Salil Chaturvedi
the ants on my floor
If only we could live
like the ants on my floor
toiling as they do
without an audible cry
kissing each other
as we pass by.
the grave of two friends
It’s an awfully
large tombstone
for a tree so small
and the little bird’s call
so big
this mall.
In a dream I had about half
a year ago
I was licking myself
all over like a cat. There were
crocodiles sunning themselves
on the banks of a river. It was clear
that they were all poets
out hunting for images
to drag them into the deep
of language. I told them all to
bugger off. I told them to stop
writing poems
and to start growing flowers
and while I had their ear
I quickly slipped in that
we are all equal
in our sleep and that all
the joy in the world
pours forth from forests
in the cool of the night.
All three poems by Salil Chaturvedi are from in the sanctuary of a poem, 2017.
Shoili Kanungo, ‘Circus’
K M Sherrif
Jacques Derrida, I Presume
Wonder why it took
So long for you to figure it out
After the heady Tel Quel days ,
After all the scuffles with gendarmes
And the occupation of universities and factories
(Occupation, yes, no quibbling, one has to give you that)
We knew it all along,
All those good old things
Were a big fart:
A war to end all wars,
Making the world safe for democracy,
Freedom of expression,
Prisoners of conscience,
Imperialist aggression,
Cultural offensive,
Peaceful Co-existence,
Détente.
And you, Michel and others farted a lot more:
Logocentrism,
Structurality
Identity politics,
Panopticon,
Hybridity,
Macaulay’s godhead,
And the rest of the gobbledygook.
But you were luckier than
The UN chemical weapons inspectors:
Your trace was more visible
Than what they were looking for.
Of course, we continue to search for
The differance between
An American president
And an African-American president.
But your spectres really take the cake.
Imagine old man Karl at the stroke of midnight
Coming up from the netherworld like Hamlet senior
To strew the world with bloody corpses!
To call it wishful thinking
Would be the understatement of the century.
Nothing happened to the world.
But you fucked-up the lives of
Hordes of college teachers across the world.
Few of them are fond of alternate epistemologies;
But biting off more than what they could chew
They are frantically searching for
Alternate systems of medicine
To plug their leaking bottoms.
Ha! That will make another of your gags:
What they didn’t know hurt them.
But they are luckier than you might have thought:
Nothing can beat
Good old cynicism and scepticism!
Shoili Kanungo, ‘Objects’
Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri
Things
What do things matter?
You asked me.
Let me count the ways.
The study table I designed
With my grandfather –That
travelled three homes
Growing-up; Growing old
With me –
That I varnished into a deep mahogany
Ruining my hands to eke out
That inner sheen–
The table that I left behind
Along with memories that
Were mine.
The fabric of the couch
Where we sat endlessly
fought, argued, loved
Not knowing the auguries of time–
The fabric that I chose with such attention
To detail –
colour, pattern, texture
Seeking harmony
With the surroundings.
The chest of drawers –That I
rescued from salvage
restored, redesigned
Loving its ball and claw feet–
Retained something and refused others
Hunted for that milky white
Marble top that tied it
Into the picture
That I was attempting to paint.
The circular dinner table
That you had taken pains
To make –
That single-footed table
that gained another foot
To fit a bigger home
While slowly that edifice Itself
Disintegrated.
The lamp in the corner –
Resplendent still, but
Look closely–
And
You will discover the many
Cracks that I camouflaged In
my denial
Of realities.
Always, trying to hold together –
Things.
Always, hanging on by the skin of my teeth.
Always, the damage control.
Always, in phantasmagoric mode.
Always, among other things.
So, yes – these were things. And
things have memories Wrapped
tightly around them–
Snaking in where you least expect–
Throwing up histories–
Disembowelling the past.
So yes, maybe you were right –
Things don’t matter,
The memories scatter,
And you are free
At last.
Matchbox Homes
I can see the woman
Stirring her pot Hair
in disarray
As the muggy air
Condenses and
mingles with her sweat.
The TV blares on
I imagine, in another room
The usual pyrotechnics
Of newsmen turned ideologues
Doing their stuff.
The AC whirs.
In yet another
The blood is warmed
And numbed
Lethe-like with Imbibed
amnesia– Forgetting is a blessing.
The children do
Their homework
Under duress. There is
too much to do,
Keep them occupied!
– or they’ll get into trouble.
She is on the phone
In what I presume is
The bathroom –That
lone sanctuary Away
From prying eyes.
The old man and woman
Sit around the sanctum
The incense burns –
And combines with the
Smell of spices
On the stove.
The interloper watches
Scene after scene
Unfold. Some are real.
Some, imagined.
The missing pieces easily concocted.
The mind is a fertile space.
Puny people in
Matchbox homes, Seen
from a distance –
As the traffic moves you
Inexorably into this forward motion
Where all is fiction, all false.
