Poetic Expressions by PAC members

HADAA SENDOO

WOLF

he stakes the moon as a partner

looks up at the sky with a yowl of pain

dances with the darkness

howls to the sea, with pride

The wolf, desperate in the forest

dodges the hunters

GRAND EMOTIONS

For Danzanravjaa*

Ethereal spirit in the wind

Through the oriental Gobi desert

Intense emotions

Eternally etched in my life springs

The moon and the cuckoo

Over high mountains

However, this a country

Still, my heart bleeds tears

* Danzanravjaa (1803-1856), was a 19th century Mongolian great poet and thinker, composer, painter, also a living Buddha. He was proficient in Tibetan language and has written more than 300 poems and more than 100 songs. One of the most famous is the "Ulemjiin Chanar" (Mongolian meaning: Great feelings) in praise of the beauty of a Mongolian woman. He also wrote the first Mongolian drama " The Moon and the Cuckoo".

ASHOK BHARGAVA

IN THIS NEXT MOMENT I WILL…

start a new day

a new dream

and walk into what I am

an image of a giant bird

made of clouds

in the skies.

I will wander explore

mountains, forests, rivers, seas

and barren cities

locked down so what.

Here I am not alone

I am with the hopes, feelings and anxieties

held in layers

tightly woven together.

Each moment

new each time

eternally whatever

happens happens

yet we’ll make it

through COVID social distancing

journey through it

together.

LOVE OF OCEAN

I come to you

and leave behind my home…

snow-capped peaks

forest streams

roaring waterfalls

running rivers

to dive into your depths

to merge in your love

I come to make you

soul of my senses

eyes of my sight

feel of my lips

sound of my laughter

aroma of my breath

rhythm of my heart

taste of my tongue

I come to you

and leave behind

my fears

my doubts

my vulnerabilities

O my love

take me as I am

in your arms

hide me

in your folds

forever.

JOY RETURNS WITH MORNING LIGHT

I talk

to my invisible friends at night

they listen with inscrutable faces

they do not argue.

I tell them about

the hopes in my eyes

desires in my mouth

and fears in my heart.

Words fail me

constantly moving

shifting feelings

until I am exhausted.

They leave me alone, confused

I weep through the night

joy comes in the morning.

You are more in me

than I in you and

you remain while

obliviously I go outside looking for you.

ROBERT MIZO

HEAL

To heal again

And be riddled

By the routineness of life

The rushing madness of

The morning hours

The blaring craziness

Of work-bound folks

To heal again

And be lost

In the maze of

The noisy marketplaces

Jostling through crowded metros

Strolling easy in swanky malls

To heal again

And be enveloped

In long loving hugs

And animated conversations

Complete with high-fives, laughter,

And all the trappings of unrestrained closeness.

To heal again

And share a meal or two

Over the happy din of dining strangers

Uncork another bottle of red

Crack open a dozen chilled ones

Creating silly hashtags along the night

To heal again

And walk in the sun

In a carefree celebration

Of life and living.

THE UNBORN

Fruit of passion, the miracle of life

Deep within the mother's womb

Life begins in pristine innocence

Only to be snuffed ere she smiles

For a crime she never knew she was

Her screams unheard, her pain unseen

None wonders what she might observe

Could she have made a happy gesture?

And touch a life or two and pray?

Could she have been your guardian angel?

Never shall you know, for she now lies bleeding.

REMINISCE

Winter’s magic would soon fade

Frostings on pines will then thaw

The chilly breeze would cease to flirt

And the year’s sweetest season would bid goodbye

If change be the only constant there

Why does the heart live and rue

Roaming listless over merry days gone by

Long after the glitters have dimmed

And yellow daffodils have come to bloom.

RUMKI BASU

STEP OUT ONCE

She had bruises

on her face

that melted with

thewax of face cream

and yellowed sun powder,

blocking them out

from everybody’s eyes

at day’s end,

with masks of silence………….

The bruises on her body

were easier to hide

muted in any case by colouredfibre,

the scratches on her skin reddened

and blackened in a familiar pattern,

thepain had simply frozen

with the urgency of daily living………..

We looked at her

and looked beyond,

her scratchy words,

her shadowy contours,

her twisted smile,

until that day when

the bird flew free

and left for the skies

in a chilled out zone;

‘She is dead’ someone cried

I could not believe

why she could not just step out once

to join the chorus alive……….

I will walk the rains tonight my love

without mushroom covers,

even the thick leaf tops

in the woods cover their

heads green, and for others

there could be a grey umbrella

over their heads . . . . .

The clouds are reckless,

they are floating, hurt and porous,

even they know how

to cry – do you?

I move with so much of

sediment and how light you fly away,

away from me,

you choose today to swim

out of the nest-stuff

we were building together –

with all the rain and the mud

but without the glue…

As the rain drops

fly out of my palm,

I wonder, I grope

at the shimmering grass

below my feet

and the empty skies above . . . . .

I will still ask you

the final question:

leave me if you will,

but tell me once,

and you must,

what is it that

you hide from me

besides the pain of leaving . . . . .

I will cling to that secret arsenal

in the answer

that carry your knife-edges

lifelong with me,

because that is truly “yours”,

the rest is “ours”,

which I will gift to the

seasonal monsoon

flowing down the streets,

I am still walking

in the rain my love,

Tell me now, tell me please . . . . .

APRANTA SOMAYAJI

EASY

What would make all of this easy?

Running my hand through water

To ground me to the now?

Disappearing into the breaths that

Flow into and out of me or

Just staring at the red?

Turns out that after nearly twenty years of knowing the word

I no longer remember how to spell

Disappearing.

Life will do that to you.

Take something that you thought would

Always be an unquestionable part of

What you know and,

Make it fuzzy around the boundaries.

Like something you have been staring at unblinkingly for too long.

So many things lost to beliefs.

THE FLAG

We carry it high

The Flag

It must never touch the ground

Must never be dirtied

By the hands who defend it.

We carry it with pride

The Flag

It speaks for us

Our vows: All of them

Even the ones we will never know.

We carry it undaunted

The Flag

Through fields of War, Disease

Even Fire

Till it's all alone.

And where are we?

RITAMBHARA MALAVIYA

HOPE

The caged bird

sings every day

the song of the time

when it would fly high,

One day

the gate of the cage would open.

We also sang

song of the sky turning blue,

song of curtains opening,

unveiling the tall snowy peaks.

We behold the future

distant but clear…

I stretch out my hands –

but they merely hit the plastered walls.

How would the cage open?

Darkness suddenly thickens

Lustful faces emerge

The grip tightens

Restless night drags on.

Morning creeps in

Rays of sun reach my cheerless cage

with their warmth

somewhere the tuft of semul

breaks open its pod

and floats in the air all around

I catch a glimpse of the future.

As darkness falls again

bright lamps of the past

light up my cellar…

Long ago Kalidas

sent cloud messengers from the exiled beloved,

clouds riding the unstoppable winds

raining on the way, filling the dry lakes

greening the parched lands.

Like semul, like clouds

I find poems floating all around,

flying across the bars of the cage

They tell me

Hope is still alive.

THE FORLORN BANK WHERE I REACHED

Breaking the social frames

There you were sitting on some rock, Gazing at the crimson of the distant sky.

I was moving on like a boundless wind disheveled and scattered

And you were standing with arms outstretched, Like the endless sky.

O human

You, who recognized my free soul

Didn’t we meet that day

Just like two persons

Meeting in the blaze of human beauty?

Behind us lay a history of civilization

And your face glowed with the flame of some future, Had you seen my face lit up with that light?

How I wish to see

the mid-night moon melting in the Yamuna

Or sit on a hillock in silence

Watching the stars twinkle through the night

The dreamy mist enveloping the green vales

The serene sea breeze gently touching the palm leaves

Birds on a crystal blue lake, graceful and snow white

Friend, with you, won’t all this grow ever more divine

For creation of the beauty not born

In this rough road hold my hand,

Fighters as we are, friend together we’ll fight

For returning the glow to a word stripped of its beauty,

For connecting the body with soul and soul to the sky.

RITA MALHOTRA

LET'S KEEP THE MUSIC ON

today as I sit to pen silence

unity of humankind

stretches its arms

across the map bereft of dots

resonance of virtual synergy,

congruent thoughts, parallel dreams

remain dressed in their formal best

promulgation, communication

in bondage of social media

videos, messages, be-safe calls

from within stark quarantine-walls

from sanitized sites of solitude

in vagrant steps that lose their way

the broom-holding, wrinkled man

hums his love as he beholds

the moist eyes of an age-bent wife

scrubbing the kitchen floor

mask on the city’s face

thoughts circle broken mirrors

yet that infinitesimal spark of hope

keeps the music on

the worry-swathed overseas son

makes promise-laden concerned calls

he shall soon join the homeward birds

to return with a thousand hugs

let’s keep the music on

an uncanny outside in uneasy calm

watches the inside in meditative trance

for distant daughters, for the loving kin

uncertainty roams the streets

through water rapids, past forest shades

hope nestled in green embrace

wings its way to Earth’s door

proclaiming with a smile:

a radiant spring will smile afresh

the rare orchid will bloom again

herons will fly the sky in flocks

adorned in white jasmine gossamer,

the gentle breeze would sing once more

who says

melodies are extinct?

THE PYRE

sacred memories

solemn goodbyes

woven in sandalwood sticks

lend a sense of profoundness

to the burning pyre

words beneath the rising flame

reach out but lose their grasp

of the tangible

the pyre whispers regretted thoughts

and shuffled memories

to the circle of men that cluster around

death of a poem

death of a song

but this auspicious heap

of burning wood

is a fragrant mélange

of histories

a source of past’s ashes

the same ash that depicts

the immortal soul

and adorns the forehead of Shiva

as an emblem of

destruction of desire

and fear of death

the hissing pyre destined

to annihilate and burn

remains a visual symbol of bliss

for

anything that destroys

is also the creator.

GANGRAPE

dumbstruck time

stands motionless

head hung in shame

broken thoughts fragment

the child-woman’s dreams

dreams woven across time

since the first stirrings of passion

when love’s frenzied pulse-beats

went racing through her blood

disbelief breeds in the

blood-soaked sheet

evil lurks in every drop of air

howling winds pound on

the lone window-pane

hailstones rain ruthless

as dead dreams fall heavy on her

she staggers out in tatters

bruised breasts smell of raw flesh

the soul weeps in the ashes

of burnt apparels of dignity

a feeble futile attempt

to unwrite the story fails

time stands stone-still,

as echos of dry dreams

haunt uncertain metaphors

of still-born tomorrows.