated from Russian to English by the poet herself)

I think life is

like a cauldron of boiling water:

No matter which side you touch,

you’ll get burnt.

I think life is

a rosehip bush:

Beautiful on the outside,

But it hurts a lot.

I think of life,

and its many aspects,

but I’m looking at the world

through my camera’s lens,

and it sees the world

with no lattice.

The Sad Philosopher

(Translated from Ukrainian to English by the poet herself)

How have I earned

such happiness?

This is more than good

for me.

I want to stay

a sad philosopher,

forever.

No changes.

No events.

No growth.

.

Lesya (Oleksandra) Bakun is a polyglot poet and non-formal educator who resides in Ukraine. She has been writing since the age of 14, in Ukrainian, Russian, and English; her poems were published in the local young poets’ anthology. Oleksandra has the ‘young’ and ‘adult’ periods of her writing life, and challenges of each are vividly seen in the words she’s sharing – both as texts and in poetry readings. Her poems revolve around complex themes like trauma, gender, societal issues, relationships, and mental health.

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Categories
Poetry

Poems of Hurt

By Sonya J Nair

1. Fury Slow burn. A screw coiling, coiling, coiling A watch wound, wound, wound A screw to the heart wōund, wōund, wōund the sound of acid pumping a spring a snap recoil recoiling re-coiling. Tangibility The day you died, I forgot — to fret over the numbness that resided at the tip of my left little toe. — and how annoyed I had been with you for refusing to believe the existence of such a mustard seed of an anomaly. "Totally in the extreme," you howled, while I contemplated blue murder. — how I once woke to find you nibbling away at my hypothesis, your face impishly inching closer, making me want to love you in ten shades of tangibility. It was only by night, after they had buried you, that I wondered — if loss could send feeling flooding into frozen digits — the cascades of pain, a twinge? the keening in my soul, a twitch? I touched the spot. Still cold. As cold as you had gone.

Sonya J. Nair is the editor of samyuktapoetry.com. She is working on her first collection of poems. She has been published in the Shimmer Spring Anthology and Rewriting Human Imagination- an anthology published by IASE and the Centre for Digital Humanities.

Categories
Poetry

December poems

By Anita Nahal

Sleepless nights – Anita Nahal i. Storm Sleepless nights are an aphrodisiac, sometimes. They are you and your naked skin next to mine. When hands linger and the morning sun is asked to wait, intense sun rays are hushed out the room. In the middle of the night between endless sharing, sleepless nights are like that glass of water at my bedside in which I’d slipped a couple of ice cubes to cool the heat. Those sleepless nights don’t come very often even though I send hand written letters sprinkled with a bit of ittar at the envelope’s opening. I keep waiting for you…keep waiting for you and the storm stands at the doorstep crushing dry leaves against restless window panes. ii. Lull Sometimes, sleepless nights come like a lull between pregnant chapters of a novel. Curiosity compels to turn the page and I drag my feet like exhausted horses after a long, tedious journey in medieval times. I try to calm the pawns and the elephants that the horses are being tended to, but a game of chess gives me away. I don my royal clothes and try to appear majestic as I stride out to allay fears of my ailing armies, but sleepless nights don’t let go…don’t let go and hold on to reigns like lonely seaweeds in a forgotten marsh. And the parched leaves of the now overlooked storm have been pressed dried as book marks in my novel. iii. Rejuvenation Since I’m not the game type, I give up any lackluster attempts to try. Neither chess, nor dice, nor the war or love kind. I lay alone for that’s how I find peace to rejuvenate. On clean sheets after a lazy shower, I refuse to even put on my reading glasses or stretch my hand for the lamp switch. A nightcap of hot buttered rum, some Amazon rain sounds with light Native American flute soothes. Sleepless nights walk away…walk away gently as I lay beneath a dreamcatcher with fairy lights blinking tenderly. The storm and the lull have bonded, and the expectant novel goes to sleep unread. And so, do I. Glossary: Ittar: An essential oil derived from botanical sources Airplanes in flight, when a heart came to be in crimson and saffron I guess, I guess it’s tough to say where you are headed. Perhaps away from a love, or to a love. I’m just a relentless romantic so bear me my mushy heart’s muse as did Robert Frost whom I met last night as I was making my way for a glimpse of you flying. He told me to keep walking till I reached a clearing through thick tree tops where the sky and the crimson-saffron leaves mingled with the hues of my cheeks so that I would blush, and a heart would come to be. I stood in the open with my arms far above trying to hold on to some magical woodland while shadows of hearts danced in tinges of yellows, browns, and lime greens playing mischief with my own shadow. As I serenely tried to capture them, butterflies flew in from all sides with naughty eyed elves riding abreast. I pinched myself. I shook my clothes. I kicked off my shoes and was ready to waltz when Alice in Wonderland stood beside me watching you fly and zoom by. I whispered to the heart shadows to come back and they all blushed crimson and saffron, and a heart came to be. I kept watching till I could only hear your hum, and then turned to the wise trees beseeching their embrace. Avatars of all foliage clasped palms sprinkling me with autumn leaves and my yogic breaths and poses didn’t fail as I prepped to fall to rise again. I merged with the ground with my heart full and calm as all the crimsons and saffron held arms, and a renewed heart came to be. As time flew along with you, I slowly rubbed my eyes watching a paler blue than pale blue sky. Perhaps its misty clouds were lifting you to keep flying, chugging, going . Perhaps a lover, or a soldier, a mother or father, or a child are yearning inside you to take them to their loved ones. Your journey is long, yet I’ll watch you from my crimson-saffron clearing, my heart next to yours. And when all loved ones have met those waiting, everyone’s blushing cheeks will turn an enduring red, and a heart forever would come to be. Sleepless nights – Anita Nahal i. Storm Sleepless nights are an aphrodisiac, sometimes. They are you and your naked skin next to mine. When hands linger and the morning sun is asked to wait, intense sun rays are hushed out the room. In the middle of the night between endless sharing, sleepless nights are like that glass of water at my bedside in which I’d slipped a couple of ice cubes to cool the heat. Those sleepless nights don’t come very often even though I send hand written letters sprinkled with a bit of ittar at the envelope’s opening. I keep waiting for you…keep waiting for you and the storm stands at the doorstep crushing dry leaves against restless window panes. ii. Lull Sometimes, sleepless nights come like a lull between pregnant chapters of a novel. Curiosity compels to turn the page and I drag my feet like exhausted horses after a long, tedious journey in medieval times. I try to calm the pawns and the elephants that the horses are being tended to, but a game of chess gives me away. I don my royal clothes and try to appear majestic as I stride out to allay fears of my ailing armies, but sleepless nights don’t let go…don’t let go and hold on to reigns like lonely seaweeds in a forgotten marsh. And the parched leaves of the now overlooked storm have been pressed dried as book marks in my novel. iii. Rejuvenation Since I’m not the game type, I give up any lackluster attempts to try. Neither chess, nor dice, nor the war or love kind. I lay alone for that’s how I find peace to rejuvenate. On clean sheets after a lazy shower, I refuse to even put on my reading glasses or stretch my hand for the lamp switch. A nightcap of hot buttered rum, some Amazon rain sounds with light Native American flute soothes. Sleepless nights walk away…walk away gently as I lay beneath a dreamcatcher with fairy lights blinking tenderly. The storm and the lull have bonded, and the expectant novel goes to sleep unread. And so, do I. Glossary: Ittar: An essential oil derived from botanical sources Airplanes in flight, when a heart came to be in crimson and saffron I guess, I guess it’s tough to say where you are headed. Perhaps away from a love, or to a love. I’m just a relentless romantic so bear me my mushy heart’s muse as did Robert Frost whom I met last night as I was making my way for a glimpse of you flying. He told me to keep walking till I reached a clearing through thick tree tops where the sky and the crimson-saffron leaves mingled with the hues of my cheeks so that I would blush, and a heart would come to be. I stood in the open with my arms far above trying to hold on to some magical woodland while shadows of hearts danced in tinges of yellows, browns, and lime greens playing mischief with my own shadow. As I serenely tried to capture them, butterflies flew in from all sides with naughty eyed elves riding abreast. I pinched myself. I shook my clothes. I kicked off my shoes and was ready to waltz when Alice in Wonderland stood beside me watching you fly and zoom by. I whispered to the heart shadows to come back and they all blushed crimson and saffron, and a heart came to be. I kept watching till I could only hear your hum, and then turned to the wise trees beseeching their embrace. Avatars of all foliage clasped palms sprinkling me with autumn leaves and my yogic breaths and poses didn’t fail as I prepped to fall to rise again. I merged with the ground with my heart full and calm as all the crimsons and saffron held arms, and a renewed heart came to be. As time flew along with you, I slowly rubbed my eyes watching a paler blue than pale blue sky. Perhaps its misty clouds were lifting you to keep flying, chugging, going . Perhaps a lover, or a soldier, a mother or father, or a child are yearning inside you to take them to their loved ones. Your journey is long, yet I’ll watch you from my crimson-saffron clearing, my heart next to yours. And when all loved ones have met those waiting, everyone’s blushing cheeks will turn an enduring red, and a heart forever would come to be.

Anita Nahal Ph.D., CDP is a professor, poet, short story writer and children’s writer. She teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington DC. Nahal has two books of poetry, one book of flash fictions and three children’s books to her credit, besides an edited poetry anthology. Her writings have appeared in journals in the US, UK, Asia and Australia. More on her at: https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal

Categories
Poetry

The Phoenix

By Soma Debray

Happy memories of girlhood return

With the giggling youngsters

All decked in their best

Furtive glances at may or may-not-be friends

As they chatter along.

.

Hair bejewelled like the night-sky

Danglers and bracelets

No signs of fear

Like the eagle flying high

They spread their wings.

.

Only man can defy and defeat

Only man can rise

Like the Phoenix

All aglow

Piercing the Universe

With its shrill cry

I live and will live.

.

Leatherback turtles are back

The neel gai roam the streets

The cheel shrieks overhead

As I gaze at the green parrots…

My girlhood returns.

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Soma Debray has been a student and teacher of English literature for this half of her life. When in her twenties, she was a proud firebrand feminist, but with maturity settling in, she has opted out of –isms; finding fulfilment in womanhood, enjoying all roles carved by nature with freedom of varied explorations. She has faith in self and is a warrior for women’s cause. Women are power; power latent that need be made patent.

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Categories
Poetry

Origin

By Sekhar Banerjee

Watermelons have intense violence stored inside

them — the blood and serum of summer

and they are always calm. I appreciate the plant’s climbing habit

from the womb of the seed

to the intricate womb of heat — vertical and horizontal;

it has a miasma of secrecy to hide

what it is developing inside its

spherical mind

.                        

And the rind of the fruit is striped,

dark green or blotched

to guard whatever finally transpires —  red

or pink

with numerous sorrowful pips throughout

like a smile without a meaning

.

and I think of the sandy soil of a roadside farm or a forlorn

river-bed somewhere which was harsh

on it — like a trigger

to finally teach us  

how something develops — from seed to plant

to fruit and from fruit to seed to plant again

in reverse order — the order that we generally follow

in love

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Sekhar Banerjee is an author.  He has four collections of poems and a monograph on an Indo-Nepal border tribe to his credit. He is a former Secretary of Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi and Member-Secretary of Paschimbanga Kabita Akademi under the Government of West Bengal.  He lives in Kolkata, India. 

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