March 21 was declared as World Poetry Day by UNESCO during its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999, with the aim of ‘supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard’. It is the occasion to honour poets and their work. In this series to mark the day, Outlook showcases the works of those who revel in ‘one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity.’
Of The Oil, Kitten, And Crow
The caws of the crow fancies a flight
midst the foggy skyline, ringstrasse.
Wednesday evacuates one kitten’s mewling
from the ruins of the light.
One morning-walker’s face
floats on the motor oil rainbow.
How heavy his creases and contours look;
how light and stock-still as if
there never was a tremor of violence
near this rainwater body!
And then he stares at the crow,
now settled on one jugged fragment of sun.
The kitten whines from the shadows’ debris.
An After-blast Rain
And the after-blast rain
cleanses our gutters and
cherry blossoms alike;
oh, lave us until we
reveal our pith, skeletal basics.
No race for the dead,
we have been reminded often.
The sun bleaches the rubble.
Our smile acid, eyes transfixed,
some roaches scurry up to snuff
the Spring smouldering in the breeze.
A new leaf breaks heart,
we often witness and shiver.
Pieced Cores Hold Together
What does peace do during
a wartime? Drink green
tea in her chill and unlit kitchen
with the news of the belligerent
muted on her east wall?
She prefers the glacial room
to send some shivers and needles
into her core. These days are
her sojourn, of her tarry reveries;
she sits sleepy sleeplessly;
her unborn sons in the conflict,
and the flight of her thoughts
wrecked nose-down amidst a firestorm.
Her tea has turned ice; it burns her tongue;
she has a ruin ready for the refugee words,
to resort to, and yet there comes none.
On her window sill, one bird lowers
a flapping mail. She turns her head
to see. A falcon? A dove may be?
