Pitambar Naik | Whereas Their Songs Are Not Theirs | Poets Resist

Pitambar Naik is a poet and writer from Western Odisha in India. He’s a contributing editor for the Punch Magazine and the winner of Write, Publish and Publicise Contest-Bengaluru Poetry Festival, 2019. He’s longlisted for the Rhythm Divine Poetry Chapbook Contest 2018 and the author of The Anatomy of Solitude, a collection of poetry (Hawakal Publishers, Kolkata-2019). His work is forthcoming in Queer Poetry of South Asia¡: HarperCollins India, Eclectica Magazine, Stag Hill Literary Journal and has appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Magazine, Voice and Verse Poetry magazine, Vayavya, Literary Orphans, Mad Swirl, Occulum, The Mark Literary Review, Mojave Heart Review, The Punch Magazine, The Literary Nest, Formercactus, Best Indian Poetry among others.

Also by Pitambar Naik: Grief Rain Elegy 1 Across the Shores of Pain

Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 13, 2019

Pitambar Naik

Whereas Their Songs Are Not Theirs

Whereas their epistemology is fat and fair whereas their darkness ensues in moonlight’s eyelashes whereas they don’t believe life is far away from Ampani village and is equal to just a sack full of charcoals or a pint of mahua beer whereas spring is squeezed in autumn’s sun whereas the only hope — the river in the backyard of Pakur gasps heavily like a dream living below the poverty line Simon Marandi’s two acres of land whines like a rattlesnake whereas their story is not theirs whereas their songs are not theirs, whereas their history is not theirs whereas their thirst is not theirs, they relish on vinegar whereas their hunger is not theirs, they live on salty death whereas they can’t have sex daytime whereas they can’t raise their voice whereas the media is truly called presstitute whereas their rights are just like sheared straws whereas their land is not theirs; whereas their sky is not theirs it’s packed like a sachet of shampoo; whereas the rainbow is not theirs whereas the sunray is not theirs whereas the window to their heaven is not theirs whereas they can’t fuck their landlord’s wife whereas they can’t be in a relationship of their heart whereas they can’t have their own God whereas they can’t call their father, father whereas they can’t become owners of their owners life is an abandoned uninhabited solitary glitch a lonely lambent wick, still refusing to be put out life is an unsung, untagged dead body the greater pockets of fertility, the mythical blessings hides its face, body, and beauty in a void whereas life is not even like a packet of smoke whereas it’s absolutely a wound and angst whereas life is an age-old taboo whereas its a byproduct spins between void and velocity!