Poetry Corner : Re-Markings March 2017

POETRY

A Sonnet of Loud Despair

E. Ethelbert Miller

Like cellphone users

we now believe everyone can be a poet.

We overlook how the tongue can be raped by words.

At night one can stay awake listening to electronic

devices humming what is mistaken for Whitman

and Hughes. Maybe these are the days of the last

poets; the time of madness forced into the straight

jackets of couplets.

What do our ears know

of blindness or our eyes of speech?

There is a crying in the world from language

being lynched. The smell of death swaying

over us singing a quiet blues of deep misery –

a sonnet of loud despair.

• E. Ethelbert Miller is Board chair of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Director of the African American Resource Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C. He is the author of several collections of poetry. He has taught at UNLV, American University, George Mason University, and Emory and Henry College, U.S.A.
  
  
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Adios, El Commandante Fidel

Morakabe Raks Seakhoa

 

Like a gargantuan baobab tree,

Your liberating words are brave deeds

That, when and where they fall:

Irreversible change the whole world befalls.

As history was bound to absolve you, Commandante Fidel,

Posterity’s tasks couldn’t be more clear,

To bring forth tomorrow’s beauty today,

Banishing capital gluttony and people’s hunger forever away.

As we doff our hats to you and your gallantry,

We raise our scarlet standard even more lofty,

To make our foes flinch and class traitors sneer:

For we’ll keep the Red Flag flying everywhere and here.

·         Comrade Raks Morakabe Seakhoa heads the wRite Associates (in South Africa). He helped raise the visibility of South African literature and its writers through numerous events and activities.

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I Wish I Could Walk a Mile in Your Shoes:

A Tribute to Maya Angelou

La Shawna Griffith

 

 

I wish I could walk a mile in your shoes
See all the sights you have seen
Watch life from the confines of your eyes
Taste the fuel that fuelled your pen

I wish I could walk a mile in your shoes
To understand your mind
How you thought
Why you believed so strongly in revolution
Why you were such an inspiration to all that heard your voice
You see these shoes
Tell the story of your life

And they are big shoes to fill
As they possess so much knowledge
The remains of a creative soul
That have edged a permanent mark in history’s page as a literary legend
And a poetic superwoman

My brain cannot posses the amount of knowledge these shoes entail

I can only imagine how it was for you back then;

Being a black poet in a time where civil unrest was a “hot” topic
Where the caged bird was singing freedom so beautifully

That person’s ears became tuned with the cry of unrest

The words in that poem gave persons a sense of hope and something to believe in

I wish I could walk a mile in your shoes
The shoes that have told
The wonderful tale of your life

By tying the laces
I have accepted the poetic challenge
To walk the path you have so gracefully created.

·         La Shawna Griffith is a poet born in and resident of Barbados. Following on the footsteps of her idol and role model, Miss Maya Angelou, her goal is to become a voice for the voiceless, a hope and an inspiration. Her maiden publication titled Unlock the Door, a collection of thirty seven poems, has received acclaim from various international quarters.

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Two Poems

R.K. Bhushan

Eyeries 

Main highway

In the city of the dead

Has a crowded and chaotic

Market on either side –

Populated by government buildings,

Financial institutions,

Shops, big and small,

Running private business

And professions;

And push-carts,

Parked in order

In this disorder,

Selling all to feed

Without a trade-cry –

All traffic snarls and speeds

With the grace of a haphazard

Fatigued , neither girl nor woman!

It is an all-season

Dumb-show of multitudes,

Unstoppable –

Restive, restless, disquiet

And even touchy –

Strangers and known-strangers,

Failure, failure-in-success,

Success to come,

Dreams of success

Dazzled and befuddled –

Writ large and deep on their faces.

Formal hellos and handshakes

Or even mechanical enquiries

Or curiosities –

An attempt

At breaking ennui

And far-off confusions,

Do not warm up or cool down

The smouldering sensations

Of these urban, semi-urban

Or rural heroes and heroines,

Lighted up like eyrie-dwellers.

They seem to have

Gone off the deep end!

Perhaps to the better end!

Religious Theme

Everywhere –

In all working

And governance,

In professions and academics –

Political schemes,

Economic reforms,

Social regeneration,

Educational rejuvenation,

Religious resurrection,

Global awakening,

Philanthropic projects,

Universal welfare –

All declarations and assertions

Are sacral for development;

Monsters guised as deities

Are religious

In teams and themes

Rooted in labyrinths

Of innovative tactics

For strategic management

Of sales and marketing

In deafening jingoism

And jargonism.

Success of this holistic

Attitude and approach

Is dazzling, baffling and distracting –

Sacred to activism!

All good; without humanity!

• Raghukul Bhushan retired as Head, Department of English, Lajpat Rai D.A.V. College, Jagraon (Ludhiana) India. He is the author of several poetry collections.

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Three Poems

Soun Kanwar Shekhawat

The Blank Space

A light of brightness came into my life,

Enriching my life in a state of ecstasy.

First, I wondered it to be a dream,

But, to my revelation, was all heartfelt.

The light embraced me and clutched with itself.

Being my reason to smile,

Being my reason to live.

However, to my astonishment, one day it disappeared,

Leaving me all alone.

I searched thee on Mountains,

I searched thee in sterile spaces.

Thou was not there, thou was nowhere.

Thou left me mousy and moronic.

I was a lifeless tool now.

Oh, Earth! Just lacerate and take me in,

Oh, Sky! Just disperse and bombard your thunder on me.

Thou left an unreadable vacuity in my life.

Someone might bring smile on my Face,

However, no one can bring the brightening smile of my Eyes.

Someone might make me speak,

However, no one can feel the silence in my words.

My words are too silent to express,

My silence speaks and cries aloud.

Dear Pen

O Dear Pen! Catch your speed again.

Let me numberize my thoughts

And color the sheet.

Else you ping my mind, leave useless worries.

O Abundant Brain! Let's pen down you.

But where to bring verse from?

From Literature or from Science?

From novels or from journals?

Just Pen down my friend,all my thoughts.

Catch your speed or run faster.

Pen down my friend,

Just pen down.

What's Toughest in Life

I transpired out of the Womb,

My sweet cry led my Mum smile.

My smile vanished all her pains.

My first question to self:

What's toughest in Life?

While walking, holding my Dad's finger,

I fall down with blood on my knees.

Deliberating the whole day:

What's toughest in Life?

I grew up with many exams of life,

Some with ecstatic achievements,

 In addition, some with painful foggy eyes.

I re-enquired the question:

What's toughest in Life?

While my brain was inquesting,

A sudden cyclone of evil appeared,

And I was a distant far from my loved ones.

The painful loneliness was murderous.

I went out to experience the world.

Where staring eyes, harsh attitudes,

Multi-faceted personalities and miserable faces were all around.

Life, O Life! You’re the toughest.

·         Soun Kanwar Shekhawat, an M.A. in English Literature, is employed at Yes Bank, Jaipur, India.

***

Two Poems

Anupama Kaushal

Open Spaces

Zenith is all tranquil

Merging the ultimate quail

Manna a forever shawl

Nadir a chaotic pail

Grabbing and snatching trail

Making essence pale

Proximity brews distances

Builds myriad narrow cells

Wrapping behind a mask

Pretending a social bask

Human touch inhuman

In the crowd of Adams

A fall of the leaf

Reminds a stay brief

Society makes a leech

Nature a true preach.

Women Empowerment

Talk of the Touts

A chance for the Pouts

Flashes all agreen

To catch the brightest dream.

Touch of every nerve

With glib tongue serve

Building yet another mound

A stage for the clout.

Deeming the severed scarf

Of Draupadi’s or Sita’s past

Empty desolate sights

Clapping to the heights

Waiting for the dias to bright

Spent in silken tights.

All is preached and done

Hands yet penniless.

Power on the desk

Woman in the dregs.

·         Dr. Anupama Kaushal is Lecturer in English at Government College, Tonk (Rajasthan), India.

 v

A Smiling Sphere

Runjhun Kapoor

Peeping through the clouds

A big star pouts

Smiling from the sky

The mirror of my eye

The first ray falls

As silver ball crawls.

The dark night slowly envelops half the earth

With haunting killer owls in search of their prey,

A black hand moving towards the earth…

The moonlight pausing the black and spreading bright rays.

The shining sparkling silver light covering the dark

Makes night a better place to live.

However bad intensions rise.

God is there to set things right.

·         Runjhun Kapoor, aged 12, is a student of Neerja Modi School, Jaipu (Rajasthan), India.

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Published in Re-Markings Vol. 16 No. 2 March 2017

ISSN 0972- 611X

www.re-markings.com

for Hard Copy contact ghoshnk@hotmail.com