When the Rains Came I’ve waited so long for the rains,that today, when the clouds sailed,I stayed inside, listening to the thunder. You wrote a poem for a beloved’s touchon wet nights. I sailed with youin the cool, dark afternoon, your wordslike paper boats on puddles,dreaming of reaching churchesand cemeteries under oaks,my eyes and hair…
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JAYDEEP SARANGI
Native Links It’s like green epidemicGreen turf, green ideasFlowing like a rivuletMurmuring a green song of hope. Big Sal trees live with historyIn the roots.Red soil allure ideasTourists break out in numbersAll small lanes lead to a forestGreen reservoir of words. The pitch dark sky smiles through the gatesOf leaves, wondering shadowsRagged, rickety, forlorn Arrows…
JHARNA SANYAL
Ahalya As butterflies to wanton boys,they tear our wingsfor their sport.They tend us and curse usrape us and repair uslove us and hate usdeify us and demonize uskill us and revive usfor their sport. Indra,king of the gods, ravished me.He didn’t have to do muchJust take the guise of myhusband!Sage Goutama,my husband, cursed me.He didn’t…
SANJUKTA DASGUPTA
RELIGION and POLITICS: A Dialogue Religion:Man-made scripturesAre used and abusedAll in the name of GodGoodness gracious God Politics:Religion is such an enabling toolTo tear and threatenRip and RapeAll in the name of God Religion:Making me user-friendly through the centuriesMy hymns and mantras chanted and twistedBy such carnivores and cannibalsHeaven is now so hellish Politics:Without you…
Heart-Speak
Sutapa Chaudhuri The heart speaks in Poetry. In a world torn apart by violence, distrust and strife, an empathetic, inclusive understanding and a liberal, all-embracing vision of life are sorely needed. And it is only Poetry, the elemental language of human emotions, which can impart that empathetic worldview and bring solace to the violence-torn heart.…
Issue 1, June 2018 : From the Chief Editor
Sanjukta Dasgupta I take great pleasure in presenting to our IPPL members and other readers the second issue of Poetry at the Heart of the Nation, the annual e-journal of the Intercultural Poetry & Performance Library (IPPL), Kolkata, on this the first day of January 2020. The second issue of our IPPL journal bears out…
SAPTAPARNA ROY
Strands You wanted to pluck a bunch of strandsOff my headInside a vacuum explodes the spaceOutside it hurtsMy earths of hurt roll out into the airEstranging meCompounding like metastasisThe breeze does not balm any longerThe drizzle does not calm the feverThat wraps me like a blanket I hum and harmHumorouslyWho but myself Prayer I pray…
SWAGATA CHATTERJEE
The Splash on Walls I thought of painting my walls with colours bright and gayA Splash of Sunrise from the European May,Some lusty green from the African Bay,A heart of dreamy red; seductive on the lover’s bed.I rather chose to paint with words;Some new, some known of distant whispers and near roars.I searched for the…
DR. PARAMITA MUKHERJEE MULLICK
When I will meet you When I will meet you one day.You will look into my eyes and what will you say?Will you welcome me with open arms?Or bless me with open palms?Will you cherish my being with you like my loved one?Or just look at me and go towards the Sun?Will you depend upon…
SEKHAR BANERJEE
A Botanist’s Life In a cleaved dream, we are standingall afternoon near an ancient medicine shop with coloured window panes – the Belgian type .Is it a church? We take a trip, in turn,to watch it in subsequent dreamsIn its courtyard,the mobile messages of the whole familyrebound like ancient ping pong balls Just opposite the…