A War Poem?

Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a thousand faces?
is a war hero, overcoming personal and historical?
limits to win a battle, to realise a spiritual goal;?
to reach the source where all resolves, ?
where permanence is found, self and society reborn.?
If the goal is Homeric there are no limits to reaching it,?
no limits to obstacles, trials, human suffering?
for the journey is an eagle’s flight ?
from the personal to the transpersonal?
from a thieving shifting ego ?
to the steady flame of egolessness.?
If there are fiery demons at every crossing?
there are mentors to guide the adventurer?
on a searing journey riven by human suffering.?
If freedom is the goal, democracy is an outfall?
worth preserving for it brings dignity and voice?
to a society desperately looking for democratic heroes?
in a world where unjourneyed leaders, democratically elected?
halt the wheel, compelling a stasis of passionless conformism?
in a passionate vortex of rising authoritarian power.?
?

Repeat?

The same thought…?
A woodpecker hammering in the day?
An owl sleepless in the night.?
I am not good enough?
appears even in reports officially submitted?
where a single point repeats itself in a slurry?
of words, not sharp as nails, one for each issue,?
hammered in the coffin, sealing it sharply?
but slurry — wet, vacuous, hapless.?
The repetition feels like autism except that there is ?
communication, social response, even action controlled.?
The owl craves food at night, not from hunger?
but from a quality of missingness?
of love; of light.?
Despite the logic of obesity, tooth decay, dyspepsia, insomnia…?
too many thoughts repeating themselves?
volatile, violent….?
much like the violence I see?
outside.?

?

Recovery?

When despondency worked like glue into her entrails?
She tried pulling out her entrails with her hands but ?
ended up pulling at the sun and the stars and the moon?
till everything blurred into one drowsy cloud of despair.?
When all the plucking had been done, she went to her teacher.?
Have you lodged a First Information Report with the Police. An FIR??
An FIR? she repeated.?
Yes. F for the frequency of the attack; I for the intensity; R for the recovery.?
Recovery??
Yes, speed of recovery. If you want to escape the tortures of police custody,?
their plucking out your eyes, your entrails, your hair, your limbs, one by one.?
Yes, she said. Recovery. R for Recovery. Speed…?
?

Cake?

It was a large plain cake that I carried to my ?
son’s kindergarten class — centred with the numeral 3 ?
and four multi-coloured candles arced around.?
From a corner, I saw his body tense as a knife?
relax to Aunty Bobb’s happy birthday song ?
as she led a discordant chorus of sing-song voices.?
Painfully shy, he beamed like a high-watt bulb, ?
happy that everyone ate though he ate nothing?
watching the coloured wax cleave to the cake.?
?
Ever since, I can bake only large plain cakes,?
more whole wheat now than flour, occasionally making concessions?
for chocolate and apple; rum-soaked tangerines and dates;?
gateaux and flans, truffles and tarts ?
bought as fancy treats for others.?
For the family, butter and sugar beaten till creamy?
eggs dropped one at a time; dry elements ?
alternating with wet; always the dry after the wet?
till the mixture drops into a greased tin smooth as?
slurry, ready for the hot orange coils of the oven.?
?
There is always fragrance — of chocolate, vanilla, ?
date or apple long after the cake is done;?
risen like a buoyant cock at dawn?
or sunk like a lifeline withdrawn?
or unrisen as stone.?
For fragrance will swarm the airwaves,?
even when the fragrance is deceptive.?
??
Neera Kashyap is a writer of short fiction, poetry, essays and book reviews. She has authored a book of short stories for young adults, Daring to Dream (Rupa Publications) and contributed to several prize-winning anthologies of children’s literature.
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