Sanket Mhatre: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Sanket Mhatre is a well-known bilingual poet writing in English & Marathi. He has curated Crossover Poems – a multilingual poetry recitation sessions that unifies poets from different languages on a single platform. Apart from this, Sanket Mhatre has been invited to read at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Poets Translating Poets, Goa Arts & Literature Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival, Vagdevi Litfest and Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan. Besides curation & recitation, Sanket Mhatre has also created Kavita Caf├й – a Youtube Channel that combines cinematic vision with visual poetry. He’s also a columnist who contributes regularly to leading news daily in India.

 

HIGHRISE

 

The upper lip is a penthouse deck 

Illuminated by the first sunrise over the city

Promenade pleats that lead to wine trails

The footprints of my wanting kisses strewn

Sky high

and yet filled with the first scent

Of the cave paintings in Bhimbhetka

But 

The lower lip is etched in the earth of time

Blossoming like an orchard of green apples

A sky upturned

Created to defy gravity

Even before it was discovered

 

THE ROCK

 

Once a blind child

Playing along a river bank with his friends found a strange rock

Like a story amongst a thousand stories on a cloudless day.

The rock had something carved on it

His hands saw what most eyes couldn’t

It was a name. Someone’s.

Intrigued, his hands began deciphering the shimmering, wet alphabets

Nature’s font isn’t meant for those who can see but for those who can feel

“Allah!” The child’s echo rose like smoke.

Do you know the rock it was carved on?

You.

Completing the destiny of your name.

 

HISTORY

 

There's a reason why history chooses 

to repeat itself 

We believe in erasure

History believes in posterity 

To that end, our struggles 

with our past brave on. 

Maybe, history wants us 

to remember more and forget less

Rethink alphas while we are moving 

breakneck into omegas

Hear the language that arises 

from belly and beaks 

Unlearn grammar of a self-made world

History patiently waits for us

In the corner of a room, in the dark

for a century before it strikes.

History isn't desperate.

Just clinical and disciplined. 

It has learnt its lesson from nature. 


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