Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
The prisoners always knew
they would be bereft
of their prayers to the elapsed gods.
Soon, they were sick
of riding on the moors of the past, conversing with
centuries that passed
from prison to prison, splintering stone
lips, the way a wave enters yet another wave by way of eternity. Our silences echo thus
as if each direction deigned to reply –
You are yet to master the secret of hiding from me. In red
prisons of your chest, my voice
trembles yet. I see in you the familiar contents of the looking glass –
The sorrow of my smile yet to ache in your cells
You pride yourself in the laughter
of my ghosts, I weave the days away, study footprints of night
greyhounds racing on the still grey sky
You lie, content in the delusion
that in prison the future shrivels to a place. The jaded moon
over the withered apricot tree
sole burden of your memory of wheat ripened by bulbul song.
I write down the names of the guards
who stand at your shoulder waiting to erase
every verse you write waiting for the dawn of Dal.
Other things will happen yet again,
We will be deceived
by the glass mountains yet again
and cotton clouds will rise
red over our ripe apples.