Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

An Entreaty

By Hem Bishwakarma, translated to English from Nepali by the poet himself

Hem Bishwakarma

My feet are chasing me persistently

Laying my life down under

From then to now!

.

Please,

While I’m passing by this life

Since I am as small as a thread

Do not walk by my side

For I might be broken

.

I might be in a deep contemplation

I might be sketching my country map

Or, writing a poem

Dedicated to you

Try not to stick to me

So that the air will not pass

Try not to walk by my ears

Though you are on a vehicle

Try not to splash a smile at my eyes

The air that lets me a hold to stand

Might fall down!

.

I can give you a whole universe to walk on

Except the soil that my feet stride

Or, walk on the trees

Or, walk on the chests of rivers

You have a tall mountain to trail

Or, it’ll be alright,

If you walk just before or after me.

Giving up this vast geography,

Please do not stick to my skin and walk

.

I would have burnt to ashes

The road would have been habituated

I would walk without a movement

I would watch the flowers—

Please try not to encompass and walk

Being as narrow as yourself!

.

I would be walking with a storm in my eyes

Please do not walk breaking the silence in the air.

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Hem Bishwakarma is a poet from Nepal. His poems are published in different national and international poetry journals.

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Categories
Poetry

Gandhi at Crossroads

By Professor Dr Laksmisree Banerjee

He grew and grew like a huge banyan

with knotted roots

and a leafy shade

for us to sit under

and introspect.

.

He now stands at the crossroads

spectacled in stone,

piercing through the dimness

of truth

in iconic distance

in the labyrinths of history.

.

The vendor still fights

under the sun,

under the load

of his wares,

the slum dweller

still droops in death

inebriate in poverty,

the capitalist still

swoons in exultant vulgarity

bought from the sweat and blood

of the down-and-outs.

.

The Mahatma

in his statuesque immobility

carved in rocky apathy

at the traffic signal

remains forever forgotten

in the quagmire of life.

.

(First published in Dr Banerjee’s book, Peahen-Passions)

  *Prof. Dr. Laksmisree Banerjee is an established Sr. Poet, Writer, Educationist, Scholar, Rotarian & practicing Classical Vocalist, with many National and International Awards, Accolades & Publications to her credit. She is a Senior Fulbright Scholar (USA), Commonwealth Scholar (UK,) and a National Scholar & Gold Medalist in English of Calcutta University, India. A University Professor of English & Culture Studies, she is a recipient of the coveted UGC Post-Doctoral Research Award (Govt. of India), which she was awarded for her Path-Breaking Post-Doctoral Research Work & Global Lectures on the Comparative Studies and Transformative Vision of World Women Poets. She has also been felicitated by the Sahitya Akademi with the “Avishkar” Award/ Honour for her dual expertise as a “Scholar- Musician and a Poet- Artiste”. Prof. Banerjee has been the Founder Pro- Vice Chancellor & Ex Vice Chancellor of Kolhan University, the largest in Jharkhand India. She has lectured, taught, performed and recited in premier Universities and Literary Festivals across continents. Widely published and anthologized, she has Five published Books of Poetry, One Hundred and Twenty Research Publications with Several Academic Books to her credit. Prof. Banerjee also has the rare Honour of being The Indian President’s/ Rashtrapati’s Nominee on Boards of Central Universities. Her pivotal areas of specialization include Women’s Global Writings, Tagore’s Poetry (Studies) with her English Transcreations of Tagore, Oriental Mysticism & Sufism, English Romantic Poetry, American Transcendental Poetry & Eco-Feminism. Dr. Banerjee is also a Sr. Rotarian & a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow. Through her Poetic, Academic & Other Writings as well as her Vocal Music & Poetry Recitals and Socio- Cultural Activism, she practices the avid Promotion of Peace, Freedom, Good Will, Equality and Universal Brotherhood for a Better World—- through Trans-Cultural Understanding which shines through every facet of her work.

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Categories
Poetry

And Then Came Gandhi…

 By Navneet K Maun

Let there be peace

in each household,

in every community,

indispensible, in the present scenario

of animosity, egoism, narrow-mindedness.

The dark period of Colonialism

unified the countrymen

afflicted by unemployment, poverty, atrocities

in their daily struggle for survival.

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

stirred up a hornet’s nest.

The great bard renouncing his knighthood,

a turning point in history.

And then came Gandhi

an apostle of truth,

a beacon of hope,

dispelling the darkness

of untouchability and casteism.

His holy grail acknowledged

by Einstein, Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Tagore.

Gandhi’s Satyagraha

paved the way for Emancipation

a herculean task.

The altar of freedom

cleansed with the blood of the martyrs

tears of the kin.

Their heroism making them immortal.

Let Gandhi’s India be a harbinger of peace and ahimsa

for the world at large.

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Mrs. Navneet K Maun was born in West Bengal. Did her initial schooling from Oak Grove School, Jharipani, Mussoorie. She furthered her education from Regional College of Education, Bhubaneshwar. She did her Graduation and BEd from there. She did her Masters in English Literature from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. She has vast experience in teaching and has retired as a Senior Teacher from a Public School in Delhi. Her hobbies include reading, travelling, writing and cooking.”

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Categories
Poetry

Khadi: A Threat to the Dictator

    By Milan Mondal

Khadi: A Threat to the Dictator

The sun was at the zenith,

Because the dictator had gun.

He never thought of the setting sun.

The dictator cared a fig

And the charcoal was burning behind the white ash.

Tolerance was the stick to kindle the flame,

And truth was the only tool for the silent blast.

From South Africa to Jallianwala Bagh

Or from Champaran to Dandi

The dictator realized the charisma of khadi.

.

Status Quo

Three years more passed

After the platinum jubilee

My cheeks are now no better than dry-grapes.

No distinctive line is visible

In between two of my breasts.

The beasts are still treading,

‘Wire’ cannot protect cleavages

From the ‘Oracle’.

Breaking the ‘riddle’,

Oedipus does sow the seed

To stigmatize Jocasta.

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Milan Mondal, Assistant Professor in English at Narajole Raj College (Narajole, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India) is a young bilingual (English and Bengali) writer of poetry and short stories. The major themes of his creative writings include ‘partition’, ‘diaspora’, ‘psychoanalysis’ ‘existentialism’ etc. Some of his poems have been published in reputed magazine.

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Categories
Poetry

To Thee O Gandhi

By Soumik De

Round glasses and a cane stick

A loin cloth and a pair of clogs

Mark thee O mark thee!

.

Truth and triumph

Struggle and stride

Shape thee O shape thee!

.

Bold and bald

Bend but strict

From thee O from thee!

.

Wheels and whiffs

Text and textiles

Spins thee O spin thee!

.

Glamour and Glory

Great yet gentle

Merge into thee O merge into thee!

.

Thou art the other name

Of India

Salute thee O salute thee!

Soumik Kumar De, a teacher   by profession and a poet by passion, likes to write both in Bengali and English. His creative compass includes poetry, short-story, flash-fiction etc. Adrika Ke Niye is a collection of Bengali modern creative poems . His poems have recently been published in Aulos: An Anthology of English Poetry and in Caravan. His Bengali poems has also been included in the anthology Sangshaptak . Besides he has to his credit several other academic writings. The areas of his interest include cultural studies, diaspora writings, Dalit studies etc. He also passes his leisure by playing guitar occasionally.   

 

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Categories
Poetry

Nandini

Written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi

I couldn’t ask Nandini if she had school education. 
I only asked a foreign student excellent in Bengali about her age.

The girl, understanding only English such as brother, sister and thanks 
Was the last daughter of a roti shopkeeper,
Located at the small street near the post office in Shantiniketan, West Bengal,
There was Nandini’s small shop along with fruit shops and bike shops.

Cows passing by would thrust their heads suddenly
Into the shop thatched with bamboo stems.

One Korean poet said he had seen the girl when she was seven.
Her bones had grown until now, at the age of fourteen, selling chai and roti.
In this district, goats and ducks, even dogs and cows, grow up by themselves.
They do not pierce the cow’s nose nor pull them by reins.
The only thing that hinders the cows are the chains around the trees.
The only thing hindering the sleep of dogs are so many steps and vehicle horns.

Maybe Nandini also has grown up like that,
Delivering the dishes of roti and washing the glasses of chai,
Yelling at the two babies of the older sisters,
She might learn about the world hearing the customers’ talk over their shoulders.
How long had she had bare feet? The toes pressed out from sandals looked like tree stumps.

My returning back to my country has nothing to do with Nandini.
She only smiled brightly twinkling her eyes at my small gift.
I wished she would meet a good man not wanting a dowry,
And become a nice mother of children, like her elder sister,
All together with her brothers and sisters and strong and diligent mother,
Dissolving the tragic memory of her father’s suicide.

Nandini smiled though I told her to close her mouth,
Though I didn’t ask her to say cheese to make her smile.
When did she learn to smile in front of a camera?
There lived a flower-like little girl selling chai near the old house of poet R. Tagore.

Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple books of poetry. Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal to name a few. E-mail: choiihlwha@hanmail.net

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Categories
Poetry

Bapu and Sabarmati

By Gopal Lahiri

Sabarmati, you stroke the current ripples,

evoke in me song, holding the bird tweets,

a sky we are filling.

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I can see the other side of the river bank

it’s sandy blocks and concrete heights-

shadows falling in silence.

.

There you are standing tall with a stick,

your eyes look sharp behind rimless glass

shining in twilight.

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Remember the shadows lurking behind

your words carry the low clouds,

up above the orange heavens.

.

Let me wake you up to the cries of

a new born parable, a silent muse

windows open into meanings.

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And then you walk like the sun 

towards west and west,

darkness coming in fast.

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I imagine walking with you

searching for your hand to take me to the

land of peace and harmony. 

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At night

on the edge of sleep

Sabarmati washes all my pains and wounds.

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Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator. He is the author of 22 books published including fourteen volumes of poems in English (four jointly edited anthology of poems) and eight volumes of poems and prose in Bengali, His poems have been published across various journals and anthologies worldwide. He has recently edited the book titled ‘Jaillianwala Bagh- Poetic Tributes’. He has attended various poetry festivals in India and abroad. He is published in 12 countries and in 10 languages. He lives in Kolkata, India.

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Categories
Poetry

Light a Candle

By Aminath Neena

You, light a candle in your heart
.
Fill your soul with the brightness of its entourage
Let not this world be a selfish mirage
.
Let them kill your roseate dreams
Ignore your poignant pleas
Squash your path in mud
Drench the innocent in blood
.
But you, light a candle in your heart
.
Fill your soul with the brightness of its entourage
Let not this world be a selfish mirage
.

Let them spill out the venom
Attack the one without any weapon
Destroy your precious homes
Ruin your auspicious hopes

But you, light a candle in your heart
.
Fill your soul with the brightness of its entourage

Let not this world be a selfish mirage
.
Let them smudge your garments
With their gratuitous comments
.
Let them do all the damage
While they can still rampage
.
But you, light a candle in your heart
.
Fill your soul with the brightness of its entourage
Let not this world be a selfish mirage
.
Let them create havoc in the land
But this you must understand
Surely you will overcome this phase
For, the oppressed move closest to God’s space
.
Until then, light a candle in your heart
.
Fill your soul with the brightness of its entourage
Let not this world be a selfish mirage

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And if not a candle, a tiny spark
Will definitely, drive away the darkness at large.

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Aminath Neena is an English lecturer from the picturesque archipelago nation of the Maldives. Currently, she works at Maldives National University. An avid lover of words, poetry is a hobby closest to her heart. Her poems usually revolve around themes such as love, relationships, spirituality, society, and global issues. According to her, poetry is the gateway to spirituality because it resonates purity like no other. Among her achievements include having her poem featured in ‘Words And Music’, a programme on BBC Radio. She believes her writings to be a reflection of her thoughts, her feelings and her life.

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Categories
Poetry

Peace & Resistence

By Dr. Piku Chowdhury

Peace and Resistance

For the love of myself, I can’t shut out the drumbeats

Reverberating in the primitive groves of ancient times

Daughter of shadows, you burn in shades of my heart.

I can’t jump over untouched spaces that

Hide under urban gloss, overlying putrid fungal stretch.

If Vemula burns and daughter of soil

Is groped with soiled nails and golden fangs

The untouchable touched with carrion lust,

For the love of self, a daughter of a sacred land

Where Shanti flows in honeyed air, and

Is enshrined in the fluttering flag,

I allow the primitive drums to roar

strange rhythms loud, and echo in blood.

For the love of myself, I strain my ear

To the silent resilience of nation’s father.

And then — I wield the reticent pen

Pregnant with the pent-up pain

And catch the helpless weeping rain

To create a song woven in weft

Of Bapu’s sublime dreams of justice

Liberty, equality, reverence, mercy-

The flowing lines an obeisance

to the power of peaceful resistance.

Against dismal discrimination,

Corruption and exploitation.

The lines take flight like the winged herald

Of peace; the rhythm echoes in groves

With the power of a lonesome figure, righteous in resistance

Marching erect with might of peace; undaunted will

That breathes new life in every faltering existence.

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Dr. Piku Chowdhury is a teacher in a government aided post graduate college of education and an author of 8 books. She has published more than 70 articles in international journals and acted as resource person in many national and international seminars and symposia. She has published poems, acted as editor,  translator and core committee member of curriculum revision in the state. 

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Categories
Poetry

Korean Blast


By Wansoo Kim

Korean Blast


Old Japanese women,
Crossing the East Sea* at a breath
To have the blood of youth transfused
Through their throbbing drama stars,
Burst cheers and tears
As teenage girls.
.
Young people with yellow hair
Jump up tearing their vocal cords
To the song whose meaning they don’t know at all
Because K-pop gale blusters
In Europe and the American Continent
Where the hot blast of pop songs
Shook the young hearts of the Korean Peninsula
In my childhood.
.
The Korean hot blast
Crosses even the barbed-wire fence
Of the inter-Korean border
And melts even the hostility like stone
Surrounded like Fort Knox
In the hearts of the soldiers taking a gun.
.
The Korean Peninsula now
Is not ‘the land of the morning calm’
Or the land sobbing with grudges and sorrows any more
But the dreamland
With the living volcano of dramas and K-pops blazing
For the people of the world to wish to visit surely once.

*East Sea – Japanese Sea

Wansoo Kim is a Ph. D. in English Literature from the graduate school of Hanguk University of Foreign Studies. He was a lecturer at Hanguk University of Foreign Studies and an adjunct professor at Incheon Junior College for about 20 years. He has published 5 poetry books, one novel, and one book of essays. One poetry book, “Duel among a middle-aged fox, a wild dog and a deer” was a bestseller in 2012, one page from the book of Letters for Teenagers was put in textbooks of middle school (2011) and high school (2014) in South Korea, and four books (Easy-to-read English Bible stories, Old Testament(2017), New Testament(2018) and Teenagers, I Support your Dream”) were bestsellers. He was granted a Rookie award for poetry at the magazine of Monthly Literature Space in South Korea, and the World Peace Literature Prize for Poetry Research and Recitation, presented in New York City at the 5th World Congress of Poets(2004). He published poetry books, “Prescription of Civilization” and “Flowers of Thankfulness“ in America.(2019), received Geum-Chan Hwang Poetry Literature Prize in Korea(2019)and International Indian Award(literature) from WEWU(World English Writer’s Union)(2019).

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