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| Dharmpal Mahendra Jain |
The Search Continues
There is a strange silence.
There is plenty of noise—
Vile, violent, meaningless—
Noise that brings silence.
Man to man
Lurks fear—
Fear of words.
Fear that gives birth to silence.
I am in search of a new dialogue.
Around me I see
The chirping birds,
The whispering wind,
The drifting clouds,
The resolute mountains,
The rainbow trickling colors,
The whale in the sea,
The plants swaying on earth,
The flowing river,
The timid animals,
The singing waterfalls—
They all speak that is unheard.
To converse with them,
My search continues.
***
The poet of the war-age
We lived in an age of intellect.
The world was submerged in darkness.
Pain thick and black;
Peace dead, clad in white,
We grieved our time.
Beyond the dim veil of hope,
the smoke from pyres
was heavy with sadness.
Time, divided into zones,
stopped for no one.
Voices lost into the wind.
The mad emperors
could never break free
from the prison of their own tongue.
Cities fled away—
in so-called golden age of ours.
A large piece of the future
floated before us,
yet far beyond our reach.
A lot of memories,
sickened with failures—
the bodies buried in debris
could not decide
whom to avenge and
whom to forgive.
***
I Need A New Time
I am fatigued of this time.
The time that never ends,
That knows no emotion
But a shallow shimmer.
It can’t retrace its steps,
I can’t break it,
Nor leave it,
Nor even hide it.
It can’t move
Along with my thoughts.
It travels in a single measure —
Fixed, indifferent, joyless.
It’s hard to live
with this sluggish time,
While racing beside AI.
I need a new time.
***
During the Snowstorm
Autumn passed.
Time for hail with the storm,
and for ice to pierce the earth.
On this side of the quiet window,
a torrential rain of memories
pours within me.
I recall those
who passed away in the journey,
and those who returned as storms,
striking hard against me.
In this vast sky,
not a single bird is seen.
From the airports,
no planes have taken flight.
Only bare trees stand far and wide,
locked in combat
with the quarrelsome wind.
The horizons turned in rebellion.
I know for sure
the tree will not lose.
Even if broken, it will still stand.
In the end,
it is the wind that must stop.
Whether memories scratch
The healing wounds,
or the storm tears up roots
I will grow stronger within.
***
Bio: Born in a tribal reserve in India, Dharmpal is a Toronto-based author who writes in both Hindi and English. He has published twelve books to date—eight acclaimed collections of satirical essays and four of poetry, including his debut English poetry collection Friday Evening. His English poems have appeared in several national and international literary journals.
Dharmpal is also a proud member of the League of Canadian Poets.
dharmtoronto@gmail.com
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