Two Poems
Photo: World Atlas
By Mekhala Chattopadhyay
Holes in your Blood
When it will be twenty years
from this lengthy timeless duration of life,
Maybe I’ll be back again
to know how your contours bleed
along distinct Mars-like ground
ricocheting between unguarded sweeps of bullets
peeking through the embrace of pretty fir trees.
I will come back, knocking at your door,
which will be blazing in the sun
Then, as it does, now.
I’ll come back, and knock at every door
Along the path – every door I knew.
The holes on the walls will still be there,
But would look like beautiful designs
Etched onto desperation,
Portraying an art of such an intensity that my mind is always afraid of.
I would look at the holes
And imagine terrible cries of my childhood
And of my brother who was on the streets covered in a mask
Of black handkerchief, showing only a part of his eyes which turned from pale to white
To red within seconds of the commotion.
And also a ground of human remains outside the little verandah.
My shouts will die among the firs,
Hanging loose like dead watchmen guarding
The A.T.M at the side of the road,
The mountains would have changed places, or the pages of
Your part of history.
***
News, on a different day
One day, we shall leave our fancy tales
And weave them on the bodies of buried giants.
One day, we shall know how newspapers and newsmakers create stories
Out of every little story of defeat,
And throw glorious lights upon smiling faces of victory
Over trampled grass, lying dead
Under the huge weight of identities
Which (d)eluded them.
One day, we shall become printed headlines
From the dingiest corners of the by-lane,
and about half-cooked meals
and sheer pieces of clothing,
Lying away from voting machines
Emphasizing on the importance of the sign and the mechanism aiding
its existence, and show.
Or
One day, we shall become the comics
At the end of the page,
Which goes unnoticed by grand ideas
Every now and then
behind ruptured nightmares,
of shadows playing it out
inside rooms with dim lights
occasionally.
Bio:
Mekhala Chattopadhyay is a research scholar at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. She is pursuing her research on cultural memory studies. Her domain of interest is in cultural memory studies, trauma studies, and studies in music. Her short stories have been published in Volcano Magazine and The Golden Line Magazine. She can be reached at cmekhala2013@gmail.com
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