Durga Poem Analysis

Durga

The adorations ended on another rainy day, and drowning idols left drunken devotees in venting devotion with their faint chanting. “Stone the bitch”, they shouted: bottles and stones cast at a woman lying dead-still behind a tree.

I tiptoed above the wild heads, saw her bloodless face, and I murmured “durga”. I once knew her, a woman who dreamed of becoming a goddess, and she was always a goddess whenever we warmed cold nights together. An altar boy behind me cursed and threw a stone clouting dead-on on the forehead, and

I heard a moan leaving her lips. The last time I saw her was in a madhouse, but she left it and had been walking the streets singing strange songs:

I was told.

When I find two women live inside the woman whom I love, one consoling the other while the other kneads vengeance. It makes no difference when the flag no longer flutters if asked to in a strange anthem. Which country I belong to for no poetry owns my land. It makes no difference what greying hair means for death is no longer a certainty. It is only a day in the calendar. It makes no difference how old I am when falling leaves turn into butterflies urging autumn to fly without hesitation. And how can I hate my enemy when I see him kissing his child before he leaves home to fight me. Ever since I chased the poem playing mischief in your eyes and began to draw lines on the sands of your river while I ran my fingers in your unkempt hair and squandered my soul, I haven’t stopped muttering – Where am I? But it makes no difference how dark shadows are as I finally close my eyes to the sun. It makes no difference that my land is not a nation as we strive for sovereignty in frivolous valour. The truth is we are lessons short of patriotism. And when my doctor reveals my blood is sick with sweetness it makes no difference of what flavour was the blood we shed on defeated battles. Therefore, it makes no difference what bitter reasons we seek to justify the hate we practice. As I am now incurably sweetened, it makes no

It is believed when a woman hears its calls, she understands her menstruation is about to happen.

My Wife is Away to the Mountains

My wife is away to the mountains visiting her folks.

She left the windows guarded with curtains made of her jainsem.

Last night the moon peeped in through the protective embroidery, but failed to seduce me as I was secured, in the possessive perfume of my love exuding from the wilful drapes.

There are times between midnight and dawn, I dream of an open harbour, swallowing waves of salty ships into her inflamed mouths.

But in the morning, when the north wind flutters my wife’s curtains,

I pity the drowned pirates in their defeats on that adulterous night of stormy lusts.

Then I realize they needed a dedicated poet to calm the storms, who can sprinkle the sacrificial blood of his circumcised words, on the cruel crevices of the wild seas.

Neighbours visit with ritualistic inquiry about my solitude and wellbeing, but their keep-watch concerns reveal through cleverly concealed blushes, reminding me of the wiles of threatened wives in tales told on the moors.

Before dark clouds solicit the sleeping owl, before an aged crow curses me with yellow