Poetry

Sohrab Hura

By

P C K Prem

Tales of Half Men

(Three Chorus Lines)

Chorus line 1

A bitter break in historic bonds it is

and I am a child of midnight

of relations rooted,

in societal ethnicity

and a maniac in search of a location.

A babe of dreams unrealized,

played with sticks and shepherds,

cows, buffalos, sheep and goats

I took little pets to the pastures,

cocks, hen, parrots and pigeons followed

without noise at a distance,

as we shared sighs and sights,

of immature love with tender wet skin

under dark shades of trees.

I talked to birds I remind

and animals I took to the grass land

at times, eyes spoke a crypt language

which even I failed to decipher.

Who am I, a question arose?

am I man, a thought surges?

As relations and blank space haunted,

an area of love, of sound and music

appeared radically mystic

as I failed to define a wet skin of passions.

Chorus line 2

It barely flashed on the mind

that I ate ample meat of many birds

of sheep, goats, hare and cock

and intense twinges bled profusely

as blood stained curses of a hushed voice

shudder now in memories hearty.

I ate meat and yummy it tasted

and took time but I was strong

that killing on the streets and roads,

and places of ringing bells was

a cultural need

to satisfy human appetite,

as feelings of nausea and disgust

filled the body

while blood littered around.

Cried visions of pagans, mock laughter

hisses and slanting lips,

I was told to forget a man’s job

in brassy invectives as hoarse voices echoed

and singed throat as if nice to kill

to live life on unlimited terms of an end

because past’s over-viewing future can’t revoke

an unusual caucus conspiring

to capsule present with tribal instinct,

but it is a history defying reason

that politics is an animal with a man’s head

among the society of half men.

Chorus line 3

Eye-language of animals resists,

and birds lack option in hunter’s noose

as dumb live in fretful times of inquiry

by the lord of death,

where a wordless hunt digs a hole deep,

and in the heart fosters a recurrent truth

of death in tentative times by men,

or by men who may be half men

as the thoughts throb

agonizing to digest, I weep alone.

As an adolescent I learnt to live

in the fields, jungles and grasslands

in fiery hills along an eely foliage,

I frisked about, scrambled,

and lived in old caves to bury secrets,

of incestuous relations and ancestors.

With unending feasts on barbecue

with scores of man-eaters, panthers

birds and cannibals too, infused vigour

and nerves stirred

a wild liberty of forest sandy,

when pacified brisk flickers of heart,

wrestled with doctors’ forks and pincers,

wandering with tipsy fingers,

at times slipping into the nurses’ bodies

while the women on table in green robe

trying to give birth to half men,

and men headless.

P C K Prem

P C K Prem (P C Katoch of Garh-Malkher, Palampur, Himachal, a former academician, civil servant and member psc hp, Shimla) is an author of more than fifty books. A post-graduate in English literature from Punjab University, Chandigarh, he is associated with several social/literary organizations, has brought out nine volumes of poetry besides five books on criticism, two books on ancient literature, six novels and two collections of short fiction. Creative writings in Hindi include twenty novels, nine books on short fiction and a collection of poems. Recipient of several awards, Katoch Prem is a poet, novelist, short story writer and a critic in English and Hindi from Himachal, India.