Four Poems by O.P. Jha

 

Let me know again

Let me know who has heard songs buzzing

in the curious breathes of restless nomads again

 

Let me know who has felt multilayered love

folded in the throbbing of humming hearts again

 

Let me know who has dared to lick the drops

glittering on petals of roses in a war-field again

 

Let me know who has sown the seeds of love

in refugee camps longing for a piece of light again

 

Let me know who has overlooked complexity

and hugged simplicity in this difficult time again

 

Let me know who has seen clumps of leaves

with the glow-worms glowing all the night again

Let me know who has smiled with innocence again

& suddenly broken fetters of mankind again.

Seething

Parentheses are bubbling over

for breaking into exclamations,

as ice of Alaska is melting

for trade talk between reluctant partners,

someone on the top is preparing

for fusion of hydrogen atoms

into helium and releasing tremendous energy

& marauders on the divided Earth are throttling

for chunks, craters, cracks and cleavages.

They’re ready for more fission,

From the Earth to the sky

millions of lines are drawn in little dots

like the cells carrying whims of ancestors.

 

Wonder is woven into common, a mask

with many layers, with dappled identities

with addresses on meandering roads

leading to mazes in minds.

& everyone looks like a phoenix risen above

out of his own ash. In the great cemetery

epitaphs look like filling up the gaps

between life and death.

 

In this boiling, center has slept for ever

& paths leading nowhere, yet  no one says

“I won’t make a friendship band

with a  half-burnt fabric.” But he’s seething. 

 

        

bid adieu  

 

A furious flash fell from the sky

before Friday dawn, and Guadalupe rose high

a stream of fury flew between the Earth and the Sky,

it came in forty-five minutes but didn’t give

Texas a moment to get ready, & Camp Mystic a chance,

girls who had enjoyed Thursday, never asked the night

to give a passage to them for watching Friday

 

On Guadalupe bank, those beautiful girls were banking hopes

to be champions of life, but no warning they could gather

said, you’re camping for unceremonious departure

 

“Good morning” never came again

but “Goodbye” came for ever.

 

The furious flash from the Sky

and sudden rise on the Soil

sank their hope and Texas sank in tears.

 

I came to know and I’ll never forget

Some flashes are full of furies

and turn many eyes tearful for many years

 

O cheerful girls of Camp Mystic, I’ll miss you for ever

my cup of palms is full of tears, but my heart trembles

and lips are exercising reluctantly to whisper, “Bid adieu”.

 

(On devastation caused by a sudden flash flood in Texas, USA in July 2025)

Churning

 

In a mild gust of wind, a seed fell before the strong gate of a fort. In a tough night, the soil received it in its uterus. The pregnant soil talked to none but gave birth to a sprout. In due course, it turned into a sapling and beautiful flowers came out. The bloom changed the scene and the sight. Fragrance spread in the wind. The iron-man living inside couldn’t understand when a revolution happened. The fragrance whispered a sweet note in receptive ears, “A seed is enough for churning in darkness.”

(A prose poem)

O.P. Jha’s works appeared in more than one hundred journals including Rigorous, Mantis, Punt Volat, Discretionary Love, In Parentheses, Shot Glass, Lothlorien Poetry, The Cry Lounge, The Odessa Collective, Backchannels, Homer’s Odyssey, The Broken Teacup, Poetry Pacific, By the Beach, miniMag, Iceblink, Infinite Scroll, The Rome Review, Tiger Leaping Review, Wildscape Literary, Pineberry Literary, Valiant Scribe, Kelp, pulplit Mag, Gabby &Min’s , Panorama , Quibble Quarterly, Stone of Madness, Midwest Zen, Hoot, Balestra, Soul Poetry, The Haiku Shack Magazine etc. His poems appeared in anthologies "We were Seeds" and "We are Resilient". He holds Ph.D. in "Translation Studies". X: @OPJha17