Dr Rajwanti Mann, INDIA

LET’S MOVE                             

Let’s move

Come with me

How long will you continue to be a mute spectator? 

Will stare the bare jungles;

The thoughtless void;

Haul up this sloth?

Let’s go to the rompy river

Booming /jumping /purling

Flattening the roughed terrains

Even a bubble riding upon it

To save its existence

Runs towards sea

In quest for destination!

Let’s go

To collide with the order

That distributes penury

With illusory seductions

That crushes humane hearts

Draws up dividing lines

Let’s move to save the petrichor of earth,

Conserve each drop of blood,

Give a sweet lap,

Discover our latent cascade

To know our might

Then, I will remain with you, forever

O my confidante, my heart!

ASSURE ME

It is difficult for red eyes

To recite green poems

Eulogizing   morbid manuscripts

Is like singing megh malhaara(rain songs)

In the desert of Kaala handi

Quietly keep on watching

The tightening mathematical nooks around fields

Scattering lives of adolescents on black roads

Sacrificing best generations to undeclared wars

And screams of toddlers!

Behind the curtains

The queering silence of best minds,

Floating boats on loose sands,

Speeches drawing lines on waters,

Falling unconscious of trepid pigeons

 Smelling of devastation of inhabitations!

Which is this tide?

That cannot count or hear the groans!

I want to forget bitterness of my tongue

Also, the burning tears

You please assure me

That if I put a blanket upon you, times

The chirping cuckoos will be born tomorrow

The fields, the apricots will flourish

My children – grandchildren will not blame me

Why could the tattered shroud not become a barricade?

Why were the artists mum?

On forfeited concerns

Why tongues were tight lipped  

That ought to be restless!

You please assure me!

THE WOMB

Let me go down

And down in the deep well

Let me sink in abyss of silence

In that marsh

The clamours, the cries, the screams

Don’t deafen my ears

Niggling and vituperations; trashy abuses

All vocalic brunt;

Ruthlessness;

Stone pelting;

Get submerged in mud mortar

Sitting in that deep trough

The black scars of one’s heart and mind

Appear more clearly

There

Weaving esthetical dreams

Playing in the lap of horizons

Is exceedingly felicitous

Let me go down!

In my own womb!!

Dr Rajwanti Mann, a well-known poet, writer and, researcher, is a recipient of the Haryana Sahitya Akademi’s Shreshth Kriti Puruskaar-2017; Haryana Urdu Sahitya Academy Award-2012 and the Mahila Achiever Samman of Haryana Government. She has authored ten books and more than thirty papers. She writes in Hindi, Urdu & English. Her poems regularly appear in all leading magazines. A Post Graduate in History & Urdu with a PhD from the Panjab University, Chandigarh, she has worked in Haryana State Archives as Deputy Director. She has recently been nominated as the Member of Standing Committee of Indian Historical Record Committee by Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

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Women, Power & Creativity :: Setu, March 2019