Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. He has been writing and publishing poetry for the last thirty years.
Distress Buying, Selling...
She sells fruits or is it vegetables
She sells on pavements, white washed houses
her coins ringing notes of sadness
She disposes of vegetables in evenings of skies upturned
when volatile winter thunders.
She sells in a neighbouring village
her home, her point of no return
She sells in Shillong's bustling traffic
She sells she knows not what
her smile tells that she sells
and we buy, distress buying.
We eat. We haggle. We buy
and sing songs of praises.
She sells, distress selling.
We buy distress buying.
The notes emaciated, withered fingers
she continues to sell.
Pavements lined with vendors
lit lamps, when there is no light.
She sells whirling in scathing darkness
Flowers
Flowers withering
flowers deflowered, root out living
flowers come and go in changing seasons
flowers are reminder, a wish that this season
they will vanish like the spirit
flowers and the rain conspire to enliven things
and harp on many many things to come
such as events, love and blues.
Charismatic, flowers are colours,
marigold, hibiscus, jacaranda
their blooms give rest
swaying mildly at their best.
In wartime where are graves?
In death where are flowers?
Why do they dampen, then worsen?
O flowers you are a kind of doom
but in your colours we see, the prophetic;
wishes are flowers, handle them with care.
Look at vases, the metal
they shape the petal, and give flowers
their coloration. Hues. Flowers on roads
bristle with pebbles and stone.
Once flowers, come and go
I am done.
Ananya S Guha
Shillong, INDIA.
