Ashvamegh: December 2015: Issue XI: Poems
We have brought for you the best poems to read from around the world. Ashvamegh is a platform for international authors, and while selecting the pieces for publication in an issue, we reflect it. For December 2015, we have elected Candice James, the poet laureate of New Westminster, as the featured poet. Moreover, we have brought Pulkita Anand, Mansi Maru and Hussain Abdulhay this month. Enjoy reading the selected pieces at Ashvamegh!
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The Featured Poet:
Read the poems of Candice James here.
Poem by Pulkita Anand
jabber
From the expressed to the unexpressed
expressed the undesired
desired the undesired
unexpressed the desired
wander lonely forever the forlorn
from one wilderness to another
from hope to hopeless
from hopeless to hope
what is unexpressed need to be expressed?
Let the expressed be unexpressed and unexpressed be expressed.
jab
what is happiness?
is it killing?
is it raping?
is it mocking?
is it bulling?
is it cheating?
is it pollution?
is it treading?
is it threatening?
is it non-cooperation?
is it disrespect?
is it feebleness?
if at all it be these
i am a happy to be unhappy.
Introduction to the Poet:
Pulkita Anand, a meritorious student of Vikram University (M.P) is currently working as an Assistant Professor of English at Banasthali Vidayapith in Rajasthan. Her areas of research are Indian poetry in English and British Drama. She is pursuing her Ph.D. on Arun Kolatkar from Vikram University. She is a poet and short story writer. She has participated in many national seminars and has written papers which have been published in national journals. She is also a member of the editorial / advisory board of the journal New Academia.
Poems by Mansi Maru:
Loss and Cries
The ball was in the air, and through the post,
Hands shot up in air, cheered, bellowed!
Stade de France fell silent on a louder screech! A win?
No! We lost, again! And we all cried, again!
Hommes and femmes in the heart of the city,
Dining with the loved ones, swirling to the notes,
Cracking sounds in Rue Alibert! Was it wine?
No! We lost, again! And we all cried, again!
Eagles of Death played and the 1500 swayed;
Fierce metallic energy filled The Bataclan Hall!
There they lay, the unfortunate 89! Did the Eagles feast on them?
No! We lost, again! And we all cried, again!
Will our lost games turn into victory?
Will our cries of loss turn into cries of joy?
I hope it does, we hope it does,
As they are ready to defeat us again!
And to make us cry again, may be louder!
The Swirl
I ogled at the white piece,
Unknowing of what it could be!
With no idea of my caprice,
She licked incognizant of me!
The rumbling sound in the pit,
And the mouth was a flow of water,
Made the sight that my eyes quit,
With a wish to be that daughter!
Startled was I with the scream,
Get up! It’s time! Said my pompous mom!
Consoling myself, was just a dream;
And that I am still a Strom.
Though it was plainly a dream,
Didn’t fail to abide in my head!
Spent the day in thought of that cream,
Had it been me… All the time in dread!
It was dusk when I had a glimpse,
Of my dreamy self in that girl!
Walked up to her, leaving a wimp,
And cut the half of my swirl!
Introduction to the poet:
Mansi Maru is from Bhavnagar, Gujarat. She has a bachelor degree in technology (I.T), but has chosen to write as a profession. She has always been enthusiastic for literature and finds peace in expressing her views through the quill, or rather keys now. Currently, she is working as a full-time Content Writer and grabs any freelancing opportunity that comes up. However, her heart forces her to follow the creative trail in writing which she displays at her blog: www.twinquill.wordpress.com Mansi loves to try her hand on haikus, tankas, philosophy, poems, psychology, and short stories.
Poems by Dibyendu Ghosal:
Image Of The Individual
Like a chit of a girl being
Alienated, to the extent of feeling
De-nuded,
Stress is being lost every second
In the welter of shambolic values
And objectives so misdirected.
Vibrancy is sold regularly
At a discount.
Altruism! really;
Explanation masquerading on Street Arabs
As theocraticism, a
Salivating breed and spread.
Image of the individualty, oh yeah!
Nothing’s at stake
True tenets are being technologised
Under
The wrath of Earnestness.
It’s after all, ‘the march of the March’.
Ascence. spirit
Of conjoint
Snapping and flapping
Its wings to
What a trait!
Incision and cessation of that clay
Violin and barging, in faded confetti gruff.
Piteous sultry blinking at the midnight
Sun, like those unsold tombs.
THE CONTORTIONIST
Finding the scapegoats —- those
Yellow blossoms
Measure my evil against.
To dissect all my vicissitudes.
To negress.
Death takes away vanity.
White flame —- not clear, of course.
Frozen into ‘placidity’.
Thought’s a luxury in a newbie intellect,
Depositing ‘bad conscience’.
Being jealous of the dead.
Sweet dark tranquility settled upon
My soul.
Upon its dark uneasiness.
Solicitous one
Eyeducts dry
Bedaggled from illicit Forays
Hammering my pain into myself;
Intellectual stands for an individual.
No ‘credit balance’ this time
For redemption.
Internal treachery.
Queer calvinistic protectionism,
Forcing me the ‘other way think’.
That cup of tea on an abbot’s platform
Desire to choke and rend and crush.
Leeching my strength
Leer smile
Trying to pull my inner self——
From muck.
The fishers’ fragile cranes hovering over.
Mistress of my shuffle —
Those white trousers, mauvre patters slit up
The thigh….. I really feel.
Death is absolute.
Only absolute.
Canal full of bodies, of carcasses
Irish stew — too much meat.
How quick, simple and anonymous its impersonation
When i die and my body lay in a doorway.
After all, nobody is ever betrayed by enemy,
But friend.
Like Silence of the Invisible
Introduction to the Poet:
Dibyendu Ghosal is a poet and author from Kolkata, India. He is the author of NIGHT OF TEN … A DETECTIVE MYSTERY THRILLER and an upcoming book THE MITTERS OF KOLKATA. He is a degree holder in Computer Science and Engineering. He loves to write what his instinct says away from the trends of popularity and others.
Poems by Hussain Abdulhay:
Sunny Bask
Sun is shining on Florida’s sands
He’s donning disguise mask
So silly it’s of me if I ask
Why in this sun shall not dance
He’s thinking of giving gumshoe cast
I’m making out of him a master-past
He’s dodging to tan basked
I want for him to nail his colors to the mast
How fast is turning today into past
He wants to mount up every other rung of ladder of the ranks
By hook or by crook he recruits to his band
His concern is splurge to outlast
Tremor is patent in his gasps
His tempo is tenor before mass
He cannot enact the role of righteous man
An off-key dissonant act does not sound jazz
Real sham leads nowhere but in Morass
His temper is on launch pad for giving out wrath
His sting is not stuck fast
Wasp bites, but never hurts like give vent to in rasp
Winter is on the verge of collapse
Jekyll & Hyde are one guy, two-barreled gun, dual in guile, split bi by ampersand
He could not trespass finish line, would capsize on last lap
Sun is shining on Florida’s sands
ALL ALONE
Trapped in the wreckage
Bid au revoir to the golden age
Wish I was never raised up under patronage
Could I retrieve from my shipwreck any salvage
One day awaken to the world in the morning and you’re being told at the forty aged
This is the end of your peonage
You are taken from orphanage!
Don’t you take umbrage?
From such a bilious lineage
Excruciating pain is on leverage
Heavy champion begins to feel lethargic
Iron bones are taking cleavage
Heart at the verge of spillage
Fortified castle on brink of breakage
Rising from ashes to a translucent visage
Now an expired stamp for not any postal postage
Totipotent vessel incapable of rendering any cleavage
Ostracized, short of any suffrage
No longer of any familial linkage
But he still pays his homage
No choice but flit his home village
Once he was in there the vassalage
What a bitter heritage
Feeling like a strayed partridge
Bullet spotted its prey leaving up cartridge
Where should he commence his rummage
Which either sides he should take on the bridge
Life is on the stoppage
Nothing in the world propitiate this great pain even palliative beverage
Why they should leave up their luggage
My appurtenant gone on pillage
What presage!
Would it be for paying their mortgage,
Preventing from further power outage
Or should it be for the ingrained nature’s outrage,
Divesting of their storage
These are questions he shall evermore engage
Words reek of savage
His parents but he’ll never disparage
Introduction to the poet:
Husain Abdulhay, born on August 26, 1979, is from Iran and holds a Master’s degree in TEFL. His first poem was conceived when he was doing his Master’s degree at Kashan University, Iran. He currently serves as a lecturer at Payame Noor University, Iran, teaching on the BA in English Language Translation. He has three other poems appeared on other journal.