Poetry: Sonali Chanda

Sonali Chanda

1. AIR OF DISMAY!

Right from the ground of Vietnam,

A village fell under terrific bombing, 

Aerial napalm attack covered the village with deep black smoke. 

As if a huge furry demon 

or the giant orangutan rose from his deepest sleep, 

ambience turned his prey,

and he was hungry enough to gasp and sweep! 

Enormously getting terrified,

the children started running down through the highway, 

An air of dismay, 

merged with violent bombing 

they never faced any day! 

Innocent they were, 

trying to flee wherever they could, 

The village, 

full of deadly panic, 

couldn't able to save them, not able to stand against, what they positively should ! 

The devilish waves of smoke gasping slowly, 

Thrown from 

the North Vietnamese planes, mistakenly!

Indeed it was a curse 

to click 

While a little girl ,running out of fear, without 

any piece of sheet! 

The medias, newspapers flashed her bare body,

They even not aware it might hurt the little soul, for sharing her nudity! 

Cursed by the media and newspapers ,

An aftermath shattered the whole Vietnamese village, 

Even after forty years later, 

It was served as a delicious cuisine in a much wider way! 

Sheer pity it was,

even a little child placed 

as a business tool,

Her nudity they exposed, clicking her exposed body 

to ridicule! 

Who thought about the shocking impact?

Who ever worried about their fatal crashes?

The click widely reached 

all around the world, 

Run and served 

worldwide, 

the poor girl's photograph! 

Misfortune we are, hopeless mankind 

  must hide his face!

Is Mankind should be punished, 

 or rather our filthy Patriarchal race? 

*** 

2. TOUCH THE SKY!

Perhaps it was a deadly wish of my mother to conceive a boy, 

Perhaps she expected a boy from whom she'd receive her warmth, her enthusiasm and security, 

 I was not a very desirable to my mother I knew; unlike my elders I didn't ever expect anything from the world: still I'm a proud individual with my own pleasure; in between I expected nothing but received abstract tides of fortune that crushed me unsolicited- I received all like the broken fragments of a delicate light- light enters always within the cracks ,I was told in my childhood. 

I don't know how to draw a line- I fixed my eyes on a point, around which several circles made their orbits; O, Wrong, wrong are they; it's my natural choice to smirk at them in my prayers- I do dive deep where there's a Mediterranean, where waves taught me how to explore. 

I do murmur my hymns in a pretty different way- where I meet my beloved's eyes ,glittering with a smile, calm, and full of inarticulate desire; the best way to meet him in my hymns where I leave the whole whorls of world behind. 

Isn't it sound enduring that under the utter silence I speak in low voice with a tender heart?

 But amidst my night's prayers ,in silence what we say to each other is my only prayer that articulated with our whole; unspoken words speak loud, you know? 

I didn't expect anything from the world full of expectations; I resonated with my mother's mourning and consoled her in my own perseverance- one fine morning she embraced her child to accept what she is- her daughter is now pretty proud not to expect anything from her; still received abundance of love!

Yes I do pray to be what I am- I do speak with my beloved in our prayers and hymns; I walked away miles from the fragments of the delicate light- now a single point is a whole to me; my Eagle's eye is for that precious point! 

***

POLAR STORM!

There are some fragments which crawl through my arms; they get absorbed into my nerves; nerves then start to fondle my every fingertip like a new born baby - each fragment then resounds into a symphony of sorts, a discordant symphony of a distorted image; they then start to paint an abstract version of me. 

Some kind of a hidden barrier tries to push me back into light; a bright light tries to enter the dark hymns I utter; it tries to illuminate my hymns; in the twilight hours after the sunset, I see a silent silhouette; silently it sits still on the edge of my window sill - waves of random abstract lights then swallow the silhouette hungrily, savouring it bit by bit. 

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We all have our abstract images that leave a mark on someone's window sill- where one waits with watchful eyes; I see two pale yet avaricious eyes, flickering in the dark, stalking, almost waiting for their next prey.

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I observe silently the colourless dawn; it rained last night - a shimmering sliver of dawn has slowly melted and dissolved in the rain; it drops in my mid-night coffee cup; a tempest roars when they are stirred up; under starless skies I saw them all bruised and scarred. 

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Desperately trying to conceal, they bare their fangs as they try to smile; their eyes sans all light, they are obscure. 

"You and me, we have witnessed it all, we are privy to it all"... the dark silhouette slowly whispers. 

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Crashing over the bleached corals, I have seen the waves dance! 

The haphazard constellations are nothing but the silhouette of my beloved in an ethereal evening; together we've seen the stars scream at night- hidden from it all, the primal radiance of dark skies enthrals our human wills. 

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I fix my gaze at the half- wrecked mariner; we all have our own voyages- guided by bright eternal beacons, some random light houses; and a strong aroma of love wafts from the simmering coffee cup; at the birth of every morn, a new dawn comes calling my name.

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A silent storm on a thousand hills is loud- louder than the squally wind; silently I rise and float over and above that fiery storm; alone in a faraway land - where the winds await the sounds of the soft celestial hymns.

***

Bio: Born in Suburban Kolkata, Sonali completed her Post Graduation from Burdwan University in English Literature and Language, with her Special Paper on Figure Of Speech. 

She pursued her Degree Course in Wild and Landscape Photography from Delhi School of Photography Institute. She's a Published Author and Poet.

Her Debut Travelogue LADAKH is broadly accepted hugely, her Novella " Love's Faint Echoes " published by AUTHORSPRESS Delhi is  well read and applauded by the readers, and her third book is a collection  of poems, that's a published recently in Amazon, named as "The Echoes of the Swooshing Winds": A collection of poems and pictures.

Recently She was honoured by NISSIM INTERNATIONAL AWARD 2022 for her excellence in Writing for Her Well renowned Travelogue LADAKH: Enroute TIBETAN TABOOS in Press Club Of India, Delhi

 

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Setu, June 2022