Two Poems By Prithvijeet Sinha
Painting: Bijay Biswaal
By Prithvijeet Sinha
His Town
This town is a quiet revelation
and the man-child,
now twenty-five,
notices the girdle of windmills, like gigantic sunflowers,
not too far from crates of soft-drink factories in the distance,
below those curved hills answering his earthly curiosity.
There are scarecrow formations in fields,
stranger than the guided spirits of Halloween,
meant to ward off those sparse flights of sparrows,
their final bastion being his favourite tree, with the deceased tyre swings,
now with branches half shaven and leaves the size of dew from his past.
This is his town,
with backyards of open-ended youth and trampolines next to pools.
He dreamt of Madonna here,
Biblical and outsized the image in his head, among waves,
its volatility toppling her down from Church courtyards,
holding his vision in a torpor of dead frogs, wasps and dusty lakes,
like the very plague,
along with the churning and turning of sundry check dams and underground pipes;
as those shuttered factories seem like matchboxes from his house in the hills.
Take one look at these teenagers now.
Like the hair in their armpits,
puberty sticks like molasses dusted by anthills
and swathes of cacti push their way through hormonal imbalances.
Washing his face clean and gargling out all the bites, scars and dead skin tissues,
he joins their record,
with pollutants entering nasal tracts through thin air
and ghostly green masks worn during protests.
Because once he was surrounded by smog-filled vessels
and glass shards were forced down his larynx,
on his first day of adolescence.
This is his town,
awaiting his revelation.
***
Nature Sways in His Wooden Cot
Nature sways in his wooden cot,
all fabrics of the rainbow hues in the assembly,
the strings delicately moved by the winds.
fine muslin here, silk catalogues there,
pure wool for that petite sweater for his brother,
the spaghetti laces and curls and vermicelli patterns a favourite of his grandmother’s
and then a tin star for the crowning on the Midnight alignment of abiding cheer.
His innocent glow is one with fireflies,
as he threads his wishes with an illuminating row of lanterns,
kept on the nondescript chair of two score years,
symbols of the red bloom of his age
and the sheer number of candles he has in store is for the final night.
The very best of human nature,
seconding innocence,
this is his need of the hour as well
as a full congregation of the stars for Christmas.
For his ideal is simple and greatly informed by the how nature of things must be.
Nature, good-natured spirits sway to the wind’s first shiver on his cot.
Heralding year-end beauties.
Bio:
Prithvijeet Sinha belongs to the multicultural, historic Indian city, Lucknow, an artistic haven since centuries. He has completed an M. Phil. in literature. His poetry, film and book reviews, travel pieces, and opinion pieces have appeared in Reader’s Digest, Gnosis Journal, Café Dissensus Magazine, Confluence – South Asian Perspectives Since 2002, Thumbprint Magazine, The Medley, etc. He regularly publishes on various facets of cinema and culture on his blog, An Awadh Boy’s Panorama: Tracing Words on These Filigreed, Discerning Fingertips.
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2 Responses to “Two Poems By Prithvijeet Sinha”
Thank you for including this wonderfully resonant painting with my poem here. I’m glad it has the Lucknowi monuments juxtaposed with the theme of the poem.
Hello Ma’am/ Sir, I want both my poems HIS TOWN and NATURE SWAYS IN HIS WOODEN COT, published by CAFE DISSENSUS in March 2020, to be nominated for the BEST OF THE NET ANTHOLOGY 2020.
Since the nominations can only come through an editor and not the writers themselves, I ask you to go through the BEST OF THE NET ANTHOLOGY submission guidelines and please consider my works for submission as I want them to compete. The submission process has begun so you can nominate them. I will be grateful if you considered my request.
Thank you, Prithvijeet Sinha, Lucknow.
On Sun, Mar 8, 2020, 10:39 Cafe Dissensus Everyday wrote:
> Cafe Dissensus Everyday posted: ” By Prithvijeet Sinha His TownThis town > is a quiet revelationand the man-child,now twenty-five,notices the girdle > of windmills, like gigantic sunflowers,not too far from crates of > soft-drink factories in the distance,below those curved hills answering ” >