Vandana Kumar (Towards Visibility)

Vandana Kumar
MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY

 

 It’s mother language day

 A day so far away

From where I currently reside

 

My little one sucks my lactating breasts

I doubt if he has ever found

My mother tongue resting there 

Neither has my husband discovered it

On the taste of my lips

 

I visit the grave of my ancestors

Hoping to find a language

They left behind

In some waylaid leaves

 

Only specters signal me

In Morse code

 

The desire to dig digger

Comes now and then

In phases

 

Meanwhile I faithfully hold

Annual remembrances for all of them

In English

 

 

WELL-FED CHILDREN

 

We first fed our children the classic lie

That they came from the lands of angels

And fairies

That they were made in some cirrus clouds

Sprinkled with stardust

 

We hid it all

Creation

Procreation

Sex between the sheets

Sex served with a dry martini

Sex in the bloating cities

Sex in the starving villages

 

We hid it all

Leaving them to find the holes in our theories

As they struggled to find themselves

In their own abysses

Left bewildered

For all of the love making

A world in constant war

Adults, who couldn’t be trusted at all

 

Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, Indie Film Producer, cinephile and poet in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites of repute like Mad Swirl, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Piker Press, Dissident Voice, Borderless journal, Madras Courier, Outlook, etc. She has featured in literary journals like Fine Lines and anthologies like Harbinger Asylum, Kali Project, But You Don't Look Sick, etc. Her cinema articles appear regularly in Just-cinema and Daily Eye. She was among 40 participating poets in the ‘The Indija Pro Poet 2023’ festival held in June23 in Serbia. Her poem was translated into Serbian in the Pro Poet anthology published there. Her debut collection of poems Mannequin Of Our Times was published in February 2023.The book has been awarded ‘The Panorama International Book Award 2023.’


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