We are collaborating with Usawa Literary Review to share some powerful poems from their December issue.
Accent by Ko Ko Thett
My skin was born in the Year of the Pig. My accent much
later, and it’d rather be a Capricorn. I seduce women with my
accent. I subdue them with my skin.
You will still hear my skin whinge even after maggots dwell
and die in my accent.
My skin is my landscape, my accent my fresh air. My skin
is too thin for bad weather. My accent, so incredibly thick it
whistles under water.
I am not one of those sentenced to solitary confinement for
life inside their own skins. I can get under your skin once I
step out of my accent.
People judge me by my skin. My skin’s purpose in life is to
prove them wrong. Once I open my mouth my accent proves
them right. I keep my mouth shut, my skin open.
Which is truer, my skin or my accent? When it comes
to swinishness they are on the same page.
In places where I am considered white, my yellow accent
always holds me back. Since whatever comes from my mouth
is an unpasteurized lie, I will always have a yellow accent.
As for my skin—
it will be blues when it fancies the blues;
it will be jazz when it fancies jazz.
How to stop crying by Shobhana Kumar
From a leaf in Paati’s diary, 4.12.1943 Learn to stop them mid-way like pranayama, hold them until they brim but not over. Grow flowers. You will see how fragility can yield tenderness, each petal, the result of a trigger. Pile them like unwanted linen in crevices you don’t want to reach easily. Draw inspiration from women in remote desert villages who learn to make do without water and sand their used vessels. Rub that sand into wounds over and over and over again till wound meets blood meets hurt to that one point when all pain ceases into one shoreless pulse. Note Repeat for best rest results Pick the method most appropriate for different times *Published on the Prajna blog, Four Good Words, 2021
You Haven’t by Siddharth Dasgupta
Soil writes everything down; it uses dirt,
the slaked faithfulness of water mixed with wet earth,
grains, pebbles, and a few forgotten remnants left
behind by the past. It passes these words on to roots,
who take them in via the umbilical truth of child receding womb,
memorising each word through the secular profusion of
twigs, stems, leaves, and wood. A century or so later,
the words, having grown up to become sentences, stanzas, parables,
epics, give themselves to the freedom of evaporation, rising on the
illicit pleasures of the wind and the fluttering emancipation
of gathered clouds, bathing the land in that which was nearly
buried beneath the brusque hand of rule: of how orange tried to flood
our rivers and our homes, once upon a time; of how its crescendo
of odium and frenzy tried to swallow the songbird’s lament,
woven from diversified notes; of how its putrid breath tried to
demolish the pages of history, line by sacred line. A century or so later,
the words, having grown up to become sentences, stanzas, parables,
epics, give themselves to the freedom of evaporation, rising on the
illicit pleasures of the wind and the fluttering emancipation
of gathered clouds, bathing the land in that which was saved
by the wet fortitude of braver tongues: of how mahogany and
mahua came together to form barricades; of how tiger lilies,
lotuses, delilah, and temple magnolia dissolved previous sins
in the riparian tides of rise and roar; of how heirlooms and artefacts
and the insistent pull of photographic memory resuscitated breath
and blood into the streaming canals of previously deceased lungs.
A century or so later, the words will gather as proof of what
soil had once sowed. So if you think you’ve gotten away with it,
you haven’t.
*This poem is part of A Moveable East (Red River, 2021). It first appeared in The Punch.
Out Of Habit by Ghassan Zaqtan
The soldier the patrol forgot in the garden,
the patrol the border guards forgot at the checkpoint,
the checkpoint the occupation forgot at the doorstep,
the occupation the politician forgot in our lives,
the politician who was a soldier of the occupation.
The Merkava the army forgot at the school,
the army the war forgot in the city,
the war the general forgot in the room,
the general whom peace forgot in our sleep,
the peace that was driving the Merkava.
They still open fire at our heads,
without orders,
just like that,
out of habit.
Adda Nights in Bangalore by Lina Krishnan
Friends from a long way
Both distance and years
Much to catch up on
Dosas mingle with laughter
A rainbow elicits wonder
We swop hows, wheres
Dystopia stalks the pauses
Settling down like an unwanted visitor
The chill of a curfewed land, in our minds
How many furrows
Have these few years made
How many more will cleave us
Yet we need these visits
Rare séances with the kindred few.
At least, a shared sorrow, remains our own
The Burden We Are Passing On by Megha Sood
Love arises out of acceptance in a land made of broken bones which rattles and hums a lullaby in the soft light of the moon Dig deep in the dirt with your dirty ankles you can find the souls buried under your sidewalks Standing knee-deep in the river of blood leaving footprint everywhere you go such is the legacy we are leaving behind There is an absence of the melody the wind reeking of the hunger lone tune of the pied piper is ruling the day trying to proselytise the truth We are losing our kids to this damn sea, I say Not a light or sparkle in those ashen eyes robbed of the dreams as the sparrows losing shadows to the evening sun The darkness plays in its bounty and hunger prevails. This town left as a grieving metaphor for the catacombs no longer hold the life in its broken lap Fingers bloodied with the blood of the sacrificed newborns the ones you have masticated the life from the boney shoulder carrying the burden of generations to come. Published in the National Beat Poetry Foundation Anthology, 2020
Shields by Murray Alfredson
You say they hide
themselves behind
civilians as
human shields.
When you shell
a hospital
with phosphorous
that burns the structure
and the skin
around the wounded,
and when you shell
a school where people
flee for refuge
where are the shields,
and where the shielded?
And when you fire
your guided rockets
at the homes
of target persons,
sometimes with luck
you find them home
but surely slay
his wife and children.
Does a man hide
when he’s at home?
No whitewash words
paint thick enough
to hide your evil.
Murder is murder
whatever the wrapping.
About the artist:
Yamuna Matheswaran is a writer and visual artist from India. Her work has been featured on Atlas Obscura, The Hindu, Drawing the Times, and elsewhere. You can view her portfolio on her website and find her on Instagram @eclectic_palette