Two Poems by Sneha Madhusoodhanan

 

the clock, the room, and the me 

like the dumb, driven cattle, 

we climb with bowed heads 

the steep, rocky hills of time. 

alone, each on its own, 

yet, you are dearer to me 

than laurels and applause. 

in you, i have found 

my shining sword and shield even heard and understood. 

none, but you shall speak to me when i falter and fall, 

only you shall see, hear and heal 

the malaise in my soul, 

the stream from my eyes, 

and the rock in my throat. 

and when loom the horrors of shade, we shall dig together graves 

for all that is dead within us. 

the clock, the room, and the me.

my beautiful Despair 

my eyes on the blue my feet into you 

my empty hands 

grope 

for a rope, 

a hope. 

my beautiful Despair, 

hope, 

a seed of light 

a hole, 

a way out of 

the night. 

i am bleeding 

my blood 

darker than darkest, where once 

was my heart, 

a wounded beast 

moans, 

i can’t see 

no sky now 

no depths now 

black as it is 

beneath my feet 

and my eyes,

i am blind 

and there are 

scars on my mind, no, no, 

even better, 

my mind, a scar, a brush stroke, 

a modern art. 

beautiful 

yet abstract, 

one with no name my hurt. 

my beautiful Despair.

Sneha Madhusoodhanan: Hailing from a small town in India, Sneha took a fancy to poetry at 13. She has published over 400 poems across various platforms. What distinguishes Sneha from other poets is that she is a poet on wheels. Most of her poems were written during transit and will hopefully continue to do so. 

Besides being a poet, she is a memoir writer, editor, teacher, blogger (on Medium) and independent research scholar. Poetry, for her, is an inquiry into newer ways of expressing and expanding third-world imaginations in the first-world language.