Category: Poetry

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Poetry

A Vain Monsoon

By Rituparna Mukherjee

A VAIN MONSOON

Your thoughts make me vain,
It is not a kind emotion,
I try to look for myself
In every verse that inhabits your mouth,
Like a stranger, asking for directions
In the lanes of an intimate city
Littered with cramped shops,
Streetlights glimmering in latent desire
In your weak, wary eyes.

A city dwells in me.
You touch it through all seasons
With tepid drops of rain
Turning it muddy in places,
Heaving with warm sighs in others.
You knock on random doors at other times,
With furious hail and fierce winds,
Smashing glass,
Seeping through curtains wet,
Lying in pools of unquenched ardour,
Near my feet,
Too tender to be wiped dry.

Clouds of longing reign in dirty gutters,
Where I send you ruined poetry,
Folded neatly in childish boats,
Wishing they would travel
To your window,
Through which you glance in evenings,
At the golden redolent skies
That stretch between the two of us.

Rituparna Mukherjee is a faculty of English and Communication Studies at Jogamaya Devi College, under the University of Calcutta. She is currently pursuing Doctoral degree in Gendered Mobilities in west African and Afro-Diasporic Literature at IIIT Bhubaneswar. She works as an ELT consultant, translator and ESL author outside of her work and research schedule.

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Poetry

Poetry by Ratnottama Sengupta

SUN DAY

I gifted myself a
Sunday morning
Today.
When I opened my eyes
The sun was racing
To get a hold
Of the sky.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
I hold up that sky
For my world.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
I outrun the sun.
I outshine the lamp,
I stay up
Half the night,
There's a story to send.
I wake up and jump
To my feet,
There's tiffin to be made,
A wedding -- or a funeral
To attend;
Dents on the car 
Clogged drains
Flickering lights
CESC, KMC, TataSky*,
Landline, WiFi
Bills to be paid,
Fines to be avoided...
Today I will give a miss
To all that.
Today I will not answer calls,
Today I will not be
At any seminar.
Today I will stay in bed
And look out of the window
Today I will gift the sun
The whole run
Of the sky.

*CESC: Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation
KMC: Kolkata Municipal Council
TataSky:  An Indian direct broadcast satellite service provider

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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Poetry

My Visit to Myanmar in 1997

By Sister Lou Ella Hickman

                my visit to Myanmar 1997

                  so many temples
                      where
                      Buddha                                                               
                       sits
                     his smile 
                 gentle as breath
           his eyes like slivers of moon

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S. is a widely published poet. She published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless.

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Poetry

We Have Poetry

By George Freek

Courtesy: Creative Commons
WE HAVE POETRY 
(After Du Fu, a Tang Dynasty poet) 

During nights of 
interminable darkness,
I curse the sky.
But that’s foolish.
The sky is merely a graveyard,
where dead stars lie.
In my chest there’s a vacancy,
where something else
should be,
something like a clock,
but its mechanism
is worn and faulty.
As stars look down,
they shine like jewels
on a false beach.
They mean nothing to me.

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

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Poetry

In Memoriam

Tanvi Jeph mourns the passing of her grandmother

PHOTO

He looked at her again and again
Filled with tears and despair
Yet his eyes glimmered with love
 
He was scared that a tear might fall
He looked down, holding them back
Caressing her through the picture
 
A crinkled, dry photo in his hands
It was black and white
Still, it seemed colourful
 
It was a photo of two people
Looking at each other
Holding books in their hands
 
They seemed young but lovers
Wearing sunglasses
Smiling at each other
 
The lady whom he secretly admired
And a man she truly loved
They were real love birds
 
Spent fifty-two years together
But one bird flew away, to heaven,
While other still sits alone, waiting

Tanvi Jeph is a high school sophomore who enjoys writing poetry and riding bicycles. She also has her own organization, The Dried Review, which she founded in April 2022

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Poetry

Absurd Poems by Ron Pickett

WRITERS, WRITERS

Writers, writers everywhere.
Writers, writers floating in the air.
Writers, writers tearing out their hair,
Writers, writers’ souls laid bare.

Poets, poets searching for a rhyme.
Poets, poets stretching space and time.
Poets, poets praying for a meter.
Poets, poets iambic pentameter.

Mysteries, mysteries where’s it going next?
Mysteries, mysteries the clues are in the text.
Mysteries, mysteries guilt will rise and fall.
Mysteries, mysteries now it’s time - reveal it all.

Romance, romance stories far from truth.
Romance, romance written just for youth.
Romance, romance delight, joy, and sigh.
Romance, romance never a leave a dry eye.

Drama, drama the play’s the thing.
Drama, drama a real drama queen.
Drama, drama work it all out.
Drama, drama it can end with a shout.

Scriptwriters, scriptwriters Act one, two, three,
Scriptwriters, scriptwriters full of unbridled glee
Scriptwriters, scriptwriters working In a team
Scriptwriters, scriptwriters living the dream.

Writers, writers everywhere I look
Writers, writers pitching their new book,
Writers, writers please please me, do.
Writers, writers can I be one too?



I WANT TO WALK LIKE A CROW

I want to walk like a crow.
I want to place one foot in front of me.
I want to move with purpose and grace.
I want to fly!
But I’ll settle for walking like a crow.
I see them on the tile roofs next door.
They don’t care!
Crows don’t care!
They are what they are.
All that they are and damned if they care what you think.
I want to walk like a crow!
Don’t care! Don’t worry! One foot in front of the other.
Move with ease and certainty.
Never trip or stumble!
I want to walk like a crow.
I’ll never fly.
There is a bright flash of sunlight reflecting from my chest – 
My black shiny feathers tell the world a lot.
I’m strong healthy and available. definitely available.
I take the high spot, the crown of the roof.
My landings are a show of airmanship.
My legs take the shock.
My wings ease the weight onto the surface – any surface.
Watch me!
I just want to walk like a crow.
I’ll never fly.
Courtesy: Creative Commons

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

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Poetry

From the Corners of Crowded Streets

By Sambhu Nath Banerjee

Courtesy: Creative Commons
A HAPPY FAMILY

During the busy hours, I see them
Sitting in the crowded street.
She is holding her sari by the hem
Stretched in front, covering her bare feet.

He is busy with their little child
Playing with his dishevelled head,
People move about their jobs,
No time to spare a glance.

They sit fearless, with no masks,
Not bothered by the deadly disease,
They struggle from morning to dusk
To try to survive in the mad race. 

Passing by the street, the other day,
I saw a man in casual dress give
A fifty rupee note with grace,
An honest effort no doubt to lessen their stress.

The aid seemed to be insignificant
But enough to bring a smile on the face of the child. 
I saw their tears start to fall
And left them alone for a while.

A new dawn begins, the same old story
Again the search for money and food,
Nothing new for the family that sits 
And waits for its future to unfold.



THE FINAL MOMENTS

I got a strip of a letter, you wrote 
Two years before you breathed your last.
Having survived the ventilation scare
You used to sit all the day on the sofa,
Eyes often closed, rarely open in despair.


'Loneliness so painful,'
You wrote,
'But we all have to go.'
You had been surrounded by us,
Still you were so lonely!
Does loneliness come with age?
You often recalled Tagore's lines,
'Life, Youth and Wealth run off 
In the flowing tide.'


Alone in space and time
You seemed to live and mix
With old memories,
Everlasting 
Childhood, and thereafter,
Some events which were
Hard to forget.
Your mind didn't want to leave
The caring milieu-
But you did know the truth,
And quoted the famous lines
Of Michael Dutt in the letter,
'Life always ends in death–
Nobody is immortal
Water of a running stream 
Can never be short of breath!'

I can now feel
What was going on in your mind.
Can imagine how my final moments 
Will unwind!

Dr. S N Banerjee has a great passion for travelling, photography and writing. His articles have featured in Cafe Dissensus, Muse India, and Briefly Zine.

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Poetry

Poetry from Kashmir

By Ahmed Rayees 

I AM A FLOWER

My name is Rose.
I bloomed in the heavenly garden,
Sang with birds and butterflies,
Without fear and agony.
I played hide and seek,
Inside my little fantasy world
 
Suddenly...
I lost my way, I lost my songs...
I found myself in a dark corner
Pierced by innumerable scars,
I cried...I screamed...
 
But could not escape those strong claws
I lay withered
In the dark serpentine.
No door opened.
No car stopped.
I cried...I screamed...

My limbs stopped aching.
My lungs stopped breathing.
I died... I died... I died...
Profusely bleeding!
I drenched your city red.

I am your unresolved question
I am your indecisive end --
Getting dissected in the courtrooms
Without getting a fair verdict
I am waiting...
 
My body is broken, but not my soul
One day, I will come back,
I will come back as one among you --
May be as your very own daughter…

Ahmad Rayees is a freelance poet and writer from Kashmir valley, currently working with Claylab Education Foundation as a mentor. Claylab aims to alleviate educational inequity and increase economic mobility by providing affordable, quality, and meaningful education to students. 

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Poetry

A Room of My Own

By Oindri Sengupta

THAT GROWS INSIDE

There used to be a room of my own.
When days hung like photographs on the walls
that fit inside me like allegories in your poems,
bringing many sunsets to rise 
from my mother's leftover knitting yarn.

It was a room without a face,
a place where time was a misnomer.
I lived there between living and unliving
and went on to travel barefoot
to unveil the hunger of a road.

Like silence grows in the attic,
the air now is drenched with smell of burnt grasses
as it lies abandoned like a ragged cloth
on the side of a highway.
With each passing day I see it fall,
from everything that was inside me
and with every bit of my life and living.

Oindri Sengupta is an assistant teacher of English at a Govt School in West Bengal. She had been published in journals like The Lake, Istanbul Literary Review, Chiron Review, Outlook India, Plato’s Caves Online, Abridged. Her debut collection of poetry is After the Fall of a Cloud. Her poetry has also been adapted into a play.

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Poetry

Poetry for Peace

By Michael R. Burch

Courtesy: Creative Commons
MILESTONES TOWARD OBLIVION

 
“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
—Ronald Reagan
 
A milestone here leans heavily
against a gaunt, golemic tree.
These words are chiseled thereupon:
"One mile and then Oblivion."
 
Swift larks that once swooped down to feed
on groping slugs, such insects breed
within their radiant flesh and bones ...
they did not heed the milestones.
 
Another marker lies ahead,
the only tombstone to the dead
whose eyeless sockets read thereon:
"Alas, behold Oblivion."
 
Once here the sun shone fierce and fair;
now night eternal shrouds the air
while winter, never-ending, moans
and drifts among the milestones.
 
This road is neither long nor wide ...
men gleam in death on either side.
Not long ago, they pondered on
milestones toward Oblivion.
 
 
LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS
 
Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand.
The battle is over and night is at hand.
Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go ...
the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow.
 
Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more.
Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore.
The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin ...
Lay down your pamphlets; now no one will “win.”
 
Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song.
If God was to save us, He waited too long.
A new world emerges, but this world is through . . .
so lay down your hymnals, or write something new.

Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into fourteen languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music by seventeen composers.

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