3 Short Poems
By Varnasi Poet Asha Viswas
A LAMENT FOR THE RIVER
The intermittent sibilance of
The insomniac sea brooding over the
Translucence of the morning
Its velvet touch still fresh in his mouth.
The waves swiftly arrive and the sea
Embraces them in his anguished arms
while the night groans buried in a
shipwreck of shadows of the dead.
When the river rushed and drowned in the sea
There was no trace of her body, only
Her desires still float, like spilled blood,
On the barren sand without any walls.
SO MANY LYNCHINGS
Long back, from the terrace of our house
I had seen a pig being killed by a mob-
a close human circle with spears in their hands,
took turns to poke the animal. The screams
of the wounded creature have left
their traces on my mind , heart and soul.
I had seen a mob lynching of a nameless thief
In a market place in Nigeria
The thief was beaten and burnt alive by the shopkeepers.
The police did arrive but too late.
I remember my British friend and I just exclaimed
“ uncivilized country”, “ barbaric people”
What do I call my own country people now ?
The imagined cries , panic of the victims
make me a silent citizen
In this inhuman forest of the night.
of the wounded creature have left
their traces on my mind , heart and soul.
I had seen a mob lynching of a nameless thief
In a market place in Nigeria
The thief was beaten and burnt alive by the shopkeepers.
The police did arrive but too late.
I remember my British friend and I just exclaimed
“ uncivilized country”, “ barbaric people”
What do I call my own country people now ?
The imagined cries , panic of the victims
make me a silent citizen
In this inhuman forest of the night.
THE BEGGAR GIRL
I look into her eyes , troubling me,
like a question mark.
The red in them is a mythical sea
full of drunken fish pursuing the stars.
Or is it the red of carnations
blooming in a thorn bird’s heart?
The sunlight dances, like rainbow , in her eyes
which speak in some shade of green
You fail to describe. It is close
to a dark storm with blue rain.
The pressure for description
is memory lurking from pain.
I take courage
and swim across the eyes .