Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. He has been publishing his poetry over thirty years. He is a senior academic in India's Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Kashmir
Kashmir your impulse
runs dry
as the mountains
stagger under your
breath, heaviness
pounds, and the heart
barren, enemies infiltrate
into your bounden ashes
the number of deaths
lost count among
schools burnt
what will they learn
as mannequins in
closed rooms discuss
the future, which if exists
is like wild catcalls in dark.
Come be the beautiful valley
you are,interspersed with ravines
and mountains scaling almighty
heights. Eyes blinded we cough
out wrath, even as bullets pierce
your heart. We cannot.
We cannot hum tunes
cannot think of what is happening
in the inside of beating drums.
Perhaps animals are slaughtered.
Perhaps not.
Perhaps children are still playing
waiting for sun set
and dusk to enter
pallid horizons across skies.
See the kite flying
See the kite flying
arching across captive mountains.
In Saharan Africa...
In Saharan Africa or India
scratch in the dark
wounds a child's eye
in Syria the children
eat out of the wind
die as past time
in Kashmir children
have no school to go
all burnt, they will join
training camps, to kill
and then die
what will mothers and fathers
do in this world, will they weep
in isolation as Putins and Trumps
make a circle, a merry go round
of haves and have nots?
a hawk swooping is the target of wrath
bigger hawks sniffing rule the world
with carrots of gold
men are fossilised
death does the triumph as
riddled bodies succumb
to bullets and bombs
the internet shrinks the world
into another demonised omen.
Ananya S, Guha
Kashmir- Pixabay |
Kashmir
Kashmir your impulse
runs dry
as the mountains
stagger under your
breath, heaviness
pounds, and the heart
barren, enemies infiltrate
into your bounden ashes
the number of deaths
lost count among
schools burnt
what will they learn
as mannequins in
closed rooms discuss
the future, which if exists
is like wild catcalls in dark.
Come be the beautiful valley
you are,interspersed with ravines
and mountains scaling almighty
heights. Eyes blinded we cough
out wrath, even as bullets pierce
your heart. We cannot.
We cannot hum tunes
cannot think of what is happening
in the inside of beating drums.
Perhaps animals are slaughtered.
Perhaps not.
Perhaps children are still playing
waiting for sun set
and dusk to enter
pallid horizons across skies.
See the kite flying
See the kite flying
arching across captive mountains.
In Saharan Africa...
In Saharan Africa or India
scratch in the dark
wounds a child's eye
in Syria the children
eat out of the wind
die as past time
in Kashmir children
have no school to go
all burnt, they will join
training camps, to kill
and then die
what will mothers and fathers
do in this world, will they weep
in isolation as Putins and Trumps
make a circle, a merry go round
of haves and have nots?
a hawk swooping is the target of wrath
bigger hawks sniffing rule the world
with carrots of gold
men are fossilised
death does the triumph as
riddled bodies succumb
to bullets and bombs
the internet shrinks the world
into another demonised omen.
Ananya S, Guha