Sukrita Paul Kumar

Words fall
From her mouth
As rain

On deserts.

……..

After
Storms and cyclones
In the heart

Words dropping
As stones.
……..

Words as frozen ice
Stuck in the
Throats

Of lovers.

……..

Melting in thought
Floating in the mind

Words
Collecting in
unuttered sentences.
...

(Inspired by poems hanging over and around the master pagoda near Hanoi, Vietnam)
play
00:0001:11
nine times over
the word nothingness

emerges again
and yet again
in the twenty-word poem
by the master monk

the dragon, they say,
descends into the sea
searching for meaning
and spewing jewels
jewels that become rocks
with stalactites piercing into
bellies of rocks

columns of light rise
dressed in stunning colours

devils dancing
in step with gods

all in all,
adding to nothingness
and making meaning

*

what is real?

image of the bird
fluttering in the sky
or the one still
in the gushing river

the wavy moon
in the water
or the one above
that is steady

parallel

forever
...

Come breathe life
Into words

Words are stones
When in exile

Those not owned by poets
Remain lifeless and limp
in isolation,
Not able to change sides
They are fossilized

Not so, the dogs …
Uprooted from the street
With their instinct to survive
They teeter and totter
And yet again, acquire
territorial rights
They grow roots and
Reconnect with hearts of gold

Harnessed and steered
by the throb of memory
of their past, they ride
vibrant waves of the present

Like them
Come, get on the saddle
Reach out to those
Still words, rocks of silence
That lie in wait

Awaken them
Into dreams of a universe

Of one creation, one life,
Of poems with

Humans, animals and plants
All connected
None in exile.
...

Between awesome expanses
of deep blue oceans
and the greying sky
I stood
a speck in God's creation
leaning on the rails
of the deck
sailing from Mombasa
to Bombay...
a journey with a
beginning and an end
and no middle

A storm
a swarm of sharks
or whales

failure of
the engines of Amra
or a mere giving way
of the railing

Blue death;

Anything,
a trivial something
or a grave lapse

I cannot swim
The shores are not
in sight...
...

Words and sounds
gushing out of the
woman's mouth

the woman with the hat

All ears eager and
eyes alert
in the Greyhound
from Chicago to Iowa

"Me don't want them tall buildings,
See, that small house there"
All faces turned that way
"That's what I want."
"Friday evening, leaving home,
reaching Monday morning to work,
Los Angeles to New York -
Many times,
many times over!"

"Too old to work now, ah!
Young enough to live, hee!"
Words hopping to the back seats
as she thrust her face forward
spitting some more words
"Retired? Sacked or fired?"

"Is that Chicago?" Adjusting the
flowers on her hat "I like Chicago!"

Her questions finding
their own answers
or hanging suspended
in the moving bus
upside down

The yellow teeth twittering
Her black wrinkled skin
loosening from her face;

At Iowa City
The next halt
She sprang from her seat
"This city is mine"
declared she,
"I was born here"

As the greyhound
moved away
half an hour later,

with a blanket on one arm
and her basket
hanging on the other,
she was
still standing
on the bus stand
with expectant eyes

waiting for someone
to take her home
where she was born.
...

In the centre of
That circle of light
Rising slowly
over the river of experience
panting and huffing

Lies the truth of my life

so white
I cannot see it

All colours merged,
Lives absorbed
the white becomes whiter
And I
More blind
...

नौ बार, और फिर से
एक ही शब्द, शून्य
उभरता बार-बार
उस भिक्षु-गुरु की
बीस-शब्दीय
कविता में

ड्रैगन -वे कहते हैं—
गहरे उतरता है सागर में
अर्थ की खोज में
और मणियाँ उगलता है
नुकीली चट्टान बनती हैं मणियाँ
बेध जाती हैं चट्टानी मर्म को

उठते हैं ऊपर
रोशनी के स्तम्भ
अद्भुत रंगों से सजे

नाच उठते हैं दैत्य
देवों से ताल मिला

कुल मिलाकर
शून्य में जुड़ता चलता
कुछ, बहुत कुछ
और रचता है अर्थ !

*

क्या है वास्तविक ?

आसमान में फड़फड़ाते
पक्षी की छवि
या फिर
तेज़ बहती नदी में
रुका हुआ अक्स

पानी में हिलता चाँद
या फिर ऊपर
ठहरा चाँद

समानान्तर

निरंतर !
...

(1)


I cannot fathom

This ocean between us
The ocean filling up with
Alligators, big fish, sharks and all,
Corals and weeds
Going in circles
With elephantine waves
Gushing over them
Round and round
over and over.


(2)


Fiery sunflowers
Holy marigolds

Roses smitten with love
You, the droplets
Of dew
In the garden of
My mind

So many selves
Yours and mine
Dancing in the myriad
Mirrors, each morning.
...

The Seventh floor
Tells Buddha's tale

Above desire, above suffering

One day I was born
One day I shall die.

……………………………….


From the Peak

Fog settling on
Masses of cement and iron
...

Steel shadows
Fluid contours

Passing into

Darkness
Within and without

…………

Souls wrapped in gunny bags
Stiff creases and starched stitches

Headless bodies
Regimented in rows
Chests waiting for bullets

Nature's finishing touches.

………..

They are
"Coming and Going Pieces"
of art
She said,
created
Out of live tree trunks

Always in transition
Always waiting for
Something to happen

A withering or a blossoming

the skyscrapers of Hong Kong

opaque in the abstraction of nature.
...