This the 9th session was special as most of the poetry was self-written, striding the large canvas of emotional upheavals, unrequited love, the saga that falls between “b” & “d” - birth and death, the see-sawing of relationships during the forced lockdown, historical anecdotes....

Session #9, Feb 10th, 2021

We Might Have ...

Prologue

Stagnant winds, amidst a mingling
A churning maelstrom of dark plight
A nimble virus prowling and searching
For a host and won't be denied
Animal spilling's and fragmented cohabits
The planet singeing with arrogance of might
A straining population, high callous mobility,
A failure in fundamentals
Discarded as right
Urban jungles and deforestation worsen
Zoonotic diseases leap into sight
New unheard of species, raging virals
How do we live, what do we fight?

Epilogue

Words in the winds and news coming in
After endless days and longer nights
A sorrowful indictment of man's travesty and hubris
The leviathan's still raging - but something is brewing alight
A chance at redemption and conscience searing
Cautious ebullience and compelling ratiocinated finds
Can't put a sense on what's the reckoning
How do we live, what do we right?
Sense the appearance at the threshold
A melding of the natural world and human insight
On the anvil coming together, 
A burgeoning hope, a beckoning light

**

(Editor's notes :

Leviathan In the Old Testament, Leviathan appears in Psalms 74:14 as a multiheaded sea serpent that is killed by God and given as food to the Hebrews in the wilderness.

Ratiocinate 1 : the process of exact thinking : reasoning. 2 : a reasoned train of thought)

-Written & Submitted by Kusum Sawhney

————-

There's a Winter in my Heart

There's a winter in my heart and it's not the kind your hands stop freezing in by putting on a pair of gloves or lighting up a fire that reunites flames with the frost.
Rather it's the kind of winter that punches me into a polar night in Sweden where the sun doesn't rise and the only miracles I believe in are the ones that pull me out of an icy lake I absolutely don't, 
I absolutely don’t remember jumping in. 
There's a winter in my heart.
And its drenching in skies where no longer can you tell light from the dark, 
Exactly 8 years ago today it was when the typewriter's ink became extinct and so half shall remain all the journeys I once dreamt to embark.
Hence with eyes wide open now I sit, I just watch, 
I watch snow turning into ashes in the very city that I built, 
That I built with these blistered hands from stone to stone, 
A city that has not seen a spring for decades: cursed for banishing a sorceress who turned out to be a venomous crooked crone. 
Her last words still haunt me like a nightmare into my ears been blown, 
"Surrounded you will be with people and yet you shall forever remain to feel all alone."
There's a winter in my heart, 
Where I naively ignore the inevitable avalanche 
Deceiving myself that it won't get to me if I turn it into art. 
Because 5 years living in isolation led to desperation that dared me to make the mistake of opening up my town's gates, 
And now it's inhabited by immigrants, who if you come to think of it were never really invited to stay.
Immigrants who migrated into my heart declaring their intentions to be friendly, 
Immigrants who sung melodies dedicated to me until there was nothing they needed from me!
Immigrants whom I so foolishly gave away the keys of every lock in this town and now they whisper ways to break into my house, in search of a fictitious crown, 
In search of a fictitious fucking crown! 
For the 88th time there is no crown, 
But they want one. 
As if it wasn't enough, as if it wasn’t enough when they butchered all my walls with hate when I told them I begged them to leave some space as someday I wanted to paint those walls with love. 
And now the house I once called my home has nothing but frozen memories. 
The tap in the bathroom is broken, don't you hear the water overflowing from the sink or is it just me?
There's the kitchen we danced around and round and made love in. 
Now it reeks of rotten food on dishes you cooked for us but we never ate in. 
There's the flower vase your mother gifted to us 
Concealing whatever's left of the lilies I got for you under a magnet of dust. 
And there's the forsaken bedroom door, still missing its knob because of how hard I slammed it on your face when for the last time we had our last fight. 
Now every bone in this house shivers as louder gets the raging coup against me outside. 
And I ponder about the long list of things that led to this day as it was only yesterday when we found this holy land that we chose to forever call ours, 
With eyes full of dreams we boarded the flight to Spring, only for it to never depart. 
I still think about our first night we spent here under the starlight dozing off to the lullabies sung by the nearest waterfall. So what a befitting end this would be, won't you agree? As I poison the very same waters with the very same love that’s being consumed by the frost. 
The very same love that once was so serene, 
The very same love that boils every river, every brook, every stream 
Turning them into sisters of kerosene. 
As kerosene is the only mother whose heart will beat tonight. 
A mother who's a fiery match away from giving birth to its most formidable child!
The child who'll fulfil ‘end of the world prophecies’ 
As it lay waste to every corner of this town; this city, 
And set ablaze these walls that dangle our frozen memories! 
Even the world underground will crumble as it watches the flames the world above burns in. 
To get past this everlasting winter I’ve given up on gods so I summon the devil to posses my mundane skin. 
Because there's a winter in my heart, there's a winter in my heart where I am still freezing even with fire all around me.

-Written & Submitted by Deon

——————

The Birth of a Poem:

Uneasiness
Raw feeling in the pit of the stomach
Brain brewing a storm
The waves flailing and thrashing
Against the stones
Weathered like the stirrups
In the delivery room
The feverish activity
Molds and shapes
The emotions to words
Mute and resounding
Soft and commanding
To capture the essence
Of this feeling
To yield the capture
Of the gathered thoughts
To yield an almost
Tangible form
A poem!

-Written & Submitted by Aroon Chadha.

-Discussion: If you show a triangle to Mother Teresa of Avila... “Oh ! Two souls triangulating towards the Lord as they make  spiritual progress!”

Show it to a Freudian and the response "Why are you showing me a phallic symbol?"

So too here the  comments ranged from one where the birth occurred after taking a multiple dose of Oxytocin and an epidural- (an easy birth ...  so why the emotional upheaval .. )?

While for another even the connection to the poem relating to a human birth was a stretch...

So all good ....!

Thank you for the opportunity to  summarize... nay... rather enumerate these  rather divergent view points.

If the feedback were to propel the poet to make changes ...then I think there is really something accomplished.

————-

b o d y

Look closely at the letters. Can you see,
entering (stage right), then floating full,
then heading off—so soon—
how like a little kohl-rimmed moon
o plots her course from b to d
—as y, unanswered, knocks at the stage door?
Looked at too long, words fail,
phase out. Ask, now that body shines
no longer, by what light you learn these lines
and what the b and d stood for.

-Submitted by Harbans Nagpal.

-Written by

—————-

Water

The Caliph perched on his throne
Apprehensive. First day of his reign
By the mercy of Allah, first seed 
Of a delightful pomegranate.
A nod, the day’s business began.
First, an envoy from Turkestan
Placed a large bejeweled casket
On a table between Caliph and audience.
Bowing deeply, “Mighty Caliph,
Please accept our humble gift.
Look into the casket,
Behold therein our devotion.”
The Caliph looked into the casket,
Saw etched in water his face
In all it’s freckled glory.
A crook of finger beckoned the envoy.
The envoy’s face shone in the water,
A little sweaty, rueful, fearful.
“Since your people to you are devoted
You will return to them with gold.”
“Give this man a bag of gold,
Toss him into the Tigris.”
Envoy, “Sire I cannot swim.”
Caliph, “Throw in a log with him.”
Caliph to envoy, “Time to learn.”
Moral, it is better by far to emigrate
Than a sovereign in his own court irritate.

-Written & Submitted by Raj

Discussion-The audience digested the poem stanza by stanza. In the first stanza, the significance of the metaphor pomegranate as the augury of a long and fruitful reign was noted. The second and third stanzas were self- explanatory.

The fourth stanza showed that the gift from Turkestan was really meant to insult the Caliph’s intelligence. He understood this and responded in an appropriate but measured way. He could not afford to ignore it in open court, he could not have the envoy executed so he opted for a swimming lesson. An audience member remarked that Turkestan was partly desert so that water would be valued there. This, of course, added to the ambivalence of their gift to the Caliph of Bagdad.

There were three motifs woven into this poem. First, there is a story in which a man of the desert visits a Caliph of Bagdad and presents him with a jar of water from his oasis. The Caliph accepts the water graciously, orders the Wazir to give the man a bag of gold and show him out at the palace door fronting the river Tigris. He would then understand the greatness of the Caliphs of Bagdad. Second, there is the episode of the French ambassador’s visit to the court of King Henry V as depicted by Shakespeare in his play. The ambassador presents Henry with tennis balls suggesting that he amuse himself with them and leave serious business to adults. According to Wikipedia there is no evidence of this happening. Third, apparently there are villages made up of envoys charged with delivering bad news to potentates that stopped short on the plea, “Why rush to tell Nabuchadnezzar what he himself will soon find out.”