My Country - My People: Modern Indian Epic - 6 Poem by Seshendra Sharma

CANTO V

O melody, hear me..

by what good luck I do not know,

a moment of vision came to me like a comet in the sky,

vision of cruel facts of life.

Now, don't cheat me by your charms and

infatuations. Don't make me forget my pains.

If I were to forget, all those that have to

be exploded with these very hands, they will

remain sage and secure, with a longer lease of life.

O flowers and voices, let me snatch my weapons.

Let me wake up those minds which are

sleeping snugly in that unbearable stink.

Let them be turned into violent winds.

Let me teach them the art of hatred. Let

me preach them how sacred is hatred. Let me

bestow on them with all the power of my blood,

the sacred gift of awakenment to hate.

Whether left in the air, or bound on paper,

let these words plant volcanoes in them,

let my volcanoes burst, don't stop this sacred explosion.

* * * *

The green parrots which I try to catch here

with silken threads of thoughts, escape, into

families of trees wounded by the hands of

merciless storms.

Life here, aborts, discharges dreams, with

undeveloped limbs and ugly shapes; these, some

vulture carries by the beak to the hill-tops, eats

and vomits them, upon the people, calling them

poems-

The child within the womb, better remain

in the womb in this land of ours; if it comes out

and complains of hunger, he will be shown

the foot paths and not the fields where the food grows-

Here even the sun falls out of the womb of every night,

a shapeless lump of flesh.

My days limp like colonies o lepers, my

dreams of future hiss and strike their fangs

into the flesh of my present nights.

Days of my country are boats that dash

against rocks and break, nights are worries that touch

the heart and burst into flames

Oh! Today I am ferocious dragon, made

with the hands of the repulsive puss oozing from

the body of my land.

* * *

The red fox, in the trees of my mind, keeps

on stirring, in and out of the thickets making

constant reconnoiters at something. eyes burning

like coals in the darkness for its unseen goal. it

punctuates my thoughts, interjects commas, colons,

interpolates hyphens, never introduces a full stop.

It brings more ideas from the sideways and

savannahs and swells up the procession of my

thoughts, arms them up with passionate emotions

and waits to see the procession burst out into plains

like an unshackled sea, wild and uproarious. the red fox

which feeds my mind withy flames, moves

like a fluttering red rag, with sinewy legs against

the storms that blow over as enemies of countries,

continents and nations.

Who created this red fox? Is it the two coals

that flickered in the thickets of a head, a

beard and whiskers? but

I am sure it is not Doulton of England!

* * * *

Some bird from somewhere comes on

wings, drops a song in my ears and flies away.

A line which conveys a real experience,

comes to you like a bird with life and a song....

Yes a life and song!