In my apron

Poppy field by van Gogh, 1890. Image credit

I will not let this snow cover

of violence deaden my world

into breathless radio silence.

I will not let sandpaper words,

the hard, wind-tossed hearts of vandals,

swamp out the daisies and poppies

when and where it’s spring. I’ll let drifts

of leaves fall wherever they want,

weave against this doorsill in autumn.

I’ll pluck huge bouquets of hope,

keep them massed in my apron

like secret talismans. From the red

wildfires of poppies I’ll pick them,

and from the red, dead leaf banks.

I’ll walk miles of cheerful wildflowers

and the sky’ll sew its own linings

overhead in gold and silvershine.

And the sharp-spiralled razor wires

won’t stop a single leaf. Or stop me

from holding the flaming bunches

in the crook of my torn elbows.

***

In praise of some violence

Livelihood

My child sits mulling her homework, and career,

asks me offhand, “father, what’s your profession?

What should I be when I’m done studying here?”

“Whatever you like, but keep your conscience clear,

and do it well, whatever must be done.”

Still she insists, “you must give me some idea?”

- I’ve long anticipated her question -

and rattles off, “dentist, fireman, overseer?”

“I make stuff with my hands.” “So, an engineer?

Isn’t that what you call such a person?

“What do you make, father, houses, bridges, piers,

or is it tiny cogs and wheels and capstans?

And do you do it well? and is your conscience clear?”

My startled tongue still keeps up a veneer,

“A weapon-maker is more of a craftsman.”

Disengage for victory

"The pioneer's of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service."  - Albert Einstein

The victory’s in staying home, where unsung

won’t be juxtaposed with hero and young;

the quiet of unwarlike tasks and boredom

and no empty coats with flapping sleeves hung

up in hushed closets for years. In upfront

flash of a different courage, the blunt

slam of refusal, and no engagement.

Let the lad choose what he does and doesn’t

for goodness’ sake, glory can be clawed and won

in nothing raised, not raging arms, nor weapon

just keen shoulderblades and clean, cleft burdens -

much glory but no fame in that being done.

The power’s out, so I’ve no torches to lob

take this my staunch yes and no and do the job. 

Saw that quote from Einstein floating around on social media a few days ago, and so this is a response poem.  

One night

The moon is a moue of silvery gloss

above the remains of the camp;
no sounds of footsteps, they’re muffled by grass
and I’ve put out the single lamp.

 

He presses together my palm and thumb

and gently tugs off my bracelet;
unbuckles his holster, but still the gun
is left where it’s easy to get.

 

A pebble’s sharp under bare shoulder blade

it slices flesh open - love hurts;
the air aches in darkness and wrings the shade;
the barrel’s too close for comfort.

 

The day comes awake, he’s already gone -

the grass is flattened where he’s slept,
disturbed earth shows where the holster was thrown
and a deep mark where the gun was kept.

 

He rides somewhere with the gun at his belt

and my fears here weave talismans;
but victory and glory can’t be compelled,
nor peace at the point of a gun.





 

Ashoka, after Kalinga

The few who return home from here

will never again be quite whole.
Combat zones. Courage and fear.
So many ways to shrink the soul.

 

Not just flesh that is sliced open,

it’s not just bodies that blades maim;
violence plants its secret weapon
and those that return won’t be the same.

 

The tips of arrows, heads of spears

end of day are plucked from skin;
but war is too hard to pluck clear
from the heart once the blade goes in.

 

There could be other paths, directions,

fields, where it’s not this one battle
and maybe they too change a person
they’re not the same once they travel;

 

I’ll take that road and see for myself

if peace can be found a different route,
if a change in travel plans will help
and a war-free way to be will suit.








 

Song mad love girl

Not winds and waves, all the normal things

leave her swivelled eyes glassed out doll
she finds her songs in broken, breathless wings

 

the jagged knives, the ragged guitar strings

knobs of silence tumbled in freefall
not winds and waves, all the normal things

 

she twirls and twists, the dance sharply brings

heels together; misery is for all;
she finds her songs in broken, breathless wings

 

the metal rattles in undone couplings

the baby sleep of cells, the strangling walls
not winds and waves, all the normal things

 

the clasp of flesh as it sucks and clings

to insane twigs of bones and snapped souls
she finds her songs in broken, breathless wings

 

she turns again, the hem of her skirt swings

her lights are blinded bats, nights burnt out coals
not winds and waves, all the normal things
she finds her songs in broken, breathless wings











It needs absolutely no links, goes without saying which well the verse above draws from.  Probably the very first villanelle I ever read, or maybe it ties with this one.  Anyways, deep reverence. 

Abhimanyu was a teenager

Chakravyuh or disc formation of warriors :Google images

What we did to that kid  -  Abhimanyu -

has it changed at all?  in two and a half

millennia, a killer joke, heartless laughs,

a foetus remote-taught to break into

complex war formations, the chakravyuh

but without an exit. Choreographed

murder of innocents, children bluffed

drawn into war, and worse.  Takes quite a few

thousand years to wipe that clean, and don’t come

mouthing that love can fumigate all sins.

Strain and you can still smell that old bloodstain

and the stink of fresher ones through the balm

two thousand years and more to make some sense

of it, and still it doesn’t, not one grain.

Abhimanyu is a character from the Hindu epic Mahabharat, who listens in on his father explaining the disc formation used in war from his mother's womb and is sent later to battle with such a formation when he's just sixteen. He fights bravely but is killed because he heard only the  entry and not exit.

Missed linking up on last week's prompt on sonnets at dVerse, so here it is for the OLN

Which side of the border? and fence? and angle?

 

 

 

All your shapes are drawn into paper

as jitter-quivery as brains;
your limbs flared out a little
for balance on the water;
someday no-one will bother
to ask what it all means,
someday all the borders will smear,
and where  will cease to matter.
I ponder the asking of questions
that really have no answer - 
the lift of pig-snouts in and out of  
the muck and melees of rains;
the blinks of streetlights climbing into dawns.

 

East Bengal or Mohan Bagan?

which of the narratives, dialects
do you speak at home, oh none?
yeah, your accent’s wrongly clipped -
where did your foremothers come from?
where are your descendants going?
what do you mean you don’t know
when our lives are being ruined
by borders drawn long ago?
how do you take your riverfood?
that’s the wrong recipe entirely!
The silver fishtail thrashes in the bowl,
the nib gleams in a sad chuckle.

 

An ad banner for a photo club says

to focus on the bigger picture
and then choose the smackro-ed details
to rub into an artistic blur;
someone like me in her status updates
has “control” paired with “gun”!
Somewhere a man holds aloft a banner;
near home the march of a million.
I ponder the building of echo chambers
that have no other options
except to return the same last words.
The domes and arches of your minds
fade away into the shadows.

 

Why do you worry about the murdered

halfway around the world
when your sisters are gang-raped
and your brothers killed
bloodlines can neither be erased
nor can they be re-drawn.
Sister, who do you call brethren
and which side are you on?
Specify your birthplace here,
and where is your deathplace?
The forms crinkle their eyes at me.
The ancient bones of pyramids crack
before the secrets spill.

For my readers who are not Bengali/Indian, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan are football teams.  Bengal was partitioned into two separate nations based on religious lines during the independence of India in 1947, and there was massive displacement of people on both sides and horrific casualties.  The Hindus by and large came to India, and many Muslim families left their homes and went across to the other side.  Bangladesh has subsequently fought Pakistani control and become a sovreign nation in which struggle India too played a role. They celebrated their Victory Day on Dec 16.

The Partition is an event that Bengalis regretted then and some continue doing so now, it is artificial as the heritage and language and the culture is common. Even now, where an Indian Bengali has his roots - "this" or "that" side of the border, is an important part of his identity.  Signs of i.d. compliance, adherence to the correct protocols, supporting the "right" football team, cooking with the "right" recipe etc are given undue and sometimes quite ridiculous significance.  And we as a race elevate nostalgia to a fine art! Probably a little like the Irish from what I've heard, but then I wouldn't know firsthand :)

 

 

This week has been eventful in a bad way, too many terrible headlines right round the world, Sandy Hook, a young woman gang-raped in Delhi, political unrest in the ME, where to start or stop? Expressing in a poem is the best way to cope sometimes!

Shared for OLN @ dVerse

On the way to Bishnupur*

Hired car on traffic clogged monsoon roads

the narrow nap of asphalt worn away by rains
and torrents of humanity.  The driver slows,
the level crossing ahead closed, some train’s
panting felt on the air nearby; and then annoyed,
too impatient to queue, he swerves and flows
around the waiting cars and blocks the lane.

 

We who sit inside being driven, are a varied lot

of car-owners and law-abiding folk that scare
easily when the laws are followed, and when they’re not;
and so we hunker down and keep quiet in there
hope that no-one will notice this brash car
let the driver drive, hopefully he’ll find a spot
to nose in discreetly again somewhere.

 

We make mistakes, and then compound them with hopes;

just a few yards away from the final barrier
a righteous uncouth thug jumps out and gropes
the hood and makes it loudly and amply clear
this is where the buck and the car both stop
get right behind! reverse, go on!  pushes us back the slope
with a violent maelstrom of words hard to hear.

 

Blah blah blah two wrongs can’t make a right;

‘course they can, keep the ruddy windows up
don’t talk now, he doesn’t understand polite
notions of delivering justice. But he’s too rough!
It’s our mistake, he probably carries a knife.
Everyone just be quiet and sit tight
how long will he curse and push and shove?

 

The child shudders in a mix of fear and surprise

nestles closer as the car backs down.  Some taboos
have been broken, a film in his eyes
of unshed panic.  We have so little; but still it’s too much to lose
trust and innocence in the melee of grown up quiet
something feels false about this whole device
must a wrong be righted with so much scathing abuse?

 

Those coarse hands on the hood violate

the space inside, the knuckles rap
not on metal but my body, the weight
and feel of rings as fingers push and  grab
the grille, that’s my throat my lungs, they suffocate
all but an equally uncivilised, scorching rage
the window’s down, and I’ve finally escaped the trap.

 

That rough youth, half my age, twice my size

doesn’t reform or mend his ways
because I make one sharp request, criticise
his language. His hands and gaze
lose no venom, tone down nothing of the spite
in his vindictive diatribe. But my peace lies
undisturbed now, on the child’s tranquil face.

 

*Bishnupur is a small town in Bengal famous for its old 17th century terracotta temples.


Shared at Poetics@dVerse

Seeing red

I read the news, see gulmohurs cascade
their blossoms in a glorious spring red
I brew the coffee, I remake the bed
in the same half-hearted half-latte shade.

Spring repeats, the sheets of petals fall

again and again but the colours remain true
and here inside there is also nothing new
the usual violence, and the winner takes all.

I watch the news, see untold lives cascade

away in inflorescences of shocking red
I brew the coffee, and they count their dead
and that’s how nations, and my news, is made.

Let’s not talk about rights and righteousness.

Do you want your coffee with more sugar or less?