Women Poetry: Ms. Sreetanwi Chakraborty, India

Exclusive: Women Poetry: Edited by Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy

Sreetanwi Chakraborty

OF THE SAND AND SURF DAYS: TO THE WINGED WOMAN

Where the sunflowery days meet the Chandrabhaga sand,

Ebb, tide, lilts and rhyme across the tropical days

Rains of love, glittering in Medusa’s silvery band,

Where the sandpiper relishes the moon’s luminous gaze

And in the serrated whirlpool of the nights long lost

The lady forlorn cries the salty, tumultuous name,

O the cashew-caressed manes of her man,

Blazing across Ratnagiri’s late-evening flame

The conch blows here, the sound shivering through kendu leaves,

Whitens the day as the forefather blesses the Magha,

Sifting through the paddy she heaves

As the Mahanadi sings its blissful raga

O the lady’s love unfurls, the shikhara stands tall.

The poetic prisms glimmer, beheaded Medusa says it all.

* Shikhara- a spire on a Hindu temple

Chandrabhaga- name of an Indian river

Raga- a melodic composition

Magha- the eleventh month in a Hindu calendar

Kendu-the leaves of Coromandel ebony plant

***

THE LAVENDER-MOON AND MEDUSA ON THE DECK

It was a simple lilting night with the lavender-moon lingering for Medusa’s attention,

As the rover 

Rowed

Mowed

Bowed

Sowed

Flowed

Into the iconic desires of the decked beauty...

The beauty on the deck it was-

The lilting night grew more fervent 

As the dazzling lavender-moon 

Moaned

Groaned 

Toned 

Zoned into the gyrating motions of the rover’s eyes

With the dusky night carousing between the decked beauty’s creamy thighs, 

The decked Medusa fell asleep...forever...as the dream and the river collapsed under the netted, tongue-tied love.

***

Sreetanwi Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor in Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University Kolkata and a bilingual writer. Her non-fiction The Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up: A Feminist Interpretation of Fairy Tales received the Rising Star Award at New Town Book Fair, Kolkata. She is the editor of a bilingual biannual journal Litinfinite, with more than 13 indexing of international repute. Her works have been published in national and international magazines and newspapers of repute. She has been the recipient of the Charuchandra Ghosh Memorial Award for securing the highest marks from Calcutta University. She is a trained singer in Classical and Rabindrasangeet. 

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