A Poem Out of Death
How do you make a poem out
Of death?
How do you think of the words
To bring together,
When your mind hears none?
How do you remember enough
Of your grief
To carry it home
In your poetry?
How do you make yourself
Be, just a flesh left behind,
A flesh writhing to float
Down the Ganges —
Limp, and hanging,
Head too heavy to lift,
A vague, hazy darkness
Within a country of mist,
Having collapsed in a mess
On a slaty floor —
A sleepy spectator at a play
Of their own tragedy —
How does one recall death
And can get even a phrase out,
Without their wrist falling back
On the table,
Wearing weary hundred years,
The forefinger failing even to
Straighten itself.
How do you not simply,
Close your book,
darken your screen,
And turn your back with
The weight of day and night
On your shoulders,
Crumpling on your wrinkled sheet
And closing your eyes
To the chant of death.
***
Helpless Shoulder
I cannot even sit with her
On her single bed
And be silent with her silence
Over her last few hours with
Her mother.
I cannot even
Take my wheels
On the same roads
I've lost myself countless times
In trying to find her home
For a day of seeing who
Was deeper in the mud
While she would make that face
And we would fall back
The five of us
Slipping over our laughter,
Over and over and over.
And today she told me that
She's getting ready for the funeral
Like she would say that she's
Sprinkling tea leaves in
The warming water,
Only,
Her voice is too tender,
Too placid, too soft —
A feather drenched in quiet collapse,
An untouched bruise.
And today I fail
To close my arms around her,
And let her silence fall
On my helpless shoulder —
Today, I fail
To let her lose herself for a moment
And tell her that it's okay to,
That today,
I'll be there to show her the way
When it's time.
***
Author's Bio: Ekta Dogra is currently on the edge of graduating BA in English Literature Honours from Karim City College, Jharkhand, India. She's an experienced freelance content writer, proof- reader and editor. She loves to steal time from her daily life to devote to fantastical lands and realistic emotions of the fictional world. Framing her feelings in verses and prose is the only way she can express them clearly. She hopes to hold people's hands through her creations.
Your poems are very well constructed and have a unique beat! Would love to read more from you!
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