Queer O Land Poem by Shouvik Narayan Hore

The Northern Latitudes of Arctic hold
An Island far inside the Russian lines,
Where naught are the Polar ice and snow
Nor Winters with afflicting cold and death,
Between two mounds of flakes lain huge and large
Is a chasm- yet unseen or well heard of,
A land full thirty foot below the Earth-
The usual Earth; No trotter of the globe
Has left his footmarks on that alien land,
Since it is not for men to venture there,
Deep, dark and Sunlight ridden is the place,
No light from a Source- but light sure, may be,
Yet dark it obvious seems, and deep compared.

What name it bore ere, or presently had
Knew none; but when a gnat on edges stood,
An animal with little resemblance asked
The ways of the lands- with plains and her vales,
What cognomen bore, or sights they had seen,
Of airs, their kind, of silence and of talks
Of Elfin grots- or of the pleasures white,
What songs compose- what mathematic truth
Would nourish its heart, its company search
And more of the kind... 'Blah! ' laughed the ant,
'How puerile of you to sum Queer 'O' Land! '

'The beasts have eyes at bottom of their toes
Their noses are painted on top of heels,
Their faces are haired like bushes in wild,
Their legs are three, and they churneth like wheels.

The rivers of Queer 'O' Land's dry like sand,
They flood their nation with sandstorms stale,
The deserts instead are brimmed with water
But often to quench Summer thirst they fail.

The birds are content to crawl in the sky,
With winds to locomote around their way,
While other legged beings flew on the ground
And morns were as bright as night during day.

The houses are built with extracts of cakes,
And straw, hay and chaff are healthy to eat,
And thorn studded cactuses used for bed
And heaps of garbages considered neat.
The moon allows them no respite, no warmth,
But humid at daytime, more humid at eve,
The Sun for half an hour appears at night
And often provides more reasons to grieve.

Here silence is defined as deafening noise,
And noise an ocean of quiet-felt vest,
Here cruelty is held as kindest of all
And rises the Clay from realms of the West.

Great Satan is lenient on Gods and like,
his Heaven is home to Sulphurous hell,
The Son of God a wingless angel who
Broods by the corner of Christian wells.

The trees are named Deforestus, Outroot,
The seas are named Atacama and Thar,
The elders are known as Children of young,
It is Spring that all able-bodied char.'

Very well I say, all is very well,
But you have not uttered a word on Death,
What happens to beasts, trees, plantations there,
Let queer any land be, but what of death?
'What death? What is death? In our Queer 'O' Land
There is no death, none is supposed to die,
None is supposed to die! In Queer 'O' Land
None is destined to die...' He sauntered off.