ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee is a poet, writer, occasional translator and political science scholar. He is the author of Looking for the Nation: Towards Another Idea of India (Speaking Tiger Books, 2018). His poems have appeared in World Literature Today, Rattle, The London Magazine, New Welsh Review, Acumen, The Fortnightly Review, and others. His first collection of poetry, Ghalib’s Tomb and Other Poems, was published by The London Magazine (2013).
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
A Votary of ‘Fake News’
Poets Resist
Edited by Daniel Cureton
November 21, 2019
Edited by Daniel Cureton
November 21, 2019
Looking for Ram, Looking for Allah
To the memory of Babri Masjid
The day they demolished the mosque
A friend came with sweets.
I thought he walked out of his own funeral.
He smiled the way a man smiles,
When he forgets he is dead.
They celebrated the demolition like
It was a festival. They said,
“Hindus won against history.”
Revenge,
That took five centuries,
Would make barbarians laugh.
The fools lied, they did it for Ram.
Ram is a name for Kabir,
And names do not need temples.
Ram is in the air,
Kabir breathed his name.
Ram dwells in the body, in the tongue,
When body and tongue
Dissolved into the imperceptible.
Ram is not a history
To be dug up like a grave.
It is a memory longer than history.
In Gandhi’s Ram Dhun, Ishwar and Allah
Are neighbours, names that
Speak two histories, torn by blood.
We bleed gods. We offer
More ruins to the altar of history.
Our prayers are slogans,
Our gods are looking for revenge.
Our soul is a long shadow
That lengthens with the dying sun.
No temple will cover the dust
That corrodes the name of god.
No one will rescue us from these gravediggers —
Ram has lost his neighbour.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
