Earth
Earth,
smelling of rain
and clouds from faraway lands
trailing diaphanous diaries
of monsoon, miasma and mist,
dispersing into the dank subsoil,
their fetid freight of fears,
sifting anguished aquifers
springs welling with tears,
the thud of clod on coffin
dull sound of finality.
Earth,
is soil with its bustling banter
between microbes and minerals,
red, black, white and brown, bits of bodies,
organic residue mingled in pain,
the anthropomorphic angina
of heartland in agony,
carrying in its veins
the susurration of streams
and the smell of crushed stone
in hushed geological gossip.
Earth,
which can revive
only if the world recedes
topography held in tension
by coordinates that conspire
to map a memory, clear
as a festival morning, sheer
in the sunshine of simple faith
reimagining abundance in loam,
resisting alluvial angst
to redeem a lost kingdom.
Earth
is that ubiquitous powder, dust,
ground in the whetstone of time's lust
flying in the face of glory
challenging life to retain its superiority,
the gritty, grainy, grimy destiny
of statues and men alike,
its dancing motes scripting
an ephemeral, shifting story
belying its stable inevitability
as our eventual, collective history.
Origami of Outfits
I fashioned a new me,
folding osteoarthritic limbs
like stiff paper on a cut-out
in the origami of outfits
that informs the sartorial saga
of this poor show.
The brace will embrace
the recrafted warrior
come to life in a new dress,
armour for battle stress
in the fight for existence,
shield protecting my brittle ribs,
artfully concealing the little fibs
with which I try to beguile my wits,
essentially, a cage enclosing another,
a straight jacket, rather,
designed to uphold the tired torso
in a relentless reinforcement
of metal, thread and cloth
valiantly striving to ward off
the inevitable rust and moth.
The belt around the waist
is not Hippolyta's girdle
seized by Hercules to overcome his hurdle
but an orthopaedic reminder,
of the decadal calendar
and its toll on the skeleton of truth.
It's age's appendage, geriatric adage,
a caring clasp, firm with advice sage,
to help one get through the day
by keeping the lower vertebrae
in their appointed places,
lest they droop or bend
or, in any way descend
in the general degeneration of things,
and thus the rules offend.
I wonder, would the cervical collar
have helped Atlas bear better
the weight of the world on his rugged shoulders?
As long as thoughts defy
The general decline
And refuse to calcify
There will be hope and dream
Behind those eyes sanguine,
Resisting the rigours of rheum.
No Return
When the soul splits
Like the sole of your shoe,
And yawns with every step,
The tongue hanging out
Yapping its frustration
On the hard pavement,
Echoing amidst the sounds
Of a city going to sleep
In the cold clasp of winter,
The trundle of the last bus,
Dogs barking in nights of nowhere,
The crunch of twigs beneath tired feet
You feel all the words
Have been said, promises unmade,
And signs read.
The last mile left to be trod
Blurs into milestones
Like crosses in a war cemetery,
Pale and white in the rain
The wood whittled down
To a sparseness sadly eloquent
Of names on a plaque,
At once anonymous and intimate
In their mingling of life and death.
Mirror
Everywhere I turn
there are shining surfaces,
from moon reflecting sun
to window pane
refracting afternoon sheen,
before which schoolgirls
pause and preen,
self-consciously tucking in
a stray strand of hair,
the glass on the trial room wall
in the multifarious mall
confusing with a profusion of options,
Eden before the Fall
pure and natural,
wrapped in a luminous shawl,
the lens of levity, stretching
in a series of distorted images
in the circus tent of life,
the rear view mirror
crowded with traffic
in memory's thoroughfare.
There's no respite
from the looking glass,
and its likenesses
at every bend and turn
invariably surrounding one,
beyond and within,
the brilliant crystal sphere
glinting with glimpses
of a revolving future,
the prism of the past
catching through its facets
vibrant vistas and vignettes
along with promise unfulfilled
sparkling like a teardrop
in the eye of fate.
He had seen her somewhere,
on the fringe of a crowd
in the cusp of ages,
at the edge of memory,
in a reflection on water
wavering and splintering,
heard her in a tune haunting the mind,
the echo of an elusive strain,
wafting the eternal question,
had felt her as design melting into other
designs,
forever forging new connections
in the ever-expanding web of signs,
like the face that people see, or think they see
in a tangle of branches, or clouds,
or cracks in an old wall,
in anything at all,
when they're not really looking
for it, or anything in particular,
and it insinuates itself
into their vision, only they can see it
at that time and place
that sudden leaping configuration
trembling with imminent dissolution,
created by things, random.
Dr. Ajanta Paul is an academic from Kolkata, India who writes poetry, short stories and literary criticism. She has published in literary journals including Spadina Literary Review, The Pangolin Review, The Piker Press, Shot Glass Journal, Poetic Sun, The Wild Word, Capella, The Punch Magazine and The Bombay Review. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2020. Ajanta published a collection of short stories The Elixir Maker and Other Stories in 2019(http://www.amazon.in/dp/B07N42KG1Q?ref=myi_title_dp) and a book of poetic plays The Journey Eternal in 2013 (https://publications.salesiancollege.net/publications/books/a-journey-eternal-poems-plays/)
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