Sanket Mhatre (Voices Within)

Sanket Mhatre is a poet, columnist, curator and Marathi lyricist. He was the chief assistant director of Kavyotsav 2001: the first bilingual poetry reading festival of Marathi and Kannada poets. His title song for the daily soap 'Radha Hi Bawari' was awarded the best song at Zee Alpha Gaurav. Crossover Poems is his brainchild that unifies poets from multiple languages embracing sensibilities unique to every language. Sanket Mhatre has performed at multiple festivals such as GALF, Vagdevi LitFest in Orissa and Kala Ghoda Literature Festival to name a few.

Where You Belong

If I ever knew you belonged 

to the corners

I would hide the screens of my eyes 

and just keep the corners empty

Squeezing out the last of my tenant tears

If I knew you belonged to the corners

I would keep my crevices intact 

and let my body peel away into the weather

Intersect lines on my forehead to create extra room for a rain-soaked day

If I knew you belonged to the corners

I would light up the space between my toes

Place a lamp on the seating within my navel

Decorate the concaves of my armpits 

with the scent of your lips

If I knew you belonged to the corners

I would build a house full of corners

Erasing rooms and erecting walls

That never square up

Leaving a green angle where you'd reside

If I ever knew you belonged to the corners

I would create tiny hamlets on the fringes of this country that nobody 

would ever pass by

Unname a few towns

Build roads, each taking you to a new corner

If I knew you belonged to the corners

I would inhabit the last planet in the galaxy

And make edifices that shy away 

even from the moons

If I knew you belonged to the corners

I would merge all the corners in the skies

For all your births and deaths to culminate 

So,

Let me redraft the symmetries 

of this space

While you stay in the folds 

of my dreams

In the meanwhile, 

let the skin of my existence 

Be a makeshift corner 

where you belong

Truth Could Be A Poem

Truth could be a poem you never wanted to read

Lines that could punch a hole in your stomach

While you sit by the poolside taking in the blow

Truth could be a chat window romance passed off as poetry

Potent enough to asphyxiate you with the brutality of their romance

Truth could be a blatant realization that your words were repeated

Once before

by a different lover in a different city in a different room

Truth could be a love poem

Like a bullet shot through an existing wound

Or an iron rod inserted through your rectum

With no recourse

Truth is knowing that truth has so many possibilities

And one of them is you.

The Impermanence Of It All

We are a perfect imbalance.

Thin line of absolute abandonment

Twists the gut inside

Ends up dripping out a poem,

One drop of blood at a time.

Maybe, you have it all figured out

Maybe, this is for me to write

After emerging from the pits of uncertain hollows

Not with the joyful completion of a poet

But with the suffering of a half-accomplished writer who can lose anything, anytime

(Let me tell you, I have dealt with this before and I know that)

Your impermanence is designed around my words

You do it with the seasoned hand of a mechanic in a car shop

You can open the flap of my chest anytime, check the wires that caused me to stop

You can rev me and put me to a standstill any minute.

Some days, you are an eternal beacon

On the rest, you have flung me far and deep with absolute certainty of never finding

The tense of your feelings, changed.

And this might as well lead us to the end.

This childish shape shifting that you think neurotic joy is more painful

Painful to cut the chord, disengage the wires, replace the ignition

But you are a child, never told what bending of the heart can do

You were given a free hand to deal with flesh & blood

You understood early: Pain causes poetry.

And you designed an entire curriculum around it.

But you don’t know one simple thing yet –

Cars do come with self-start function now. 

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Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020