Poems by Sudeep Sen

(Painting by Sujoya Roy)

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Om: A Cerement

Architecture of frozen music.

— Goethe

 

In my city, I am surrounded by constant cries
   of the dying, burning pyres heaving

under burden of wood, smoke and bones —
   wailing summed up by sonic notes of Om.

Civilisation’s first sound—Sanskrit syllable
   echoing a conch shell’s harmonic mapping —

its involute spiral geometry holding within
   and emanating airborne sonar screams.

My ancestors, grandmothers, mother — blew
   into this smooth shell cupped in their palms,

held intimately as if it were a talisman,
   a prayer, a pranayam in yoga’s daily ritual.

But breathing is a privilege these days —
   pandemic-struck, oxygen-deprived,

my friends perish, the country buckles, airless.
   Even an exquisite cerement lacks the sheen

or wax to wrap the contours of a corpse now.
   Each day as I write endless condolence notes,

etching dirge-like couplets on gravestones —
   my city continues to be dug up — not to make

space for burial sites, but for palaces of illusion:
   an architecture of frozen music, greed, calumny.

A country without a government,
   a country without a post-office—Shahid laments:

“Let me cry out in that void, say it as I can.
   I write on that void.”Om’s celebration now

an unceasing requiem. Yet we chant in hope,
    for peace: Om Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.

 

Language

Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally.

— Italo Calvino

 

   My typewriter is multilingual,
its keysmysteriously calibrating


   my bipolar, forked tongue.
Black-red silk ribbon spools, unwinds

   as the carriage moves right to left.
In cursive hand, I write from left to right.
 
   My tongue was born promiscuous —
speaking in many languages.

   My heart spoke another, my head
yet another — the translation, seamless.

   *

   Auricles, ventricles pump blood —
corpuscle-like alphabets, phrases, syntax

   cross-fertilize my text, breathing life.
Texture enriched — music, cadence

   spatially enhanced — osmotic,
polyglottal — a polygamy of grammar.

   Letterforms dance, ligatures pirouette —
ascenders, descenders — pitch perfect.
 
   Imagination isn’t caged in speech —
speech cannot be caged in language.

 

Burning Ghats, Varanasi

Over-heated flaming pyres of the burning dead
            partially shield my sight of river Ganges —
its fast muddy currents eddying the floating lamps,
                        bathing bodies, 
                                    remains of corpses, flesh-bone ash.

At Manikarnika Ghat, a mixture of sanctity and stench
            rises from silted sands and wooden armatures —
fire-aided decomposition of human flesh —
            the offerings swiftly lapped up by roaming animals.
An emaciated sadhu with wild-knotted dreadlocks,
                                    perched precariously on a bamboo frame
                                                on the edge of the river,
dreams of alms that might come his way,
                                    even at this late hour.

Presiding priests, feed ritual ghee
            to the burning wood-and-dead —
                                                its flames forming huge flares,
                        fragmented waves of golden-amber spark,
electrifying helical fire-flurries —
                                    a living, crematorium drama.

A young boy scratches his newly-shaven head,
            a pot-bellied man immerses himself in the river,
stray dogs bark, cows groan, loudspeakers bray.
Gandhi’s posters ghat-side walls preach peace, non-violence.
            Amid so much noise,
                        the business of death being transacted
carries on, without any emotion or fuss.

Saffron-robed men on ghat-steps
                                    sit in yoga postures, praying —
                                                            a silent quest —
what does prayer amid all this din and commerce
                                                get you anyway?

Medley of bells, conch, chant, fire, water, boat, people
            ceases to be a cacophony after a few hours —
variant decibels melding into a drone, a trance —
                        where the only balance that exists,
is in our minds.

Bare-headed, bare-bodied young men,
                                    draped in swathes of pure cotton, 
            foreheads smeared in sandalwood and vermillion
                        carrying ash-filled earthen pots —
walk past me towards the river-edge,
detached —   
            eldest sons performing last rites for their dead.

White-clad teachers    squatting cross-legged on the ghat
                        under large circular cane-parasols
            impart teachings from the Upanishads and Vedas
to young priests-in-the-making.

Illuminated cane-lanterns
            hang on long bamboo poles curving skywards —
                        homage to the memory of martyrs — 
guiding light for heavenly apsaras
descending during the Kartik month to bathe in Kashi —
as oil-soaked wicks flickering on beds of rose petal, sail
                                                catching the waves’ moods.                           
In the super-heated pyre, I hear another ritual pot break,
                        another skull crack, another soul take flight.
I see some shore-temples slow-sink
                                                into the swallowing river —
effects of unpredictable tides and climate change
taking with them, both the mortal and the immortal —
Holocene’s carbon-footprint — its death text, unceasing.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust —
                        water to heavy water, life to after-life.

 

Hope: Light Leaks

Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Late at night, light leaks — spilling
   beyond the door’s rectangle edge —

a cleaving schism, its shape —
   a partial crucifix, a new resurrection.

Light’s plane waxes, wanes —
   viral load expands, contracts.

Photons spill, conduction sparks —  
light slow removes cataract’s veil.

   In this blackness, lives matter.

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Sudeep Sen’s [www.sudeepsen.org] is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature and ‘one of thefinest English-language poets in the international literary scene’ (BBC Radio). He received a Pleiades Honour (at the Struga Poetry Festival, Macedonia) for having made “a significantcontributiontocontemporaryworldpoetry”. His prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New &Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Rain, Aria (A. K. Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Vintage: Penguin Random House), KaifiAzmi: Poems | Nazms(Bloomsbury) and Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation (PippaRann, 2021-22 Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize winner).

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