Jharna Sanyal (Voices Within 2023)

Jharna Sanyal, was Professor of English, Calcutta University. She is a painter and a creative writer who writes in both Bangla and English. Besides her contribution to various journals and magazines, she has a collection of poems, The Nomadic Trail, (2019) and a collection of translations, The Magic Web and Other Stories : Ashapurna Devi on the Widow and her World (Orient Longman 2012). Her current passion is to experiment with mixed language and minimalist poetry. Her haiku are published in international blogs and journals.

 

War Shots

 

I

 

Red Alert

 

red zone

sanctum sanctorum

of a yellow hibiscus

colour blasts darken

my sky with random spills

no water for a baby's feed

 

ii

 

How to Kill a Butterfly

 

on my palm

small unfurling wings

silent fingers close in

to kill a butterfly you first

re-discover it as your enemy

the rest instantly takes over

 

 

iii

 

Dark Harvest

 

a fluttering pigeon

tries to make sense of

of a shell-mowed harvest

a home now a blasted house

children look for broken toys

and gunpowder smells funny

 

 

iv

 

Children’s Ward

 

shell-shocked tree

fairy tale monsters swagger

in the field of wild flowers

a child folds unfolds refolds

a paper bird on her plastered leg

mothers' eyes kohl-line with fear

 

v

 

Endgame

 

winners and losers

black and white squares

chess boards playing chess

a murder of crows rustles up caws

to stifle voices that sing clouds trees blue eggs in birds' nests

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Setu, November 2023 :: Voices Within 2023