Teesta Review: A Journal of
Poetry, Volume 5, Number 2. November
2022. ISSN: 2581-7094
Ring out your notes of Triumph
-- SunilSharma, Robert Maddox-Harle, and Jaydeep Sarangi
Editorial Note: This article presents a poetic sequence resulting from
the collaborative efforts of Sunil Sharma (India) Robert Maddox-Harle
(Australia) Jaydeep Sarangi (India). The first section is by Sunil, the second
(after asterisks) by Rob, and the third (after asterisks) by Jaydeep.
Triumph may be of several kinds.
There's triumph in the room
When that old imperator, Death,
By faith is overcome.
(Emily Dickinson)
Note One:
…Then the Covid-19 swooped down taking the
Phoenician sailor by surprise in the Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, where he was
hunting for rubies for his Byzantine mistress; different timescales/timelines
colliding fast in the same moment of realization that time can fuse as a
seamless entity in its spiritual domain, glimpsed as a single thread; the
deaths were there and panic global, rampant, and the sailor thought he was back
in the Black Death years, as an Elizabethan, then walking through the Eliot
Wasteland and an Algerian, in the Plague of Camus.
Sometimes, triumph comes in many forms,
nationalities, geographies, experiences and ages but at its core, remains
simple, similar – nothing can beat human spirit, despite grim-faced death
stalking!
As he defeated
– dying –
On whose
forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
(Emily Dickinson)
Note Two:
Defeated but not down!
That is
how she said. And
chuckled.
The morning was
grey
and mood
sombre. The results were
grim. But
she laughed,
oh! These medical reports!
I will bounce
back, sure, soon.
They knew the
reality which was not unknown to
Her…but.
And, when she
was brought back home,
On the
stretcher, in a white sheet
the eyes,
although closed
and face wane,
still strongly
suggested
the contours of
a frozen
faint smile!
*******************
The notes of Triumph
must play-on
calling us to rise
above the mire,
above Camus’ absurdity
of life!
Yes!
My glass is always
half-full
always never,
half-empty,
when in doubt I recall
Grandma’s adage:
“I complained because I had no shoes,
until I met a man who had no feet!”
Walking on, barefoot,
carefully
slowly through the
Lantana of life,
rising above the mud,
Lotus-like
to hear the sounds of
Triumph.
Each day I hear these
sounds,
bees gathering nectar
from the flowers,
the birdsong heralding
the break of day
rain drops tinkling
the ground,
little notes of
Triumph all around.
Sing and rejoice with
these,
the miracles of nature
calling.
*******************
Triumph of the Home
I try to think of home
where my feet are
door after door
with a key that is not.
I travel between joy and more joy
Not understanding what to grow into myself.
Dense jungle and deep water
White mountains and smart springs
My legs know them all.
My daughter has a question,
‘Where is the window?’
I see one there, aging one
in the distance, where
The forest queen sits. My daughter
Takes me for a ride every month
beyond my failures and success.
The house has become a home
for minds, words and more words
stitching them into a full song!
Come, my comet
by Sunil Sharma (India) Robert Maddox-Harle (Australia) Jaydeep Sarangi
(India)
Be my comet!
Lead me
across the blue-orange-red
territory by
your brilliance, a tail illuminating
your pathway
across the clear heavens;
the ice and
dust and sun producing
a solar
system spectacle
so
spectacular
that
mesmerized the astronauts, poets and priests
the effect
documented by these
in lines,
lyrical, numinous, deathless;
the Blessed
Eyes from Stratford-upon-Avon recorded these
time-defying
lines for the Elizabethans and posterity:
Comets, importing change
of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
How true! How
mystical!
The celestial dance reveals
the mysteries of the universe
and the Prime Mover who goes by many names
in many centuries, countries and cultures,
across time-space continuum
You, be my comet,
energize my feeble
body
and inspire me to
float on the sea of darkness
towards that spot far
off on the
horizon
woken up by the pink
dawn
a distant destination
that beckons the ceaseless travellers,
every age –
a place, well-lit!
********************
Yet!
the celestial dance
holds secrets
darkness an enigmatic
veil.
Hale-Bopp – Halleys –
21Borisov
thrill and explode our
ignorance.
21Borisov come again
soon
to expose our genesis
arcane screts of
interstellar time-travel.
Hale-Bopp’s firey
fly-by
an omen for some,
“Heaven’s Gate” knocked on heaven’s
door!
Hale-Bopp’s earlier
firey fly-by
a portend of Mark
Twain’s exit.
What about Halley’s
spectacle?
What about Nibiru’s
rogue child?
The end of earth is
nigh,
a conspiracy theory
regurgitated by idiocy.
Rosetta and Deep
Impact
astonishingly accurate
probes
guided by Nasa and the
ESA
visited Comet 76P and
9P/Tempel
to unveil the
mysteries of our solar system.
But my comet’s
mysteries remain,
malefic, benefic,
benign?
icey, firey and awe
inspiring!
*******************
Come, mysterious comet
Heart is raining,
I go down life’s
burning pyre.
Stellar amnesia,
without light
tossing of light
particles,
breaking the brittle
stones
mourning for thirteen
days
draining, ugly. Warp.
Injured butterflies,
breathing hard in
fishing nets
losing all chroma,
long tails
with the rhythm of the
sun.
Solar distance opens
its mouth.
Slush groans and
narratives are
cursive letters in the
moonlit darkness.
The playful insect's
orange aqua-marine hue
Is a lovely spectacle
to view
My heart leaving
family fables
and the thesaurus of
silence
tirelessly seeks the
old sun.
My home of thoughts
gives birth
somewhere, beyond this
starry ward.
River
by Sunil Sharma (India) Robert Maddox-Harle (Australia) Jaydeep Sarangi
(India)
A river springs up
and runs its full course
within a heart aching for
the Old River that once flowed
near a village of childhood,
now gone forever;
Both the rivers – real
and felt-imagined
converge and fuse into
a single sparkling source
of inspiration, hymns and songs
...and the fresh
avatar
spills across the computer screen
in words,
Cascading
sparkling!
*******************
Then the ancestor
spirits materialise
protectors of the
silent flowing,
Big River country
home of the Bundjalung
people
custodians of this
ancient land.
The river to them also
real,
and imagined,
flowing in parallel
dimensions
accessible to the
initiated.
Flow on river – flow!
The sacred river
merges with the sea,
a liminal zone where
mermaids play,
where dolphins break
the surface
cruising the calm
waters
then surfing the
crashing waves,
always smiling with
their arcane secrets.
********************
When
you are anonymous, nobody knows you
Nobody
reads your rise and fall, nobody prints your poems.
My
Dulung, if you allow me to speak, let me say,
No
one is anonymous. People run after his name.
All
rivers are caregivers, mothers.
All
are busy with painting their houses.
My
home town, its green monsoons
Red
soils, ancient temples and fellow bards
Near
the banks of Dulung I hear a local owl’s late cry
In
the bare earth my ancestors rest in peace.
I
choose a place, call it native
You
are my brother. I am your river
Of
life flowing downstream.
Carrying
history, languages
Of our land, your land and my people.
Connected by a river flowing through the hearts
My friends at Lismore or in Mumbai
Hold a blue lid, never frayed at its rims.
I
gather its silence. My Dulung is heavy with
Seasonal
weariness, a stillness my father showed
once
holding my fingers tight. There hung
a darkness, I only want to renew myself.
The river flows
through the gates
I visit the ghats of the Ganges, prayers
mingle at the Murray Mouth.
Love, multi-headed!
by Sunil Sharma (India) Robert Maddox-Harle (Australia) Jaydeep Sarangi
(India)
And they were talking of love
in the PG classroom of a colonnaded college
situated some in-between space of coloniality,
post-coloniality and neo-colonialism;
a recitation of Donne
in Indian accents,
notions of the British love via the Bard and TS Eliot,
the Indian connection lost amid daffodils and tulips;
These immortal lines hovering as old mists over landscapes metaphysical,
modern and waste-landish:
– And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for Love.
– this Valentine's Day, shops are selling cards and balloons,
red, heart-shaped, with discounts;
he is texting a love who is texting someone else,
Starbucks is full in Mumbai,
couples searching for places to settle down
and discuss love, new millennium, second decade;
– and this mid-morning call about the interview in Bandra
about a low-skill, low pay job, tomorrow,
that will keep hunger at bay and make them toil for the capital,
all their humdrum lives!
**********************
Love is a mysterious four letter word …..
glorifying the love of
God,
securing love of King
and Country,
exalting qualities of
lovers,
spawning an abundance
of writing ….
words and words and
words.
Doctor Zhivago
watching Lara board the train,
Romeo pining outside
Juliet’s window,
“Here’s looking at you
kid!”
immortal lines and
scenes
heart rending images
and impressions,
heart aches and tears
reinforcing what it is
to be human.
Robots can walk and
talk and dance,
machines can think and
draw and kill
but they cannot feel!
they cannot love!
they cannot harbour
broken hearts!
hearts torn
mercilessly from their moorings.
people with hearts of
stone become machine-like
heads, hatred, greed
and violence rule,
love is, “a total
explosion of the heart.”
******************
When Hearts Court
Life’s river flows
through hearts
Red brings more red in
it.
Meanwhile, December rain disappears
My heart is heavy, men come and go.
Happiness is dancing joyously
on long wires
like a rope - dancer.
Weather rolls on. My dearest
meets me near the old
temple.
My friend move, stand
near the bank
of a river, always a
caregiver
She draws downpour
from afar
manifesting life’s
promises in myriad hues
She is the splinter of
sleep, minds court on bed.
Happiness sparkles all
the more bright under unseen clouds.