Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Dinosaurs Peeping over Prison Walls

 By Saranyan BV

From Public Domain 
I don’t have to pinch myself to check if I  am alive   --                                                                                             Together we tread this ochre path in a convoy of mortuary vans.
We have no issues over stopping at the gas stations now and then for refuelling. 
Most of us rush to the rest rooms, a wise guy buys sachets of glucose at the counter --orange flavour,
He  tucks the stuff into his backpack and settles down in his black van, the sachets come with plastic straws which do not decay.
I button up my trousers and board mine.
The map on dash board shows the route, 
The blue line does not show the destination though.
I get this funny feeling the place is pretty close, not more than few months. 
It would be a calm place, a camp cot kind of thing,
Or at least a hard-surfaced concrete bench 
And a place to wash with tap water.
The needlessness for God is now clear in the glare of evening twilight 
Like fish spread on the beach sand of truth.
Fish cannot close  eyes, God seem to have made them that way. 
There is some kind of curiosity left on arc of their eyes.
It makes me wonder what have I lived for? 
I gloat over my prayers, the rituals I performed day in and day out,
The images trail like ocean clouds in the river of blue sky.
My piety seem unreal at this point of time, all my piety
The vans stop at the toll gate following sombre lane discipline, 
The wise old man’s van too stops, CO2 from it spews next to mine.
He lifts and shows one of the sachets, 
Takes a small sip from it and explains over the window, 
“Time and energy is all misspent”, then takes a large sip,
His eyes squint to see where the straw enters the small hole.
I see his Adam’s apple rising and levelling, “Piety is of no use after we pass brother, it always come to that, all things in our life.”

“Belief in afterlife is stupid”, I tell the old man to keep the conversation going.
“I never had a chance to ask  dinosaurs how it came into extinction.”
He likes the way I speak with perennial eyes,  offers me a sachet through the window and expresses alignment, 
“True, the last of the dinosaurs died 65 million years ago. You know if the dinosaur had souls, those too would have died.”
This way he tries to prove souls hang around though eventually they die.
I think he invests in the concept of soul to prolong his own life after death.
His ticketing is done, the van starts ahead.
My soul died at birth,  the inevitability of death sticks on the wall
Like  residue of the gums left by Bollywood posters, 
Snatched and eaten by the city bovines.
My mom told me that the only protein city cows get is from the glue, 
She also  kept telling that milk of the city cows smell of the wheat adhesive. 
Mom is gone and she won’t be watching, all that she has taught too is gone. 
It is not about God or religion or even atheism, 
It’s about us, the dinosaurs peeping over the prison walls.

Saranyan BV is poet and short-story writer, now based out of Bangalore. He came into the realm of literature by mistake, but he loves being there. His works have been published in many Indian and Asian journals. He loves the works of Raymond Carver.

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Categories
Poetry

Losing the Light

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

From Public Domain 
LOSING THE LIGHT 

The humming Coke machine, and I have lost the light.
The driving rains outside, and a most terrible truth.
The swelling of wet cardboard and that whoosh of darting high beams by the curb.
And tucked inside the asbestos house, I watch ceiling particles come to rest on the floor tile. 
Leaning back in a chair made to brave its own hind legs.
A coke from the machine beside me, half-flat and half-finished.
The mistrustful eyes of the shop proprietor all over me.
I want to tell him the succubus train left her kisses three stations ago,
but he wouldn't understand.  I want to keep him apprised of any sudden menu changes.
I want him to know of that Russian who made X-rays into records
and smuggled them to the masses.  Paid the hospitals for the discards,
and handmade them into bootlegs of all the best banned American music.
I want to show him all the strange patterns on the soles of my shoes,
but the gophers of the earth have dug holes throughout my body.
A tiny troll with purple hair, taped to the back of the register.
And $1.50 slices of lukewarm pizza 
under glass.
From Public Domain

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez and Lothlorien Poetry Journal

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Categories
Poetry

Found in Translation: Soubhagyabanta Maharana’s Poetry

Five Odia poems by Soubhagyabanta Maharana  have been translated by Snehaprava Das

SUNSET: A SYMBOL 

To bridge the agelessly waiting gap
Between an unvoiced luminosity and a vibrant darkness
Sunset is a magic silence, 
An indulging over the wispy interlapping   
Of light and shadow.

It is an ancient oil-painting 
On the old drawing sheet of the sky by a 
Bohemian, invisible artist who fills the earth 
With a spectrum of the melody of 
An unforgettable twilight.  

Sunset is the gentle thump of 
Disembodied dancers’ feet, tripping  
To the rhythm of witch-chanting
On a phantom, ashy-pale stage.

A lifetime that had glowed like a fake sun
In the crimson smile of the earth 
Slowly turns black, 
And on the black canvas of the sky
Painted in scatters are millions of sparkling stars.

Sunset is a Truth, 
A promise of a melodious, bright morning  
That the sun dreams of 
Slumbering in the palanquin of the night.

SILENCE BETWEEN WORDS

Like a lone, saffron-robed monk 
The silence hiding between the words, waits 
Keeping awake in secret, 
Hoping to get free
from the mysterious chains of mystic incantations.

The bewildering crowd of thoughts stuck between
One word and another,
Before even the mystery of the meaning is unraveled
Confuses the interpreting.

And the silence is left alone,
Weeping, elegizing the loss -- 
A dumb witness to the unwarranted death of words.  

Because the silence does not reveal itself
In happiness, 
A sorrow lives permanently in the palpitations
Of the poet’s heart
To bring the un-wilting flowers of poetry
Molded from the poet’s blood into blooming
in their vivid, picturesque charm.

In the unshackled voice of the poet
words and silence seek a nerve center,
in a sensitive, ultimate moment of love
to melt into each other. 

Who else other than a poet could gauge
The depth of the silence hidden 
In the koel’s song 
To bridge the gap between life and death?  

A VILLAGE THAT WAS: SKETCHING NOSTALGIA  

No one was there waiting eagerly 
To meet my shadow, 
No one to lament the loss of a village 
That was there once.
The smell of love in the wet mud
Has faded with the passage of time.
The melody of spring in the soft breeze,
The shadow of a rainbow on the face of water 
Have disappeared too.

The day when I left the village, 
A fleeting cloud played hide and seek
In my book-satchel.
The fragrance of the lotus in the village-pond
That wished to caress fondly
The vibrance of childhood on my face 
Missed me.
The name of that village lives in me. 
A village crowded with forests of Mahula 
And throbbing with the song of Adivasis  
Dancing in the shadows of the Sal -- 
The village where rings the rhythm of my birth-cries 
in a straw-thatched hut --
the name of that village, has melted into my breath.
  
A deep sadness pricks me though
That just as I understood the village
I lost my way to it,
 Before I could trace the lotus-pond
And inhale its fragrance.
The smoke the factories emitted 
Choked me midway,
As I went on narrating the nostalgia 
I was left with just myself.
Alone.
While I searched for dreams 
Painted in rural shades,
I lost my own self in the pale horizon
Of a smoky, grey sky.  

DECLARATION

I gathered the ardour of that missing warmth
From the ashes of a decadent sun 
To charge the cold blood that run in my veins.
I gathered the exotic smell of blinking stars
To add years to my life.

My skeletal frame that resembles
some ancient sculptor has a voice.
It can speak, and it can hide 
from the eyes of the world
the pain it writhes under,
lest someone use its vulnerability
and sign a sworn statement for befriending 
its invisible blood, flesh and sinews.  

In every corner of my body that is caged,  
In the prison of the elements,
Love sojourns.
And the intimate voice of my shadow-self 
Has reached up to the planets and beyond. 
 
The primeval tale of my century-old wait
Has sheltered in the feeble gaze of my eyes
May be, I am designed to stand as 
The enemy of Time.
It was perhaps designed so,   
That my victory march, with the bugle blowing 
Will be declared a glorious success 
Against a different backdrop. 

RELATIONSHIP: ANOTHER HORIZON 

It feels odd at times 
To play the hero in 
The brief interlude between 
Ignorance and innocence.
There are times when a relationship 
Founded on poisoned, defiled trust
Tastes sweet.
In the dark sanctum of bitter animosity,
 A beguiling god assumes a friendly form
 And embraces to overwhelm you
 with his gratifying blessings.

 Only a fake hero would nurture   
 The overpowering urge to 
 Flaunt himself in vain glory on the 
 Dazzling stage of civility.
 It is he who fosters a brazen wish   
To draw a line on the water,
And to wish for the moon  
In a moonless night-sky. 
 True friendship is where 
The sapling of love grows
Its green foliage  
To reach a lofty height 
And brings life to fruition.
It’s like a faint streak of light 
That illumines a blind alley at night. 

A heart bathed in that love
Becomes more sacred than a shrine,
More craved than the potion of immortality. 
It is the comfort an orphan child enjoys,
Sleeping inside a cozy culvert
In the chilly night of the month of the Pausha*. 

*December- January
Soubhagyabanta Maharana

Soubhagyabanta Maharana (b.1951) in the  Bolangir town, Odisha, is a prominent bilingual poet, critic and translator of Odia and English.  He is an awardee of Odisha Sahitya Akademi for poetry in 2010 along with many prestigious literary awards. He has to his credit nineteen poetry collections  and  six essay collections on modern Odia poetry.

Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit. 

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Categories
Poetry

Poems by Vern Fein

Vern Fein 

BOSOM BUDDY

My seven-year-old grandson 
is his own best friend.
Has many school buddies
but plays for hours
with his creative self—
art work, Star Wars structures,
films movies on his IPad,
imitates Michael Jackson dances— 
never afraid to be alone.

In my childhood, I rode imaginary horses.
Smoky, my invisible steed, 
wherever he would gallop.
Then, my green and white Schwinn—
named Los Cappacaros from a Western
about some cool bandits—
took me into my teens. 

Imagination
as a childhood playmate,
such a fine gift.


CONVALESCENCE

My dog leaps into 
a mellowing life.
Her leg buckles to surgery.
Too young to put down,
she breaks my heart, 
a helpless creature,
beautiful big black
eyes, a forlorn quiz.

In my old age, I come alive
to pet and whisper
into her perked ears
why she now lives in a cage
unable to chase
her squirrel foes,
attack the garbage truck
at the back fence, 
protect me from the neighbour dog.

In her convalescence 
that will never make sense to her
she fills my limited lifetime
as if it will go on forever. 

PINOCCHIO

Pinocchio’s nose began to grow.
The cat and the fox whiskered him over.
“What’cha got boy?”
He doesn’t know his nose has grown.
He thinks they want the pennies in his pocket,
the hat Gepetto made him.
Fox says: “What a great nose. How’d you do that?”
He touches his nose and scares his hand.
“I don’t know,” he stammers.
Cat says: “Tell the truth!”

From Public Domain

Vern Fein has published over 300 poems and short prose pieces in over 100 different sites. His second poetry boo, Reflection on Dots, was released late last year. 

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Pramod Rastogi

From Public Domain 
ETERNAL LIGHT 

Every night, beneath the veil of stars,
I feel your love, mother,
As vast as the ocean,
Its depths whispering calm paradise.

Your eyes, golden pools of tenderness,
Once held my fears,
Turned tears into sweetness,
And wrapped my heart in peace.

Though time has drawn you away,
I find you in the quiet,
In the light that lingers on the horizon,
In the bosom of memories woven into my soul.

You are the warmth beneath the cold,
The golden thread binding my days,
The eternal whisper of love
That lives within me,
Undimmed by the passage of time.

In this stillness, I carry you,
Guardian of my heart,
A light that will never fade,
A love that even the night cannot steal.

Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the EPFL, Switzerland. He is a poet, academician, researcher, author of nine scientific books, and a former Editor-in-chief (1999-2019) of the international scientific journal “Optics and Lasers in Engineering”. He was an honorary Professor at the IIT Delhi between 2000 and 2004. He was a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar between 2019 and 2023. He is presently an honorary adjunct Professor at the IIT Jammu.

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan

Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan
PETITE CHANSON* 

My mother asks 
about the black spots
on my cheeks 
over and over
when I sit 
beside her 
on the sofa.

The smudgy patch 
of melasma
is visible to her sharp eye,
as she remembers once, 
I had a flawless face. 

It is not her fault.
She does not mean to annoy
when she asks 
over and over.
like the chorus of a song.

She is worn down.
Full only 
with old memories.

Places are lost.
Time is lost.
Joy is fleeting.

She smiles at me,
repeating questions 
that she forgot 
were on her lips 
before.


*Little Song

Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan is an award-winning author and voice-over artist whose books and narration span genres, audiences, and continents, celebrating culture, language, and storytelling across media. 

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Categories
Poetry

Nepali Poetry in Translation

Sangita Swechcha’s poem has been translated from Nepali by Saudamini Chalise

Sangita Swechha
ANIMATE DEBRIS 

A living dream
smoulders
in the boulevard,
blowing the trumpet of revolution.

Not a dream anymore—
he turned to ash.

In that animate rubble,
dampened eyes
batted lashes.
Someone’s soul
had incinerated.

Some took to the streets,
seeking justice.
Some said he lacked the mettle to survive,
and self-immolated.

Others said he martyred himself
for the revolution.

Tender hearts grew pensive.
The one who dreamed for them
had burned.

And now, they would wonder:
Why even dream 
where dreams are doused
before they’re born,
where realities,
before turning to corpses,
were already draped for the cortege?

But for those
who had clung to that burning dream—
who lived off its flickering light—
they are now
reborn from its ashes.

Sangita Swechcha is a Nepali writer, poet, and scholar based in England. She published her debut novel Seto Siundo at 18. Her other works include Rose’s Odyssey, a collection of short stories and co-edited anthologies like The Himalayan Sunrise and A Glimpse Into My Country.


Saudamini Chalise, author of three thrillers, is also a prolific translator and biographer, known for translating works by Khagendra Sangraoula, Dr. Bhagwan Koirala, and Kiran Acharya.

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Categories
Poetry

Duskdancer by Ananya Sarkar

There are plenty of daytime dancers
When the sun is smiling
And the grass singing
And vigour rises like smoke from the hills...
So then let me be
The duskdancer
Closing my eyes
And flailing my arms
I'll dance till I make you see
How shadows can be strangely free
Of all social decree
And I'll dance till you smile
At the beauty of darkness…

Ananya Sarkar is a creative writer from Kolkata currently living in Bangalore. Her work has been published in various ezines. She loves to go on long walks, cloud gaze and ponder upon miracles. She can be found on Instagram @just_1ananya and reached at ananya7891@gmail.com

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Categories
Poetry

West Exit Barrier

Photograph and Poem by Rhys Hughes

West Exit Barrier Operational,
declares the sign,
but I ask you: is this really the
best way to ease
my considerable stress?

I am a carrier for a postal outfit.
Dressed in a vest
and shorts and little else,
I confess to feeling 
vexed by the implications.
The package I carry contains
something sensational.

Dare I risk passing under such
a rickety barrier?
Don’t look now but my precious
cargo has come all the way from
Lucknow in India,
and I am supposed to deliver it
safely to Ludlow,
a town on the border of Wales.

But the West Exit Barrier doesn’t
look to me as operational
as it claims to be
and I find this fact worrying.

What’s the point of hurrying if I
run into a trap?
My package is full of sweets
from the streets
of the City of Nawabs, wrapped
carefully and warily.

Shahi Tukda, Sheermal, Nawabi
Zafrani Kheer, Makhan Malai,
Kali Gajar ka Halwa…
All as pleasing to the famished
eye as they are
to the drooling mouth.

I suspect an ambush ahead.
Some villain with a craving for
sweets intends to
knock me over the head
and render me unconscious.

Then he will loot my package
and gorge himself
and in my unplanned sleep I
will dream that I am
forging ahead on my mission.

But when I awake with a skull
as heavy as lead,
throbbing and wobbling on my
aching neck,
it will become apparent that I
failed to fulfil
my vow to my regular clients.

I promised to defend
their sweets with all my might!
What a sight it will be
if I am found asprawl,
able only to crawl, victim of an
outrageous robbery!

What should I do
to assure the safety of delights
that can be chewed?
I might as well open the parcel
and eat them myself
just to keep them out of the hands
of the scoundrels
who plan to steal and scoff them.

Then the sweets
will be safe for eternity
in my stomach and the West Exit
Barrier will hold no
terrors for me, operational or not.

Yes, that’s the best
solution to the difficulty I face.
Waste not, want not.

With maximum grace
I devour the lot
and now my vest no longer fits
me: I slump in
satisfied torpor, a justified hero,
chomping jaw
swollen slightly, adjacent to the
West Exit Barrier,
and I no longer care about how
operational it is.

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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Categories
Poetry

Found in Translation: Bipin Nayak’s Poetry

 Five Odia poems by Bipin Nayak have been translated by Snehaprava Das

WITHIN 
                           
An equestrian within me 
Mounts an unbridled horse
And plays a violin.
A boatman inside me 
Crosses an imaginary river
Again, and again  
In a non-existent boat.
                             
Within me, there is a wayfarer
That refuses to 
Travel the trodden road
And takes a turn.
                              
A lake ripples in me, 
Waiting futilely
To lose itself in the sea,
And a waterfall  
Leaps noisily from above 
To wet the rocks.                            
                                                       
A cloud floats within me,
All of a sudden,
Flashes a lightning smile
And goes back to sleep.
                            
In me, a cowherd
Returns home in the twilight
Painted in the colours of sunset      
And lights a kerosene lamp.
                       
A camel inside me
Sags under a sack-load of salt,
But trudges across the sands
Dreaming of a lush meadow. 
  
A mother in me conceives words,
Bleeds in labour, 
Nourishes the vulnerable words 
With love and care
And watches them grow…                  
                                                                          
PAPER BIRD
                                                       
My woes pull your neck longer.
My beloved words become the air 
To stuff your insides. 
I forge your wings from  
The crumpled paper of my dreams,                           
And mold your beak with my kisses,
Paint you in the colour 
Of my solitary nights….
Trim you with 
All my fears and frustrations.  
Because I could not 
Make a paper-boat of you
To sail in the muddy puddle,
I lift you up  
To fly across 
The monsoon sky.
When you climb a little higher 
Into the air
And are drenched out of shape,
I, a naked child, 
Stand here in the rain, look up and cry! 

THE MAKING 

I pick a few bones of my hardest grief,
Scoop some blood 
Oozing red to create.
                                                                                    
I fix a face of smoke or a patch of weepy cloud    
Mold a nose from the wafting breeze.  
I fix a pair of eyes, like day and night,
There in the face.
In one of them, I put a tornado, 
A bird in the other.
With flowers of joy and grief,
I shape the lips.
The body I try to make 
Out of a river that hides under it,
A fire and a perpetually vain desire 
To reach the sea or a desolate jungle.                                   
I design the limbs from a  
Lingering surge of green.                                  
All these efforts 
Are but only to replicate 
What has been made before.
I set afloat 
Because it has been set to drift
Much before…
And because it has sprinkled  
A cosmic fervour across 
A secret sanctum inside me,
To bring a god to life, 
I worship it! 
I keep trying to create and re-create inside me
Because it has made me much before that!  

            
A SKY AS I AM

I have set out to paint a sky of my own --
A sky that is exactly as I am! 
And for that I have picked up
Some nomadic dreams, a sunset, 
I have collected the blood of flowers,
The tune of a stream that has flown away,
The chirping of orphan birds,
The layers of moss spread over
A decrepit piece of rock-writing.
I have scooped up 
A handful of ash from the debris of
Perished time,
And a wild storm that had retreated 
After having blown me away.
I took out the wet melody from a violin and
the primeval music of the insect,
throbbing inside the grass.
From the reminisces stuck in the sinews 
I have gathered a few scattered sighs,
 And from the darkness, the mysteries of nights,
 I have got warmth from dreams,
 Sin from pollen grains.
 With these elements beside me
 And a canvas in shreds, 
 I sit down to paint a sky of mine
A sky that is exactly as I am!      

LET THEM SING  

Let them sing a song.
I do not mind
If my wound heals them,
Or my tears make them glow,
And my blood paints them crimson.

My quick breathing flits about, but
I do not mind if someone plays a flute
Blowing into the holes of my bones 
And sings through the lips 
Borrowed from me.
 
Let them sing, why must I mind it?
The lips are not mine. Nor is the song!

 

Bipin Nayak

Bipin Nayak (1950), a bold and engaging voice in the literary scenario of modern Odisha, is a trend setter who explored new possibilities for Odia poetry. One of the most significant postmodernist and minimalist poet in Odia, Nayak is a believer in the artefact of words than the meaning and medium. For him poetry is an aesthetic exploration through the fragile, fluid words which could be liberated from its conventional canons and connotations. There is a distinct undertone of metaphysical too in his poetry that hovers over the slim divide between the real and the surreal. Bipin Nayak is a pioneer in Odia auto-fiction writing. His ‘Jatra ra Ketoti Pada’[1], an unprecedented experimental work, that challenges the conventional style through a blending of prose and poetry and does not conform to any traditional literary genre. Besides being the recipient of the prestigious Odisha Sahitya Akademi award the poet has received several accolades for his contribution to Odia literature. Significant amongst them are the Bishuba Jhankar Purashkar, Akhila Mohan Kabita Sammana, Sachivalaya Lekhaka Parishada Sammana and Sammana from Kalinga Sahitya Samaja. He has been widely published in Hindi, Bengali and also in English and has adorned the pages of Indian Literature, Kavya Bharati and other prestigious journals. His major works include Swarachitra (The Painted voice) that fetched him the Odisha Sahitya Akademi award, Nija Nija Barnabodha Apustaka, Sadaja, Bidagdha Bichara, Band Ghara ra Basna.         

[1] Translates to ‘how many steps are there in a journey’

Dr.Snehaprava Das, is a noted writer and a translator from Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She has five books of poems, three of stories and thirteen collections of translated texts (from Odia to English), to her credit. 

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