Shivaratri, A Poem
by Yuyutsu Sharma
Ascending heated slope of a dream,
hash-infested ghats of childhood
spent among ashen ascetics
faking to torture crystal of a body.
The thrill of the famished Bihar workers
dancing to lusty gyrations
of a male dancer disguised as a Bollywood nymph.
And I, a slothful drum
of blood and memory looking for
a Muse gone across the river to touch
the tip of a celibate semi-nude cobra.
And, I, a barrel of inertia,
am left to ramble
on a Ghat where quietly
loneliness of a corpse burns.
The smoke of the pyre clings
to my upper lip
like some hooked spirit.
To die on the eve of Shivaratri,
you call it luck?
Is there any luck, at all, after your death?
Only some conch shell full of Gangotri waters,
that's to wash my ashes away one day
and pull away bat-faced wasps of decay
sticking to the catastrophe of my ageing lips.
From Some Female Yeti and other Poems, Nirala, 1995, Reprint, 2018.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/8182500915?ref=myi_title_dp
No comments:
Post a Comment