by O.P. Jha
Sweating profusely
and visible directly
under the helpless slant eyes
of barren hillocks,
some yards away from
the bruised and bleeding sand-dunes
some steps away from the debris
of a forlorn bunker
filled with hate and anger,
hidden from the cameras
of omnipresent media
that unearths the secret stories
of skeletons
whose flesh was robbed
by unknown paws,
with heavy heart a solitary mother
reaping the crops of a war
that leaves voids in hearts
She’s found broken intestines
of imported bombs
and scattered limbs of a young fighter
living together
as if two life-long enemies have buried
their anguish
and got married after their death
to show their ‘good deeds’
to their respective gods
the tearful detective eyes
of the mother aren’t sure
of the identity of the lacerated limbs
of the warrior
and the crippled intestine
of the bombs
but the bruised skull
resembles her only son’s head
that she’d kissed in her last meet,
the skull emits the same smell even now
as she’d felt while kissing his forehead
when it was full of ambitious flashes
the (late) young man’s ex-girl friend
couldn’t detect his identity
but she’d not forgotten
the body odor of her lover
emitting from his arm-pits
Alas! There’re many deformed arms
but no arm-pit
a mother knows the smell
of her son’s head
a beloved knows the odor
of her lover’s armpits
but the death knows no one
and hate spares nothing in a war-zone
the helpless mother fixes her eyes
on the hillocks
where once upon a time
Jesus had roamed with a herd of lambs
where once upon a time
grasses used to grow
she asks the hillocks:
“Is it the same Middle-East?”
where once upon a time
prophets were born
angels had descended
and faith had found hues
the hillocks know the answer
but their voices are suppressed
under the nudities of our time.
O.P. Jha’s poems and fictions appeared in journals like The Indian Literature, The Daily Tribune, Rigorous, Mantis, You Might Need To Hear This, Punt Volat, Zoetic Press, Discretionary Love and others. His poems have been selected by The Elevation Review and The LKMNDS podcast. He is the author of an inspiring book Management Guru Lord Krishna. He has a Doctoral degree in Translation Studies. He has also translated books of two Turkish writers: Ahmet Hamadi Tanpinar and Yekta Kopan. Email: opjha189@yahoo.com , twitter: @OP Jha17