Tag: Sanket Mhatre

THE FESTIVALS OF MIND 
We roister when a word bursts into a million atoms 
Each atom carrying the ink of thousand suns 
from one infinity to the next 
through blood streams 
We gyrate when we find the skin of our nuances 
melting into history’s conscious 
We revel secretly when the universe whispers a dark truth  
A firecracker erupting in our bones
For hours, we keep tying and untying tributaries of time
disentangling one soul from the next 
until we catch our dragonfly tailing past in alphabets 
tie them together with uneven hooks 
of kaanas and maatras, rhasvas and dirghas *
in a string of verses that light up against the evening sky 
Them blinking: a language of the unspoken
We gambol on discovering the lost sheets of an age
as we raise a toast to an empty labyrinth of chairs 
when a poem gets published, unexpectedly  
Like an accidental child or
a rocket dying a fragmented death 
by morphing into countless crackers that sends ripples
through the Prussian sky
We celebrate the festivals of our mind 
unknown to any calendar
uncharted by any astrologer
yet 

*different accents in Indian languages highlighting pronunciations


MATHEMATICS OF LUMINESCENCE
 
Light loses its equation on discovering the orifice
Yellow multiplies yellow, sprawls like an overnight rainforest
The amorphous supplicating the symmetry 
 
A beat erases from the history of her moment
Chest convulses under a string of lost screams
As if, an Atlantis was stolen overnight
-        She still doesn’t know the misery of her departure
 
Meanwhile, her face turns brighter
A wooden cottage caught in the web of sunlight
A chaparral waking up or -
a desert closing its eyes
while luminescence finds meaning
in its own circle
behind her

FEAR IS AN UNWANTED CHILD

Fear is... 
            ...a shooting star from the deep 
            ink of unwritten possibilities

            ...a nagging piece of bulb that 
            blinks in an unilluminated sky

Fear is...
           ...a faint smile of pink 
              on a weary face with broken 
              eyes that forgot to forgive

           ...a sneering bastard that 
          gesticulates at the flesh 
          of your heart even when it is dripping, tense 

Fear is...
          a gash on the skin of hope
          a glitch on the contours of time 

Fear is... 
            a poem written in the underbelly 
            of two thoughts in a bid to slay

before it rebirths 
an unwanted child 

Sanket Mhatre has been featured at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival and Glass House Poetry Festival. His first book of cross-translated poems, The Coordinates Of Us won the prestigious Raza Foundation Grant after been shortlisted at iWrite2020 at Jaipur Literature Festival. Sanket’s poems have appeared in multiple anthologies such as Shape Of A Poem, The Well Earned, Home Anthology by Brown Critique, Poetry Conclave Yearbook as well as literary magazines such as Punch, Borderless, Muse India, Madras Courier, The Usawa Literary Review, Men Matters Online, Anthology by Querencia Press and many others.   

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

By Sanket Mhatre

At the airport 

The ban has been lifted

Doors open. The first travellers are ushered 

The click of check-ins. 

Trolleys scramble, without any distance.  

.

I am waiting for you.

There’s one voice. Then another. Followed by many. Till there’s cacophony. 

Sign: The world has returned to normal. 

.

Counters fly open. Smiles flutter. Scarves swing into action. 

Luggage belts start with a thud. Leather rubs against leather. 

Gucci against Desi* against plastic without the fear of isolating. 

.

I am waiting for you. 

Food stalls open. There are complimentary desserts for the first travellers.

.

Air is sprayed with lavender fresheners. I think of you. Lavender is closer to mauve. Mauve is you. 

Outside, a plane takes off.   

I think of your eyes. What will your eyes think of this? 

Would they search and find me? Would I have to find them?   

Another thought surfaces: where are we flying? Where? 

I am still waiting for you.  

I have kept my face unshaven. Messy hair.  

I have removed the extra grey. Just because it’s grey. 

The world has passed through enough grey. No more grey now. 

.

You arrive at a distance. And stop. 

 Our eyes don’t have to search for too long. We placed ourselves well within our sight. 

 Your bags drop. A corner of your lip quivers with truth and remembrance. 

 You are wearing mauve. 

  I greet you as several planes take off in the distance. 

 “Where to?” I ask.

 “To each other,” You say. 

  Twenty One Days dissolve in an embrace. 

  And countless poems. 

  .

Here, I am still waiting for you.  

It’s Day One. 

At the airport.

.

*Desi — of Indian origin

Sanket Mhatre is a well-known bilingual poet writing in English & Marathi. He has curated Crossover Poems. Apart from this, Sanket Mhatre has been invited to read at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Poets Translating Poets, Goa Arts & Literature Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival and Vagdevi Litfest. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.