Youth & democracy: 5 poems

I. Poetry

The tiny voices of those

who had even once stared

out of the window of a classroom,

Looking for the poetry

of a whole flower - on the dissection table,

lies the operated flower in parts - stigma, stamen, sepal.

You are told,

this is the move

from gaze to knowing

But you know

it is beyond the walls

you learn to hold

the flower whole

and inhale the origin

of all poetry.

II. Untitled

promises and promises

give it a miss

it is unsure

why

you promised me the moon

and dotted on my nails

the black stain of your promises

I live with the regret

yet another five years

Optimist that I am

you will find me yet again

lining up in the queue

amongst stones and dust

of the rumbling school

roofless from your promises

waiting for the stain

secretly folding your promises

sliding it down

the box of dreams of democracy

locked securely for another five years

is lies and lies and lies

Yet I believed

like a love struck luckless lover

I wish I had chosen

another polish for my nails

Haripriya Soibam is an independent researcher. She has been a FWO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. She was also a Fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), Shimla. Soibam Haripriya has taught at the Centre for Sociology and Social Anthropology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati campus and Gender Studies Programme, Ambedkar University. Her research interests include violence studies, gender studies and anthropology of fiction/poetry. Her (edited) forthcoming book Homeward (2021) is published by Zubaan, New Delhi. She is also a poet and her poems have appeared in anthologies such as A Map Called Home (2018), Centrepiece (2017), 40 Under 40: An Anthology of Post-Globalization Poetry (2016). Some of her poems have been included in ‘Muse India’ (May-June 2019) issue, ‘Poetry at Sangam’ (July 2019) issue and the bi-monthly journal of Sahitya Akademi— ‘Indian Literature’.

III. In Clear Light

One foot already on the other side

part of you, distant future-looking

you will soon be exiled from comfort

always be in clear light

of that which you see in the mirror.

if the lights dim outside

incubate the rage curled in your belly.

do you remember your kindergarten crayon river

emerging from between hills flowing outside of the frame?

now that you are older than that

the clamour of the world awaits you

perhaps outside of the frame

of what we taught you

and you will teach us your fury.

IV. Pandemic City

Understand, my rage is basic, uncomplicated

against the empty clanging of utensils,

hollow echoes of applause.

For which dislocated human

have walked home without doubt?

Of all the bricks that

passed those callused hands

shaping concrete and mortar

into ivory tower edifice,  

cities are, but, grids of desolation

V. Dream/ Delusion

Everything unravels including the sky.

Dusk is caught as a lump in my throat

Each day, how easily unmade. How easily a page can be blank.

Wordless, the poet collect shards of broken dreams of words

as if a souvenir of youth.

And youth? What age it was!

How we thought a poem will bring down the nation at our feet!

Youth, that age we held finite alphabets

dreamt of coaxing infinite poetry.

Break or get broken in this encounter,

But so lopsided it was, it is

Words against bombs, stones against bullets.

Youth, so easily a time between living and dying

and words could be a conversation been lovers

or the last to litter memory with.