IT HAS BEEN THERE ALL ALONG
An old anger glints with lust
This Earth in the void
They say is resting
On four elephants that are standing
On a turtle swimming
In the void
If you break the egg it will splinter
In space without a sound
And I want to go down
And slaughter those four elephants
And, smash the turtle’s shell
Scattering its meat
Beyond Kuiper’s edge
And, then I would like to return
To crush this earth
Between the two palms of my hands
That will take on mammoth shapes
Like the haunches of Atlas, and
Water will be squeezed out
From my knuckles
I feel like doing that today
Just like that day years ago
When I saw this bald baby
All blisters and sores on his head, and
His beggar mother cooing and clucking
All over him, and making such a sticky jam
Of her love
For that obscene monstrosity of a baby
That I just felt like pulling on a pair of gloves
And, crushing its bald monkey head between
The two palms of my hands
And the thought was so real
I puked all over
My white school uniform
And had to return home in disgrace.
(It's Been There All Along was first published in the online journal Unlikely Stories, USA)
COLOUR
Once upon a time, long, long ago, the humble
home-made papad could actually become foreign-returned
‘pepper biscuits’ with a simple flick of a wrist opening
a manila envelope. Madras Checks flipped outright
into a fashion-fabric by its mere sound –
the rrrip of the envelope proclaiming the status of the visa,
the granting of sacred admission into hallowed grounds -
a Little India far, far away, from Big India.
So the pucca brown sahibs packed and un-packed and re-packed
turning up the buttons of their noses,
only just a little, for courtesy is a hallmark of sahibdom,
or so they believed in those days. But Mother remained unimpressed.
Mother did worry, though about the fates of her own burnished daughters,
especially now that their school mates were leaving
for foreign shores,
so blithely. She bathed her daughters everyday
with turmeric and milk. And, she told her daughters
many times over, that she’d had a choice of suitors
when she was young,
short-listed from a bushel of letters.
Afterwards, mother graciously sent the servant boy out
to get samosas, crisp yellow and hot, with dollops
of brown tamarind chutney – “they won’t get those when they get there,”
she forecast with the prescience of a weather bulletin,
as she surveyed a pale dry fruit cake, her specialty standing proudly
on a white Victorian cake plate that once had belonged
to her mother and the precious bone-china tea things elegantly scattered
on her inherited ivory lace tablecloth…Her aquiline nose
turning slowly towards the door when it rang, at last.
Perhaps the little things sensed her disdain, then again
may be they realized as they sat there
consuming their farewell tea,
where the price of their tickets truly lay.
(Colour was first published in the print magazine Etchings, Australia)
Rumjhum Biswas has been published in countries in all the five continents in both online and print journals and anthologies. One of her poems was long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2006. She has won prizes in poetry contests in India. Her poem “March” was commended in the Writelinks’ Spring Fever Competition, 2008. Her story "Ahalya’s Valhalla” was among Story South’s Million Writers’ notable stories of 2007. She was a participating poet in the 2008 Prakriti Foundation Poetry Festival in Chennai. She was a featured poet during the Poetry Slam organized jointly by the US Consul General, Chennai and The Prakriti Foundation in December 2009. She blogs at: http://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com/
An old anger glints with lust
This Earth in the void
They say is resting
On four elephants that are standing
On a turtle swimming
In the void
If you break the egg it will splinter
In space without a sound
And I want to go down
And slaughter those four elephants
And, smash the turtle’s shell
Scattering its meat
Beyond Kuiper’s edge
And, then I would like to return
To crush this earth
Between the two palms of my hands
That will take on mammoth shapes
Like the haunches of Atlas, and
Water will be squeezed out
From my knuckles
I feel like doing that today
Just like that day years ago
When I saw this bald baby
All blisters and sores on his head, and
His beggar mother cooing and clucking
All over him, and making such a sticky jam
Of her love
For that obscene monstrosity of a baby
That I just felt like pulling on a pair of gloves
And, crushing its bald monkey head between
The two palms of my hands
And the thought was so real
I puked all over
My white school uniform
And had to return home in disgrace.
(It's Been There All Along was first published in the online journal Unlikely Stories, USA)
COLOUR
Once upon a time, long, long ago, the humble
home-made papad could actually become foreign-returned
‘pepper biscuits’ with a simple flick of a wrist opening
a manila envelope. Madras Checks flipped outright
into a fashion-fabric by its mere sound –
the rrrip of the envelope proclaiming the status of the visa,
the granting of sacred admission into hallowed grounds -
a Little India far, far away, from Big India.
So the pucca brown sahibs packed and un-packed and re-packed
turning up the buttons of their noses,
only just a little, for courtesy is a hallmark of sahibdom,
or so they believed in those days. But Mother remained unimpressed.
Mother did worry, though about the fates of her own burnished daughters,
especially now that their school mates were leaving
for foreign shores,
so blithely. She bathed her daughters everyday
with turmeric and milk. And, she told her daughters
many times over, that she’d had a choice of suitors
when she was young,
short-listed from a bushel of letters.
Afterwards, mother graciously sent the servant boy out
to get samosas, crisp yellow and hot, with dollops
of brown tamarind chutney – “they won’t get those when they get there,”
she forecast with the prescience of a weather bulletin,
as she surveyed a pale dry fruit cake, her specialty standing proudly
on a white Victorian cake plate that once had belonged
to her mother and the precious bone-china tea things elegantly scattered
on her inherited ivory lace tablecloth…Her aquiline nose
turning slowly towards the door when it rang, at last.
Perhaps the little things sensed her disdain, then again
may be they realized as they sat there
consuming their farewell tea,
where the price of their tickets truly lay.
(Colour was first published in the print magazine Etchings, Australia)
Rumjhum Biswas has been published in countries in all the five continents in both online and print journals and anthologies. One of her poems was long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2006. She has won prizes in poetry contests in India. Her poem “March” was commended in the Writelinks’ Spring Fever Competition, 2008. Her story "Ahalya’s Valhalla” was among Story South’s Million Writers’ notable stories of 2007. She was a participating poet in the 2008 Prakriti Foundation Poetry Festival in Chennai. She was a featured poet during the Poetry Slam organized jointly by the US Consul General, Chennai and The Prakriti Foundation in December 2009. She blogs at: http://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com/
