☛ Creative Flight is going to celebrate Indian Literature in its first special issue (January, 2025), vol. 6, no. 1. The last date of article submission is 31/12/2024.

CULTURE

 


CULTURE

 

-         P C K Prem (India)

 

1

I sit alone and mumble

but find it difficult

as words on the lips prance,

for yet to be born fable in the eyes

when brows continue to behold

a fixed point,

and even sounds roughly make sense

while tickling a languid Kundalini

in the hope of resurrecting Gita

for Karma theory is distorted.

 

There are sin-flushed meanings

around the loneliness of the man,

wanting to peel off armour

when I try to follow edicts,

of pillars engraved eras back.

 

Detractors and wanton doers hop around

And I turn head swiftly

eyes emit hideous sparks after a second,

and tears roll down to laugh at

contrived sufferings in action,

as I lie flat on bed of roses thorny

with sermons on life dry

for no archer digs a hole for water.

 

I learn, deaths in the family

outlived a night long inferno

and burnt a home,

of love banished.

 

A mute god on a poster lives

in a corner,

and he closes eyes in front of it.

2

Others lived in the adjacent room

masked men played havoc,

woman cried aloud as white robes

counted beads in fervent breathings,

while entangled in legs naked.

 

A man in statue lost the will to rule

wishes to take care

of a vacant orphanage,

no one safe in this country

he heard but was thrown out,

a burly push of a butt reduced him

to a cataleptic.

 

He could not cry even

fear of death made a captive,

he knew the struggle,

little cries of tots below

still trying to know life in four walls.

 

Not knew that men clutch women

an awful exhibit of will, a sign of peril,

all had left after the orgy and kill.

 

And a tragic story in smiles grows up

before the fleshy fingers,

talk to the computer

about a gory event of loot and murder.

 

I was quiet and settled down with the man

and words refused to grow wheat,

when tears speak of deep dead

ardour of water

in inner anguish and desolation,

of a flowing river

where words soundless flowed,

and chilled touches of yielding love.

 

One by one, each vanished

the words elapsed into eerie deadness

echoing shrills for a few seconds,

I kept sitting for no exacting rationale.

3

I wanted to measure the pains

misery was the last point,

a strange linkage suits I knew

for one does not have add-ons.

 

As I trembled with a brutal ache

I realized he lived in splinters of voices,

like the chirping of sparrows

and songs of koels moving,

when tie is born in conked similes.

 

I found he is gone into the darkness

of a forest with long tunnels,

of tribal-hooting

 

I stood, blew out a word and was pained

to forget children tears.

 

And a man splits into tiny particles

undoing fastened bonds is rare.

 

Not easy to erase the face of a woman

a wife, a friend and a caretaker,

self-doubting to live in the world,

minus memoirs.

 

I tried to comfort the man within

that world was safe in terror,

and quite aggressive and floating,

in spite of continuing violent acts

and sprinkling of human blood.

 

For it is now a routine

a new culture is born in lull,

absolute.

****