Poetry, Ashvamegh Issue VIII, September 2015

Welcome to the poems section of Ashvamegh Issue VIII (September 2015). On this page, you can read the poems from selected poets for that issue. We hope you will enjoy reading them!

Read Poems by Paul Sohar

EARTH AND DIRT

The dirt was never dirty when

I was still a growing child,

before I found myself in this

grey, asphalted world, exiled.

 

The first day with school out

I went outside barefoot to play,

one thin shirt and simple shorts

were enough for a summer day.

 

All summer I went without shoes,

because it was only right

to save them whole for later,

against the coming winter’s bite.

 

The dirt outside welcomed my toes

with a ticklish, warm embrace

whether it was dry and dusty

or pure mud yielding to my pace.

 

Walking on dirt road was not

walking in infectious dirt

but on sacred soil from which

all life such as mine would spurt.

*          *          *

WATER MY SOUL

I always wanted to live near water,

because my dusty old home town

lacked even a creek and it was only

boredom in which we could drown.

 

Lake Velence was a swamp

with some open water for a dip,

but it was fifteen kilometers away,

much too far for hoofing it.

 

When I got hold of a bike though,

it was no distance at all;

getting there was half the fun,

the wind was making it a ball.

 

Speeding along I was dancing

in the arms of summer air

and didn’t really care if I

would actually make it there.

 

Sunny air, summer air, why did

you ever abandon me?

Where’s the ball now? I have none

to dance with but a memory.

*      *          *

GARDEN PARTY LOST

Apples are in low supply,

so is Eden’s once-blue sky;

nettles steadily invade

the garden in a wild parade.

 

The plan was spirited, not rash:

we sprinkled compost spiced with ash,

that was how here we designed

the grandest garden you can find;

 

neither a plain vegetable plot

with tomatoes and the lot,

nor a fancy halcyon

where nymphs and satyrs carry on

 

like in color prints and oils,

pictures where life never spoils;

all we wanted to restore

the real Eden just once more.

 

The very real thing of old

where wise old oaks and beeches hold

a sky whose winds are always clean,

where death never dims the scene.

 

But once we’d built our halcyon

we just played and carried on

till empty flasks graced every tree

and black wings draped our comedy.

 

It’s time again to get to work,

dig up and fertilize the dirt,

it’s time today to weed and sow,

again to make our garden grow.

 

*          *          *

 

 

Paul SoharPaul Sohar ended his higher education with a BA in philosophy and took a day job in a research lab while writing in every genre, publishing seven volumes of translations. His own poetry: “Homing Poems” (Iniquity, 2006) and “The Wayward Orchard”, a Wordrunner Prize winner (2011). Other awards: first prize in the 2012 Lincoln Poets Society contest; second prize for a story from RI Writers’ Circle (2014). Latest translation volumes: “Silver Pirouettes” (TheWriteDeal 2012) and “In Contemporary Tense” (Iniquity Press, 2013). Prose work: “True Tales of a Fictitious Spy” (Synergebooks, 2006) and a collection of one-act plays from One Act Depot (Saskatoon, Canada, 2015).  Magazine credits: Agni, Gargoyle, Osiris, Pedestal, Rattle, etc. Anthologies: Consequences, Metverse (India), etc.

Read Poems by Uma R. D

 

When I……………!

When I light the lamp in front of God

It seems I am falling in love with you.

When I write poems it feels as if you are looking at me.

When I read it is you whom I see in every words of the book.

 

Do you know that I am waiting for you since a long time.

I have to love you even after this life.

I don’t have that much love as you deserve.

 

One whole life is small to love you.

So I will come again and again in this earth to love you

Listen, my eyes will search you in my every birth.

 

 

Mysterious eyes

There was no light too

Some word were alone

Mysterious eyes were looking

There was no light too.

Only a small hole was visible

When snooping out side from hole

It was caught by the mysterious eyes.

It was first feeling of love

There rose many suns together

It was you, who made music for life.

Now there are light and love too

It is a journey from darkness to light

Which is completed by holding your hand

Word are expressing love

Now there is God too.

 

 

Uma is a PhD research scholar (Mass Communication). She is a Talker in All India Radio (specialist in North East culture). She has published research articles in English and Hindi research journals and lives in New Delhi.

Read Poems by Aashika Suresh

I can discern

Salty;

sweet;

sour;

bitter;

unami.

But tell me, Love, what does revenge taste like?

 

Take me Home

When all my world is shadowed

by the habitual humdrum of merely being,

a wreathe of wretched desolation

threatening to drop over my head,

Darling,

take me home.

Take me home, where a piece of chalk

was all it took to turn

my frown to a

smile;

when every slip-up was met

with Mother’s uncritical embrace

and a cosmic heaping of comfort

food.

Take me home, where the daily

soaps

would be my only dose of drama;

broke was a word reserved

for the t.v. remote, not my

heart.

Take me home, to the perpetual summer

sun

and ice-lolly stained lips;

where the ephemeral ocean waves

would wash my sins

clean.

Take me home, Darling,

so I can live. Once more. Yet again.

 

 

Aashika SureshAashika Suresh is a 21-year-old aspiring poet from Chennai, India, with a zealous passion for poetry. Maya Angelou and Emily Dickson are among her favourite poets. She began writing poetry at the age of five, and ever since, has haboured the dream to be a published poet some day.

Read Poems by Charles F Thielman

Light through Stone

 Window-fed sun-bars reach across

her wood floor to the dracaena,

coleus and corner easel,

 

yellowing wall, the fresh canvas

she stands back from, sketched

cliff edge trees gust-raked east.

 

She blinks away need, one hour

into her work, what horizon there is

is a colorful mirage, brush-tip poised

 

to paint dragonflies on lakes of wind.

Brush hand cupping the breath of storm

as her true eyes open without faith in the ruins,

 

silence flying out of the shells of voices,

postures emptied by riptide undertows.

Brush-tip anointing shoreline agates

 

with glimmers as a marrow-born stroke

arrows through pulse onto canvas.

See the fog mare

 

canter out on the waves

as a yellow sailboat runs south,

flying jib filled by a nor’wester’s approach.

 

 

Paper Canvas

 Dune grass ticking on a blue-jeaned leg,

he’s left the pace mined from unloading

 

boxcars to the tide-line’s broken shells,

stepped inside a whispering current

 

while so many machete through green,

greasing our slide into a dark cabaret.

 

Assigned scripts pinned between ribs

as dust circles the veins of our eyes.

 

He gnaws through brick laid by

grandfathers and father, various

 

dialects like beads drying his tongue.

He’s ready to river gems past the monotone

 

inhaled, past the monotone mined

from the cubicles built by white-eyes.

 

Toxins dissolving the pearls dispensed,

he senses a wave building, carrying

 

hot debris and bred angers,

statues and columns melting

 

inside black rains as chaos gains volume.

Fingering the agates in a pocket, he

 

wonders if he could sense their

gathered light, then translate

 

it into colors brushed onto the canvas

filling via spine-fed brushstrokes, easel

 

just visible through that cabin window,

journal on the table pulsing rivulets

 

of dawn thoughts. Self-portrait growing,

his face reflected on glass as the incoming tide

 

feeds the shoreline background. Clouds,

yes, on the horizon as he speaks

 

the Spanish word for storm, borrasca

for rain, lluvia. 

                         Borrasca  y  Lluvia

 

                                 Amor, Amor

 

 

Charles F ThielmanBorn and raised in Charleston, S.C., moved to Chicago, educated at red-bricked universities and on city streets, I have enjoyed working as a social worker, truck driver, city bus driver and enthused bookstore clerk.

Married on a Kauai beach in 2011, a loving Grandfather for five free spirits, my work as Poet and shareholder in an independent Bookstore’s collective continues!

And not a few of my other poems have been accepted by literary journals, such as The Pedestal, Gargoyle, Poetry365, The Criterion [India], Poetry Salzburg [Austria], Gangway, Windfall [Oregon], Muse [India], Battered Suitcase, Poetry Kanto [Japan], Open Road, Poetry Kit and Pastiche [England], Belle Reve, Tiger’s Eye and Rusty Nail.

Read Poems by Indunil Madhushanka

War is Like an Empty Shell  

In those days we were naughty, annoying buds

Bobbing, popping little rebels

Held aloof to our parents

On one joyous evening our father brought us

a very palatable pack of sweetmeats

Cream laden, finger licking chocolate pebbles

A very unreasonable, stubborn trimmer

was my small brother then

He stared at me and groaned

like a barking, demented dog

“You, greedy belly, often gobbling up more than me”

Yet, to tell you the truth,

I didn’t do so

I was the perfect archetype of justice

while he was that of the opposite

He tanned and tanned on me

I was not at all stoical

So, I thrashed and thrashed against his back,

rigorously with tightly clenched fists

When it came to the end of the struggle,

our chocolate balls were all scattered everywhere

on the compound

We both lamented and howled like two foxes

Then our mother came to us and claimed with

ironic glee while clapping her hands,

“My fine boys, what have you done with

all your chocolates?

Turned this into a battlefield to grab the largest share,

come here my little foolish chaps,

keep this well in your mind,

what you did is quite useless,

this war is like an empty shell.”

 

The Politician

The politician known to everybody

A person worth talking about

He has two roles

with clearly different characteristics

before and after the election

 

An enthusiastic admirer of humanity

setting examples wherever he goes

He talks highly of social services

and is as active as an ant

Even to the poorest pauper

he treats with a pleasing smile

Richly poetic and catching slogans

announced in propaganda

and brightly coloured cards,

make a mountain of pledges,

too much to amass in memory

Water, electricity, infrastructure and buildings

All go onto follow the long line

 

Yet the person switches the role to the latter,

once he wins the election

thus giving rise to a contradiction

His radiant smile is no more

Now his eyes are struck at the sky

and the walk is a swagger

No longer is he the vigorous social worker

The foundation stones he laid

have grown grass clad

Neutralization of his affinity with people occurs

Appointments should be made to meet the politician

He rebuffs to assist his voters

saying a thousand things

 

All his proclamations result in reversals

coming to action

and he exploits the procurements of the poor

 

Referring to his education

He has barely passed the O/L s

Now fully occupied in learning English lessons

repeating,

as he is very weak

Impertinence juts out from the politician

in every instance

 

The values taught in the

Subhāshitha,

all seem forgotten

Perhaps he is unaware even of

the presence of such a classic

 

Oh, what a bloody mistake I have committed,

Lest,

I am already guilty of being too much garrulous

Better to put a full stop now

 

Otherwise,

My cadaver, tomorrow,

may be found,

hurled in amidst wild tussocks

or floating in a lake

 

Glossary

Subhāshitha    An anthology of didactic poetry in Sinhala written by the celebrated Sri Lankan poet, Alagiyawanna Mukaweti

 

 

Indunil MadhushankaB. H. I. Madhusankha (literary name Indunil Madhusankha) is a budding young poet from Sri Lanka. He is currently an undergraduate in the Faculty of Science of the University of Colombo and he takes a great interest in the subjects of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. In addition to Indunil’s involvement in the field of Physical Sciences, he also pursues a notable literary career. He achieved three gold medals and a silver medal from four All Island English Essay Competitions. He aspires to be a notable poet in the near future.