Poetry

By

Ananya S Guha

Is This Me, The Country?

I take the turn into a country
I don’t understand,
I understand history though
and how through corridors of time
people found breathing space. I take this turn
and learn bit by bit history.

Invaders came, they rested breathed its fire
its lust and its homes covered by ornate palaces.
There were love stories as well,
dynastic rulers, fratricide and battles
I can hear those gunshots and while travelling
by train once in Haldighat, the battle field splashed
with blood, mine yours, of a country.

History, the word shakes contours of being.
The word turns around
and asks:

Is this me, the country?

Narrative Blindness

I have been expressive in words
people call me taciturn, so I am
legerdemain. Words callow I manipulate.
I am the adroit teaser of and with words.
I am importunate loser when words summon
hate or a fear.

You sit unerringly on the border of words.
You write and your writing haunts into strange
dreams of oblivion. Your words impinge upon
senses and soul and I exclaim: what is poetry?
the poem unfurls in corridors, dank and soulless.
What soul does poetry have?
Narrative blindness. Words express movements,
in time’s warp. Clouded thoughts, one day the exuberant
poem will die.

Why Do People Write-Poetry?

Reading poems is the way of discovering
that people write for fun, they write of
the very things that you think preposterous.
They write of love, and you write of hate.
Poetry is in many ways charade of indiscipline,
even gross indignity. Gives you joy rides and goose
bumps. Why do people write-poetry?
I deliberate and out of it curse people, write a poem
send it for publication. The laptop creaks. The editor whines
when flooded by my irksome mails.

In the streets of the city, and there are plenty, I see a ragpicker.
I see the leper.
I see the blinded with begging bowl, but singing. Chanting.
I see barely seven or eight a child pleading for coins and mercy.
I stalk away. Walk away. My hauteur a new demeanour.

Why do people write-poetry?

My Poem

It is anachronistic
doesn’t know time or meaning.
It has wings to fly, teeth to bite.
It has flesh, but it belongs to me.
It lies dormant at times, awakens
when words crowd its being.
In infinite spaces it climbs and I
am its willing soul. My poem, heartache
do you spout the nonsense of today? Look
at the world, demented creatures are flooded
by time and merciless wish fulfilment.
Do you know Iraq or Syria, the Middle East
the Middle West?

Come, we can seek the world which does not exist here
in faraway moons, where only a poem sits on top of
the crescent mountain. Waves there will not torment
but will break shores in worded meanings of rhythm.

Ananya S Guha

Ananya S Guha was born and brought up in Shillong, North East India. He has seven collections of poetry and his poems have been published worldwide. They have also been featured in several anthologies. He is also a columnist, critic and editor. He now is a Regional Director at the Indira Gandhi National Open University and holds a doctoral degree on the novels of William Golding