Poems: ‘The After Effect’ and ‘De- branched or Not?’
By: Sandeep Kumar Mishra
The After Effect
Why is it necessary?
A row of lights when we are supposed to sleep,
Colorful Neon fantasies when we are to dream,
Intoxicants slow our breath
When we should be panting with labor;
Why are there two personalities?
When we have our shadows;
Yes, they call it progress or may be
It is another name for self-destruction,
We intentionally suspend ourselves
Between the seas and the skies
When we have the earth beneath our feet;
Why the trees of thesis,
Grow the fruits of antithesis?
While there is rich land of synthesis
As we stand among the crowd to
Feel the weight of empty space;
Perhaps we want to hear the whispers
Of stars and planets
But with dead ear to human voice,
Each face is filled with its own far away death
And all travelling with the pack of lies,
Why we not start everything with love?
Always conjoining unlovely things;
We count billion but
To consecrate the hour alone,
Why our consciences strive to be true?
Is it sensible emptiness?
We long to drink the pure mirage,
There is obscurity all around,
Every heart is dipped in dark India ink,
The sky nurses on black milk,
The earth trembles with its own movement,
Passing day by day are chances, beauty and youth
With its burden of fear and hope of labor and play,
A poet is also part of this dilemma,
If a poem becomes an enigma,
If a poem does not offer a solution,
Don’t read or look at it;
Otherwise it will affect you like an after effect
Of a wrongly prescribed medicine
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De- branched or Not?
They say going away is
But an initial of creation,
Be it a big bang or a garden fruit,
When they are ripe or ready,
They are de-branched;
But I prefer a simple union,
Not a detached one
Because avalanches wait for
Those who strays far and wide,
Then half of the life is wiping
The other half for cleaning;
Why going off is part of the process?
Why is this division or decrement?
One part detached, one part united,
How dispersal changes into sweet attraction?
It is a wireless connection
With relationship at various levels;
We would love more or forget completely
The distance defines the correlations;
We will meet but misfortune suffices
A refuge for the time;
It is not the matter of gain or loss
A joy kindles the sadness of separation