|
More poems by Manu Dash
Manu Dash is a bilingual poet, fiction
writer, playwright, translator and columnist. He has six books
to his credit and recently edited an anthology of poems in
English written by Indians entitled ‘ninety-nine words’.
He works as a company executive in India for a living and can be
reached at:
manmohan_dash@yahoo.com
DIWALI IN A CANCER WARD
No candles were lit,
nor the bursting out
of firecrackers heard;
only enduring silences packed
the dark womb of corridors.
My father waited helplessly
for the biopsy report,
yet to arrive from Mumbai,
as an innocent victim
craves for the verdict
of the apex court.
Future is trapped
in the belly of uncertainty;
life goes on
the way a rafter moves through
crosscurrents of the waters.
MASK
I get up
and put on the mask
till I retire to bed.
Over the years it has been
dearer and dearer to me.
Donning it, I play different roles,
deliver different dialogues,
and throw different expressions
at different people.
I try my best to keep
every body happy and agile.
All have forgotten
that I too have a face
of my own, and,
when I exhibit it,
they fail to recognise.
LOVE – STORY
Stars in the sky bare
a scar marked face of pox.
In the pitch dark,
a deodar and the old temple
listens
to the whispers, intrigues, debates
along the exchange of garlands.
Every love can be spun
into a story.
And it can be a life-sentence
As well.
This silence bears
many stories
that speaks
of death and love.
AN EVENING IN A TRIBAL VILLAGE
The sky has changed
into a Muslim woman’s burkha.
The chimney of a nearby factory
has forgotten
to sigh in relief since a month.
This is season of loadshedding.
This knife of Dungdunga cuts
cake thickly dark,
‘Chaiti Parav’ ends with ‘Landa’
and ‘Mund’.
The droning bee returns to the hive
like a horny saint
and the dance
of the dames remind me of Tagore.
April is never cruel here,
moon is no traitor and the rains
have an intimate legacy
to the inhabitants. The souls
Search one more dream.
MY JAPANESE FRIEND
The pensile sun
on the western horizen
conspired with
the wind sand and sea-beach
of Puri.
His apparition as a
doppelganger,
a valise in the waist
and a poppy cook look
with budhistic peek and cilia
drifted me away from my
quest for immaculate breasts
of fisher-women.
Was it a false start
that a greeting was replied with
stiletto and a nation’s
glory repeated the music
of the evening sea
that witnessed my bloodstain palm?
O My Japanese friend!
Are you puzzled with the similarity
between setting sun
and my wounded palm
like a decomposed carcass?
Your departing look
compelled me to cloak the fact
in the womb of the time:
You had stabbed me once.
FOR A NUDE AT KONARK
The hope
Of a young mason
spreads around
when he defies death
with his chisel and virgin ideas.
The hewn breasts of the nude
of the Sun Temple sweats
with the sunburst and salty air.
what of disconsolate the shivering sands
to the ruins of lotuses.
No need of taking the notes
of the tourist guide. The pride of
Narasingha Deva
reminds of unseen sufferings.
Where is the crown?
The waves on the Bay of Bengal
does not reflect the nude
in her revealing glory,
and the music of the rain.
Could it be
the beating of her Cymbals?
|
