Poetry in Our Time

Kamalakar Bhat

 

City of Half-Lit Lanterns

 

In this city, nothing is certain:
the sky forgets its color by dusk,
and the streets murmur an ancient song,
notes dissolving in the traffic noise.

 

A boy chases the shadow of a kite
lost between rooftops,
its shiny manja beckoning like a secret
no one dared to tell.

 

Laughter spills from unseen windows,
falls into the arms of northern migrants
in search of employment.
A woman, her hands kumkum-smeared,
pauses at the edge of a broken fountain;
does she remember
when water once spurt like a prayer?

 

Here, the wind is a thief,
stealing whispers from alleys,
spreading them across courtyards
where half-lit lanterns flicker
and the night gathers itself
into the soft pulse of a convalescent.

 

Every question here
is answered only by the silence
of a city in slumber.

**

To Answer with Small Kindness

 

In the stillness
where roots speak of ages
and rivers script time on stone,
there is a path close to the earth.
It does not promise Everest,
or even clarity, only motion:
from soil to branch, from dusk to dawn.

 

Here, the hands that build jhopdis
and the hands that turn pages
are no different. Pen meets plow,
like minds meet thoughts,
and the world is amazed
as one small thread pulls through.

 

Each path returns
to furrows once turned,
to tides that swelled and sank,
to the ceaseless breath
of unseen lives.
No border parts what is ever one:
rock and flesh, ember and blaze,
the visible and the yet-unformed.

 

Rise and fall –
the land stays still beneath it all.
Our task is to listen,
to answer with small kindness,
to know that nothing
stands alone, and no journey
truly ends.

 

**

An Unseen Vault

 

Words are my jewels, words are my weapons,
Words are the breath of my life.
I share only words with this world.
Listen, Tukaram proclaims: see, these words are divine,
Let us honor them.
– Tukaram

 

The mind sits still for days,
like a book forgotten in a locked cabinet:
unturned pages,
thick layers of dust,
words neither read nor touched

 

–
complete in their silence.

Within that silence,
the world passes by,
like the stone bridge of an unchanging village
on the legendary Saraswati river:
waiting endlessly,
knowing everything,
asking for nothing.

 

At times, floods of thought
rise, break past the banks,
colliding against the delicate walls of reason—
murmurs of a labyrinth,
shifting forms of long considerations.

 

In such frenzy,
the vault opens,
spilling its treasures
in no exact order:
faces, places, events,
that might have been,
or never were,
flickering like half-lit courtyards.

 

Somewhere in between,
the clock’s relentless insistence,
the rustle of a bird’s wings:
a weightless existence,
needing no explanation, simply is.

 

Deep within,
among these calm yet restless recesses,
a treasure lies hidden:
a diamond buried in dust,
an impossible sequence of numbers
carved into the walls of a vanished city:
obscure, yet eternal.

 

Nameless,
formless,
and yet, for those who seek,
it is found—
in the brief light
between stillness and storm.

 

**

This Small Life

 

This house in Malenadu:
its walls weathered by rain,
monsoon drumming tabla beats on its roof.
The path to the door
is overgrown with moss, but welcoming—
it knows the quiet patience of footsteps.

 

Each morning, light spills
through the areca trees,
a slow blessing on the house.
The birds arrive like promises,
their wings bright as belief.
I stand still,
listening,
their song weaving the air into something warm.

 

In the garden, my mother’s hands sink into the soil,
warm and fragrant as cooked rice.
She plants whatever she can:
a seed, a kindness, a hope,
she may not live to see bloom.

 

At dusk, the world exhales.
The stars lift themselves
over the shoulders of the Kailasa-named hill nearby.
I lie on the atta* to watch them
and play volleyball with the moon.

 

And when the world becomes too much for me,
I return to this small life,
within me, no matter where I am.

#

(Atta: An elevated platform used for drying areca nuts.)

 

The Weight of Sorrow

 

My grandma ate pan,
rolling it between her teeth,
always there, always chewing,
but she never let it show.
It was her secret,
carried like a weight
beneath the words she spoke
in the kitchen,
in the garden,
on days when the sun
seemed too bright for such things.

 

Only after growing up
did I realize this pan she ate
was her sadness,
ground to a fine juice
and swallowed whole.

 

She would gather her sadnesses,
break them into pieces,
bury them in corners
where no one would look,
behind sacks of rice,
in the folds of the sheets.
Each fragment a little island,
each one a place
where a piece could be hidden,
small enough to escape notice
but always there,
always pulling a string in her heart.

 

I never understood
why she couldn’t let it go,
why she didn’t just say
what was burning her from inside.
But she kept it,
tended to it,
as if the world
would become ugly
if she allowed herself to spit it out.

 

And I,
watching her,
learned the art of concealment,
how to split a thing in half
and pretend I no longer saw
the weight of sorrow.
**

**

Kamalakar Bhat is an award-winning bilingual poet and translator. He has published three collections of poems, two collections of translated verse, and has edited one collection of essays. He writes in both academic and popular media on books, poetry and translations. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Indian Literature, Muse India, Caesura among other magazines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SONJA MANOJLOVIĆ, Zagreb, Croatia

 

 

SO WHAT IF I LIVE UNSKILLFULLY

 

So what if I live unskillfully,

if I stagger

mutilated to a thousand eyes

Until late at night I classify tiny little nightingales, almost killed

I open and open the screens of distance within them

What if I want to breathe, to eat

where there is nourishing soup of air and books

at which I will sit

lean my chin on my palm

until my hand withers

and my eyeslids confirm

So what if I take only the books from you

mouth for our kiss

 

 

AN ORDINARY, MOST ORDINARY ENCHANTRESS

 

Everything is lit up, everything can be seen,

but once there was darkness for our hearts

and we walked through it silently,

just as the elf wanted us to

What he was giving , I no longer know,

I took what I could,

the child has not been hushed up, I love, I don’t love,

it still can be heard

through the pedicle of night,

climbers have light bodies, I will climb,

live in airy houses,

eat light food,

slide through the corridor of familial icons

with my teeth sunken into the fast and the fine,

for I do not complain, I do not seek

except in the waking state,

an ordinary, most ordinary

enchantress

 

 

THERE’S A WEREWOLF AT THE WINDOW

 

She wouldn’t let me get into the house

I drum upon the wide door

The forest is spinning all around

The girl is sitting in there

and she’s calling out

from behind her small triangle face:

There’s werewolf outside!

I won’t open! I can’t!

Thus, the werewolf is out in the garden with me

we eat live rubies like strawberries

He hangs upside down upon a tree

Washes my linen in the rock

and his back is fast and strong

We go and turn

and she watches and watches

 

 

IN A DARK CHAMBER

 

But that’s not what your mother said about you

Polaroid star.

Stupor is a thought of death

putting out senses in a moment’s cocoon

lightening up their silence.

Didn’t she say

Put your faith in the bed’s shallow relief,

in a dark chamber, the illuminator’s trade?

Yes, I sort of remember her,

but I don’t know who you are.

You’ll fall asleep, you’ll slip into an answer.

But, I am not human, one does not notice I’m alive,

I don’t look after myself,

I don’t cradle anything alive in my arms,

I borrow, I sell, I spend it all,

I am a glittering mutant in a common darkness,

and you, who are you, do you rearrange things?

For the sake of that burnt gold of youth only.

 

 

DRAWING ONESELF IS THE EASIEST

 

Drawing oneself is the easiest!

En route, definitely en route,

as a dot a condensed circle.

Neither rain, nor sun, or air,

all that is full is empty here.

The reflection

of houses upon one’s back.

But you won’t calm down souls with a word

nor with a bang upon the door,

everyone darts out of the house at once.

Only the eye remains, round, petrified,

illuminated.

That’s the easiest thing to draw,

the smile we need

a blazing wheel, a prayer’r mill

to grind and grind down what’s already been ground

until it turns red hot white.

It’s clear then,

tomorrow I will be available for love

but not today.

 

 

Sonja Manojlovich was born in Zagreb in 1948 and graduated with a degree in philosophy and comparative literature from the University of Zagreb. She has published 23 poetry books (the first one in 1965). All her life she worked as a free lance writer – as an editor on the radio, in magazines and newspapers and for years as the General secretary of the Croatian Writers Society. Her poems have been included in numerous anthologies and translated into more than 20 languages, including books of selected poems in English and French online and in Polish and Romanian published in Warsaw and Bucharest. She has been the recipient of numerous literary awards, among them the Award for Excellence in Poetry in Greece, India, Japan and Russia such as for her overall contribution to Croatian poetry. She participated in many large international poetry festivals: Columbia – Medellin, Venezuela – Caracas, Nicaragua – Granada, India – Bhubaneswar, Indonesia, Macedonia – Struga poetry evenings, China – Qinghai Lake poetry Festival, Russia – Tver, France – Lodeve, Greece – Larissa., Uzbekistan, ..etc

 

 

 

 

 

Satish Vimal

 

 The Alchemy of Creativity

 

Water trickled down the head of the stone,
the air was entrapped in the palm.
The valuation of holy whirl seeped through the downspout,
the swirl of mud unified.
The festivity was on a touching gleeful crescendo.

 

The illustrator in the studio felt frustrated
as he pulled the veil from any painting
that frightened him; he was lost in a labyrinth,
traceless he was.
The unveiled statues kept gazing as if in a state of fast
inactivity, and slothful like sleepless entities
The snake had its ragged skin frayed,
which forced it to take a corner,
almost compressed,
and by the stretch of skin pays the offering of worship lamps.

 

Its blind eyes were blessed by the daybreak;
it turned its ill face, and soot spatula reacted,
extended the body and displayed the face in front of the mirror,
the coiled spatula was sold by a broker against a meager cost of an amulet.

 

The poet composed one more poem,
once again to fish for compliments
Devi Saraswati hurled an odd revilement;
this abuse was aimed squarely at the poetry,
making it yearn for solemnization.

 

The provocative verse: the thorns have arrived to shake hands,
and the journals in series carry the hemp cultivation
that has ensnared the entire field,
the door of eyelashes befits the hutch of eyes—
shut it and peep in,
lean against the heap of ash and sleep;
you will witness a sweet dream:
riding on the royal swan, the Devi unfolds
the secret of the coiled spatula to the artist,
who readily gets up to pour the water over his frame,
and the stir that evokes the melody within
nurses the possibilities of verses,
decked up these prospects in the prayer plate
to offer them to Devi
the dawn will enlighten you.

 

 Fire

 

That which holds fire cannot be burned
O repenter of the fire! You will be consumed by flames,
The fire of night spreads across,
The gyrating chain holds the dark abyss
To witness the bright day, the blushy figure of the flare—
bless it with warmth
bless with a frame.

 

The running brook is singing emotional songs,
the waves are rhythmic within the hearth to boost blossom
and to a handful of water is beholder to: the pot lid to earthen plate,
the blazing sunbeams are fanned by the wind: the severe sweating,
by the warmth of a mother blooms the lap,
pulses a cinder.
In a merry mood, the serene breathing spells even
ablaze the ice,

 

O insightful eye! let me donate my eye to you
so that I may obtain a flame for my lamp
to glow of the candle as the latent night stands witness,
Oh Lord, grant me permission to enter into the darkest night,
to raise the edifice of fire
within my consciousness,
to submit my existence to this sacred place,
to stay ageless as a lamp.

 

Sea and Soil

 

The night pulled the sea up to the sky,
and the roar nearly deafened the storm.
A few mortal frames behold it swirl,
as if shadows in dread are trembling,
as if the mountains move around like chaff.

 

The emptiness churns the ground in a playful mood.

The kites rise and fall, well done!

 

The kites have control over their movements.
My body stands unique among the earth,
connected to the divine emptiness by ropes;
the movements are but a maneuver of night vigil.

 

When the rumor of the sea’s ascendance reached its peak,
the water waves almost touched the sky.

 

Within the ambit of the earth, divine emptiness is a dream,
the sky filling the sea, and vacuity the water.

 

Dr Satish Vimal is a multi-lingual poet, critic, researcher, cultural crusader and art-aesthetician. Author of thirty two books, Satish is known in literary circles of the country. He writes in Kashmiri, Hindi, Urdu and English at the same time. His writings have been translated into many Indian & foreign languages.  He has been awarded by Sahitya Akademi, Department of Official Language (Govt of India), Union Human Resources Development Ministry, Information & Broadcasting Ministry, J&K Govt with Highest State Honour for Literature, Rashtriya Sanaskrit Sanasthan, J&K Academy of Art, Culture & Languages & Vandemataram Samooh in addition to many other national and state level awards and felicitations.  Literary luminaries like Amrita Preetam, Harivanshrai Bachchan, Jayant Mahapatra, Namvar Singh and Rahman Rahi have written extensively on the poetic contribution of Satish Vimal. Satish is known for his understanding of the Rishi-Sufi tradition of India. His research on literary aesthetics has fetched him name and fame throughout the country. His extensive lectures on different national platforms on literary aesthetics and contemporary literary trends have also been appreciated. Satish is a prolific translator too. He has translated many classical writings from all over the world into Kashmiri and Hindi. His film and television scripts have also won him many awards and appreciations.