Poems: Of Journeys, Recurring Thoughts, Sadness and Fragrance

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.