PRAVAT KUMAR PADHY

PRAVAT KUMAR PADHY

The Day Begins With

The day begins

With reading newspaper.

At breakfast hour

It highlights on the top:

Terrorist rocked the village

Innocent stabbed to death

The city remained darkened

Under murky clouds of curfew.

Dowry-death maintains its

Usual rising graph.

Riots, terrorism, and ragging

Rarely miss any page.

Half of the coverage,

With political bargaining,

All the way eats away.

News on hoarding, raids

Rape, strike, and unrest

Hardly fail to appear.

The rise in price and population

Faithfully ascend

On the graphic scale.

Communal fight

Maintains its publication

As a permanent column.

Every day the newspaper

Cries with morning tears.

Some look at it with the usual way

Others stare with anguish.

Cartoon honestly

Speaks a lot in silence.

Well that is how

The morning shows the day.

Grandpa Says

The poor fisherman

points the finger 

To the plane nosing up the sky.

 “I shall love to fly

But I am neither a bird

Nor I have wings of my own”,

The boy says in a tender voice.

The Grandpa replies,

“You will fly on your wings of passion,

Sweat of hard work and fuel of success”.

Pausing for a while, close to the receding wave

The boy silently picks up a handful of sand.

He draws his dream-sketch

With his tender fingers.

The rolling tears Grandpa humbly veils

Pretending something glued to his eyes.

The Confused Man

Carrying a sword in one hand

And a dove in other,

He is standing

On the slippery edge of time.

His one eye pines

For a new light

And the other,

With a spiteful look,

Stares at the blood-stained field.

His heart

Leaps for entering into a new self,

But the mind

Squabbles for making a beginning of death.

In the darkness of sleazy civilization,

The sword swallowed the hot blood

Of the innocent

And the confused man

Lost at last on the slippery edge of time.

I am a Woman

convenience

of conquering everything

through pages of time

woman slotted to stay

second in the human counting

****        ****      ****

rituals and myths

instill gender bias

wonder nature

never coins in evolution

defining a tree: male or female

****        ****      ****

she is asked

to stand like a tree

no voice, no complain

someone steals away her earth  

mercilessly sowing a sinful seed

****        ****      ****

in despair

she sprints to hold

the rising sun

to gather the warmth

for her forsaken womb

****        ****      ****

the sea

engulfs her hope

as if

the sun sleeps in advance

leaving her alone counting the sands

****    ****    ****

sun dips

behind the distant hill

twilight shadow

veils her lost youthful life

sinking hope in the early evening

****    ****    ****

deep burrows

and the oozing agonies…

like the moon

the cut marks of bravery

she never tries to veil

****   ****   ****

awaiting

the clouds to soothe

with drops of rain

the thick salty tears

fill the craters of her wound

****        ****      ****

wiping tears

gently from her face

with a needle of hope

she threads the pain in between

reading the life, like an anthology of poem

****        ****      ****

Note: The above five-line poems are excerpts

 from the manuscript, ‘I am a Woman”.

PRAVAT KUMAR PADHY

PRAVAT KUMAR PADHY has obtained his Masters of Science and Technology and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, ISM Dhanbad. He has a certification of the Executive Education Programme on “Advanced Management” from IIM-Bangalore. His literary work cited in Interviews with Indian Writing in English, Spectrum History of Indian Literature in English, Alienation in Contemporary Indian English Poetry, Cultural and Philosophical Reflections in Indian Poetry in English, History of Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc. His write ups have been published in leading English and Odia Newspapers including Indian Express, The Times of India, Dharitri, Nabalipi and others. His Japanese short form of poetry (Haiku, Tanka, Haibun, Haiga, Senryu, Tanka Prose) appeared in various international journals and anthologies.He guest-edited “Per Diem, The Haiku Foundation, November Issue, 2019,” (Monoku about ‘Celestial Bodies’).  His poems received many awards, honours and commendations including Writers Guild of India, Editors’ Choice Award at Asian American Poetry, Poetbay, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival International Haiku Honourable Mention, UNESCO International Year Award of Water Co-operation, The Kloštar Ivanić International Haiku Award, IAFOR Vladimir Devide Haiku Award, 7th Setouchi Matsuyama International Photo Haiku Award, and others. He has a page in the American Haiku Registry, The Living Haiku Anthology and The Living Senryu Anthology. His haiku has been chosen for Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku. His work is showcased in the exhibition “Haiku Wall”, Historic Liberty Theatre Gallery in Bend, Oregon,USA and tanka, ‘I mingle’ is featured in the “Kudo Resource Guide”, University of California, Berkeley. The poem, “How Beautiful”, published in 1983 in the leading Newspaper, Indian Express, has been included in the Undergraduate English Curriculum at the university level. He has seven collections of verse to his credit. He holds a place of honour in the World Who’s Who (Europa Biographical Reference, Rutledge, London) and Who’s Who Emerging Writers 2020.