Two Poems by Vandana Kumar

 

Call Me Not

 

Call me not ‘Your World’

Big and bad

Is how it is

 

Make me not ‘Your Country’

Stifle me not with jingoism

Tom-tom your possession

 

Call me instead, ‘Your Lost Sleepy Village’ 

Where not an inch of terrain

Is unfamiliar

No small talk

With indifferent neighbour

 

Call me not ‘Your World’

Not this world, at least

This one that I know 

Cuts trees

And tongues

At will

A Drifting Cloud

 

I do not know why

You try to touch

A cloud

Standing on toe

As tall as you are

Only this far that you can go

 

The restaurants closed

For the night

You toss cigarette in bin

It never rains

In a city like yours

 

I don't know why

You raise hands

When the keys are in

Deep recesses of pockets

Address books in mind

The way home isn't too far

 

Don't know why

You think

A drifting cloud

Will wait

 

 

Vandana Kumar is a Middle School French teacher in New Delhi. An educator with over 20 years of experience, she is also a French translator and recruitment consultant.

 

She has been published in various national and international journals and websites like ‘Mad Swirl’, Toronto based ‘Scarlet Leaf Review’, Philadelphia based ‘North of Oxford’, Asia based ‘Borderless Journal’, UK based ‘Destiny Poets’ etc. She has been shortlisted and published in competitive anthologies like the ‘2017 Annual Poetry Competition’ and the ‘Woman Inc. – TWIBB Sakhi Annual Poetry Awards 2019’. She featured in the winter 2020 edition of the Houston, Texas based – ‘Harbinger Asylum’.  She has also been published in the prestigious ‘Madras Courier.’ A French translation of Dr. Ampat Koshy’s poem along with 5 of her own poems have featured in the ‘Fasihi Magazine’. In January, 2021 two of her poems featured in the “The Kali Project” which was published by the US based “Indie Blu(e) Publishing”.

 

Apart from poetry, she also writes articles on cinema that have appeared on websites and journals like ‘Just-cinema’, ‘Daily Eye’, ‘The Free Press Journal’ etc.  Poetry for her, is her stress buster, her flight of fancy and strangely, what keeps her rooted too.