Two Poems
the barbed wire with clouds and sunblades
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By Raj Shekhar Sen
Refugee
I have walked across oceans
to find men with hollowed eyes and leather skin
to understand the words in which pain spoke.
I have lost my language and my voice
and all the folklores of my land
in barbed wires and artificial borders.
I have seen windows broken
that were never mended
and hearts, too, all in a mother’s eyes.
I have seen red skies of the evening
not in the aftermath of making love with the sun,
but for blood that was so light
that it evaporated with air.
I have read leftovers of sun-dried poetry
written by gravediggers, in their eyes
for only they knew what it means
to ache every day.
And
I have held all these experiences together
to knit one word,
refugee.
To those who bury their child
sometimes, i write of all thoughts
that nest around surreptitiously
like how hearts crave for absent warmth
and skins for lost touches.
sometimes i write about rivers
that slowly carve their way
out of foggy mornings with the coldness
of a mother’s heart who lost a child;
and i write of snows, that fall
with the silence of a father and a gravedigger
slowly; filling the hole in the land
with soil and hopes and tears
and an eleven year old.
for every word i write
i leave a few
for far too much has been written
about the horrors that dwell
in the depths of a human heart
and too little
about what is left; immortalized
a cold, blood stained night that will never end
and a medium sized white school shirt;
with smeared inks and blood
and those hands that sometimes hold them
and sometimes try to wipe off those stains;
profusely
as if that is all it needs.
sometimes, i write of all thoughts
that nest around
and sometimes, i just stare
at the lifeless eyes of time
for there is no poetry written
in the aftermath of wounds
that rhymes with the pains
of those who bury their child.
(I wrote this in memory of the parents who lost their children in Peshawar school attack.)
Author:
Raj Shekhar Sen is based out of San Francisco, California, having lived the majority of his life scattered around cities in Central India before renegading to the US of A. He considers writing to be primarily a hobby but has been fortunate enough to be published in a few journals, including Nivasini and Aquirelle. His day job is internet surfing and sometimes business consulting.
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