SUNIL SHARMA

SUNIL SHARMA

NO NESTS FOR THESE

The stork lands up on the tree top

on the outer wall of a reservoir

this rainy morning,

coastal city,

confused.

With wetlands, lakes and ponds

stolen forever by the builder-bureaucrat-politician lobby

hungry for every inch of the land

in a democracy.

the stork has no place to claim as home---

like the less- fortunate guys,

the migrants

and workers displaced from

village economy

and

middle-class people

toiling hard

in Mumbai or

elsewhere

for a dignified existence

as equal partners

in God's just creation.

BEND IN THE ROAD

…at the bend of a road

climbing up in the hills

the middle-aged couple lean against the railing

waiting…

for their picture to be clicked.

The desolation of the road

the crevices below

the tired smiles, all merge and then

caught

as a post

for the Facebook/Instagram-consumption

ordinary moments

documented

and

circulated on the social media

gestures, smiles, postures

individual

yet standardized

personal histories

eager to be salvaged

from general amnesia

and cultural clutter

of a land of billion-plus stories

waiting to erupt!

SADISM OF URBAN KIND

Post-mid-night yelps

wake up the light sleepers

in a house full of imported furniture

all covered with white sheets.

The howls, intermittent, bitter, wolf-like,

as in a Dracula film, often shown as re-runs

on the smart TV sets, Indian homes that discuss

things American, in British English.

Drunken laughter follows

each yelp

in the alley lined with

high-rises, glass-n-chrome,

South of Mumbai:

a landscape

dark, ominous, forbidden---inside/outside.

The pain of the dogs---understood most

by the lone inmate of that

little room with strong

smells of medicines

and little laughter;

family rooms closed

at this and other

hours---forever.

SUNIL SHARMA

SUNIL SHARMA is Mumbai-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 19 published books: Six collections of poetry; two of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, eight joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, one joint poetry collection. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award---2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015. Sunil edits the English section of the monthly bilingual journal Setu published from Pittsburgh, USA: