Four themed poems by Rumjhum Biswas

Four poems
by Rumjhum Biswas

The Dreamer

They came in one by one
and touched me with their wands

You have a future here they said and then
they slipped back into the walls

Becoming shadows once more. I knew then
that the dream had ended.

Yet the urge within is deep. I can feel
their shrouds fluttering like dying moths.

I can hear their whispered pleas in my head. I believe
I can. I really can go through life

I have this truth living inside me now. I know
that shadows believe in me, at least.

++++++++++++++++++++

Evening Hymns

In the cloister of the nuns music runs
like treacle

a quiver of hymns flies through still air and pierces
a still sky like needles

an itinerant meteor silently sheds
an omen –

golden flames on the silver shards of hymns rising
in the evening towards heaven

Mother Mary in her grotto shivers and draws in
the piety of nuns

around her like a velour robe. Holy Infant gurgles at the hymns
lying like feather quills on his baby feet

elsewhere in a garden, a jasmine blooms and a song of perfumes
is released quietly into the night

meanwhile, a petal falls from grace
from another

+++++++++++++++++++++

The Church

Every time I close my eyes
I see a bright white Church
stretched out against a bright blue sky.
It is not the Santhome Church
My Church is too small; not grand at all.
It's just a simple one storied structure
with a Cross on its head announcing its mission.

(Why do I keep seeing a Church in my head?
Especially when I do not have even a shred
of religion left in me? And, it is not even
a legitimate dream.)

My vision is washed in translucent light,
the kind of summer yellow
that stills air and stops birds in mid-flight.
And, beneath it, there is this rich, loamy earth,
full of life-giving promises. And, the scene
is so quiet and so still. But it is not serene.
No not at all.

The picture in my head is not serene at all.

++++++++++++++++++++

We Do Not Pray For the Dead

We do not pray any more
For the dead, Lord, instead we screw the living
Lord you started this show
And, the priests bow low, chanting
"Lord have mercy, please Lord have mercy."

So please oh Dad of Dads, motherboard of every
Bastard born, show them your rainbow
But not that techno-colored one
We've been seeing since the first colored
Holy book was printed and the first colored movie
Was shot showing Adam and Eve screwing
Outside your garden and enjoying it.

Show us something more advanced, more sci-fi
Its easier to slip between shadows and make
mine fields out of schools and swat at human lives
like so many flies, if you believe they are aliens.

There is just so much of pain that we can bear and
Just so many lives destroyed that we can repair. Build
again. Start from scratch. Learn new lullabies to sing
To our babies. Oh Lord and Big Daddy Dearest
There is just so much we can do, and we will, provided
You stop dangling that carrot of yours about
This afterlife bull shit. Your priests and holy men
Have fleeced us enough on that stale spiel, yet
Sodom and Gomorrah both exist under new names

We do not even want to pray anymore for the dead
Lord, it's worse than necrophilia. You
Ought to know by now how much
Faith we need before valor.

So just get that rainbow of yours out again
Only this time give us the direct line to the pot
With all its riches for the picking – We cannot forsake
The living. And stop raking up the dust
After we have done with our lives, for
We are the fragile living and the dust of this
Earth is sweet. And the dead are all yours to keep
Delivered on to you in heat and serve plastic bowls.
The Dreamer

They came in one by one
and touched me with their wands

You have a future here they said and then
they slipped back into the walls

Becoming shadows once more. I knew then
that the dream had ended.

Yet the urge within is deep. I can feel
their shrouds fluttering like dying moths.

I can hear their whispered pleas in my head. I believe
I can. I really can go through life

I have this truth living inside me now. I know
that shadows believe in me, at least.

Author bio:

Rumjhum Biswas's prose and poetry have previously appeared in The Bare Root Review, Etchings (Australia), The Little Magazine (India), Eclectica, Nth Position (UK), The King's English, Halfway Down the Stairs, Arabesques Review, Crannog (Ireland), Clockwise Cat, Chanterelle's Notebook, A Hudson View (SA), Lily Literary Review, The Paumanok Review, Poems Niederngasse (Switzerland), Unlikely Stories, Cerebration (UK), Amarillo Bay, Gowanus, Loch Raven Review and Southern Ocean Review (New Zealand). Her poem "Cleavage" was in the longlist of the Bridport Poetry Competition 2006. Three of her poems have been published by Unisun Publishers in their 2007 anthology "The Silken Web". Two poems are forthcoming in separate anthologies by Forward Press of UK. Her short story for The Verb Magazine's "Looking at You Contest" won honorable mention and an excerpt was posted in the October 2007 issue of The Verb. At present, this erstwhile copywriter lives and writes in Chennai.


Editor's note: "The Church" was first published in the Nth Position (UK) in early 2007, and "We do not Pray for the Dead" was first published in Unlikely Stories (USA) in 2006.