PANKHURI SINHA

 

PANKHURI SINHA

 

The Crisis Of Acknowledgement

 

That really

It leaves us folks bewildered

That our rights

Can be so calmly taken away

Dissolved, almost

And as we come in

With a dazed look

Gaping faces

Open mouthed

Vacant eyes

Speechless

Out of words

Please acknowledge that condition

That oratory is not possible

With that kind of visible discrimination

Obedience to an autocratic command

Tell me, how I am oppressing you

Cannot be maintained

Ages after ages

Like modern electricity

Did not reach them

Us

It’s a fundamental disagreement

About people’s understanding of their own rights.

 

Don’t Go Back There

 

Back in that house

Where I had the lovely rubber plant

And that plant called

The angel plant

From china

And there was going to be

An amethyst outcrop

On the glass coffee table

Along with the tiny cactus plants

With that colored top

In a glass plate

And a garnet outcrop

On the corner shelf

But amethyst

Being her favorite stone

Shined the brightest

And she

Was going to do the basement

With fine carpet

And may be

Not so fine carpet

And host the birthday parties

Of her children

That ultimately were not born

Were simply not allowed to be born.

I was going to do the basement

And make it ready

For the children.

Do not go back there

By the glass coffee table

Where the amethyst outcrop

Was going to be placed

Amethyst is what they wear around me

A lot, these days

And I suspect

He has informed them

Amethyst was my favorite stone

Still

Do not go back there.

 

Patient Poems

 

The ice cream today

Was completely prescriptive

Was taken

As she began to feel the anger

Unbearable anger

In her stomach

Eventually

Trickling down

From her brain

All of the enzymes

The names of which

Can be googled

Began their secretion

Diagrams can be fetched

I am sure

Online

But this is no myth

That anger

Of the kind

That she was talking about

Was being made to deal with

Produced the kind of acidic

Alkaline

Corrosive fluids

That wreaked havoc

In that wonder organ

Called the stomach.

And in the brain.

To see it all

The complete process

In a video

Would help more

Meanwhile

Ice cream

Just physically cools

Down the anger.

The feeling is as real

As physically feeling it.

Except that anger

Becomes as unbearable

As pain.

 

Calling Upon Fever

 

Calling upon fever

With a million gadgets of control

Wired in

Almost to your body

Or to your naked brain

With all its soft and delicate tissues

Ruffled, trespassed, electrocuted

Beautiful thoughts

Stored for the next day

All images

Pictures

Deleted almost

Sent away

Cannot be recalled

Vanished

Disappeared in far off places

The fading of human memory

The end of the game

Fever calls

Why do they do it?

 

Getting Rid Of The Nurse

 

Getting rid of the nurse

Rather

The nurse like vigilante

The nurse

But

A nurse

Is what I want

What I need

In the ward

Where I really

Need to be

Want to be

Although

There are many kinds of medical

Attention that I need

Many medicines

Rest

End of all chores

Freedom from stress

Release from a prison

Of people’s surveillance

Hospitalization

Exhaustion

Fatigue

Weakness

Germs

Brought on

Anemia

Caused

Problems of extra care taking

People who take away

My remaining coffee

Move the plate

I am focused on

Away from me

It’s amazing

How the well wishers

Talk about the merits of eating less

Even as you suffer from severe malnourishment

Are being treated for it

Of course, not to be forgotten

Are a few preceding years

Which witnessed the onslaught of

What’s being called stress

In common language

Without describing

The magnitude

And the industrial scale of it

Also, the preceding years

Witnessed the onslaught

Of a rightlessness

Incomprehensible

Including

The missing health coverage

Which in itself

Caused diseases

In the land of universal care

But stress, of course

Is not a disease.

 

PANKHURI SINHA

 

PANKHURI SINHA: Bilingual poet and story writer from India, who has lived in North America for 14 years and has two books of poems published in English, two collections of stories published in Hindi, five collections of poetries published in Hindi, with many more lined up. Has won many prestigious, national-international awards, has been translated in over twenty-two languages. Her writing is dominated by themes of exile and immigration, gender equality and environmental concerns.