Friday, April 30, 2021

New Poem, "Spring : A Wild Beast" by Yuyutsu Sharma

 

Spring : A Wild Beast

Spring unfurls its blue ribbon.. -- Eduard Mörike

Yuyutsu Sharma

 




The cracked patch

of a clammy honeycomb comes

 

dripping out of a sobbing night

and clings to the frozen calf of my leg.

 

There’s a scent of spring

back again to dance in my nostrils,

 

its pungent air

suffused with a stinging odor

 

of a bonfire

of sandalwood, butter, sesame,

 

cinnamon and honey

aflame somewhere across

 

the icy rivers

of our shrunken canyons.

 

I leap out of the bed

and thump my foot to let it

 

fall off to the grassy ground,

homeless bees buzzing in slow motion

 

in the stabbing sunlight

of a wounded day in our  boorish republic.

 

Don’t panic, just keep quiet,

I whisper, seeing she’s about to scream.

 

They  mustn’t sense our fears,

the fright to live in a plague is to suffer

 

the fate of a bonded sex-worker,

to endure the inevitable,


and in silence surrender to lethal

pleasure of the demented Deities.

 

Each moment a hazard,

each day a fresher revelation

 

of the master’s disregard  of the corpses

piling up in newly-founded crematoriums.

 

I step out of the house

in the Himalayas to venture out

 

into our canyons aflame

from the flush of rhododendrons

 

tulips, primrose, cherry,

blue poppies, geraniums

 

and watch spring crouch

like a wild beast as it did a year ago

 

holding back the delight

to dance like a fat bumble bee

 

celebrating the arrival of

a succulent spring in our glistening valleys.

 

 From Yuyutsu Sharma's upcoming collection, In God's Messy Workplace.

 

 


 

 

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Upcoming first Zoom reading on May 1st, 2021 for the 2022 New York Writers Worshop

Upcoming first Zoom reading on May 1st, 2021 for the 2022 New York Writers Worship to coincide with First Himalayan Literature Festival to celebrate great Nepali poet, Gopal Prasad Rimal...



Saturday, April 17, 2021

A Morning Walk by Yuyutsu Sharma in Punjabi and Rajasthani

 https://poesia.world/all-poets

A Morning Walk

 Yuyutsu Sharma


Leaving behind

the bed of white lotus

and wheezing

partner of my sleep

I rushed out

toward the bridge

freshly built over

a golden stream.

But on finding

a funeral pyre

burning on its

emerald edge

I closed my eyes

and like some Buddha

in the dark interior

raised my shaking

invisible hands

to salute

the great master,

Death.

 

© Yuyutsu Sharma





































 Punjabi Translatation @ Sunil Dutt &

 Rajasthani Translation @ Sumit Chaudhary

https://poesia.world/all-poets

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

"Battling it" A Poem by Yuyutsu Sharma from "God's Messy Workplace: The 2020 Poems

 

Battling it

YUYUTSU SHARMA







Ek din chadya tere rang varga...

--Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Punjabi Poet

 

Each moment an ambush

with the glistening buffalo rider racing amuck

in the nether world of my sleep

 

Each day a scuffle

with headless phantoms from

the blind caves of high hills

where a giant yeti awaits,

her hunger stretched wide open

to feed a million more plagues.

 

Nine months have passed,

nine fierce flicks of his giant eyelids,

the crashing of colossal waves

over thrumming  route of my wind pipe.

 

Nine months have passed,

nine months of so many misshapen regimes,

flying vampires scuttling over the faulty

horoscopes of this planet’s destiny

pouring torrents of molten tar

in the cobalt blue rivers of our joy.

 

Nine months have passed

and I resolve to walk again

against the mangled currents to reach

the favorite spots in my beloved city,

only to rush back home

shuddering from an erratic rush

of my breath unhinging my sturdy frame

inherited from my wrestler ancestors.

 

A sensation stirs in a corner

of my right lung and inflames

into an inferno of endless pain.

 

Have I fallen prey to its tentacles?

How did it happen? I ask.

Did it occur at the Grocery store

or in a city bus?  Couldn’t you

have waited a while,

looked for a cab

or simply walked to the spot?

Where was there this hurry?

 

It was about to rain;

cabs simple disappear during

rainy  hours  in Kathmandu?

 

So where you think you picked it up;

as you passed by Hanuman Shrine

near your place with devotees thronging it,

seeking strength  and salvation,

singing out loud, jamming the sidewalk?

 

Hasn’t  it finally grabbed you by the throat?

A mild rasping begins and gets stuck in the lungs,

a burning sensation blights down my spine,

the flame of my breath gets shredded,

like fragmented rainbow chunks

pulled from the sleek glistening

bodies of the patron serpents of the valley?

 

Breathless, I feel it loping down

the depths of my blood vessels.

I try restraint, try to tackle the impending

onslaught of an anxiety by meekly submitting

myself to its preferred sister, Sleep, 

to ward off its imminent arrival,

Lord’s  cudgel without a signal, or a sound,

only to wake up next morning to savor

a  full-blown loaf of a summer day

bouncing like your round face

in my courtyard dancing

with the music of  its sunny,

sprightly colors...

Ek din chadya tere rang varga...


 From Yuyutsu Sharma's  upcoming book,  God's Messy Workplace: The 2020 Poems