ACROSS THE OCEANS (ISSUE 5)
Mississippi River, Credit: Marshall G. Kent (USA)
THE WOMAN IN THE ROCKING CHAIR
By Santosh Bakaya
In her lonesome heart
A lone wave curls around itself
Unfurling bottled fragrances.
They waft out, uncorked
Serenading the woman who rocks in the rocking chair
Rock, rock it goes in sync with the ticking clock.
From a ramshackle hovel comes the sound of grinding
It is the skeletal woman trying to survive on squashed dreams.
Crushing them on mortar and pestle
Stuffing them in aluminum vessels
And dreaming on, grinding on.
In the lawn, the woman in the chair rocks.
The world mocks the wrinkled woman gazing
Unseeingly at the dust motes.
In them she glimpses her happy memories merrily cruising.
With triumphant joy one more wrinkle settles on her face.
At her feet, a cat lounges in feline grace
The evening appears bruised and disgraced.
But she rocks on, in her rocking chair
Slowly by the shades of the evening embraced.
Intensely passionate about Literature, Dr. Santosh Bakaya has made her mark both in prose and poetry. Her three mystery novels, [The mystery of the Relic, The mystery of the Jhalana fort and The mystery of the Pine cottage] for young adults were very well received. Flights from my Terrace, her e-book of 58 essays, was published on Smashwords in October 2014. Ballad of Bapu, a poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, published by Vitasta publishers, Delhi in 2015, is also being acclaimed internationally. Her essays on Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have been published in Gandhi Marg, a quarterly journal of GANDHI PEACE FOUNDATION. She has also been published and interviewed in Cafe Dissensus and has contributed in national and international anthologies, like those published by Poets, artists Unplugged [Colours of Refuge and Resonance] many of them having figured in the highly commendable category in Destiny Poets, a U. K based poetry website.
She has also been a featured poet in Pentasi B World Friendship poetry and was conferred with the Universal Inspirational Poet Award jointly by Pentasi B and the Ghana Government in May 2016. She received the International Reuel Award for writing and literature 2014, for her long poem OH HARK!, which now forms part of THE SIGNIFICANT ANTHOLOGY and also the INCREDIBLE WOMAN OF THE YEAR 2015 award instituted by The Incredible women of India blog .
The Poet Laureate award instituted by Poetry Society of India was conferred on her for her book Ballad of Bapu recently.
***
I HEARD A VOICE
By Thembani Maat Onceya
I heard a voice singing on top of the floating waters
Written in platitudes of our blood memories
Dissecting paradigms of times and experiences
Where a bullet open a hole in our souls
I wish a dancer was present
Stepping up and down
Like my heart dusted in midst of ululation
For peace in painful days
Sliding lines of exhaustion
The voice is paging my moments
I see Biko’s ghost in attention
Tearing ripples on horrific lieutenants
Churning lines of tomorrow’s aesthetic motions
It’s Black Consciousness in a mind of a black child
Facing destitute and desolation
We never choose to be poor
The voice chants my desperation and dispossession
Coloring my people with a colorful paint of hope
I heard a voice singing on top of the floating waters
Written in platitudes of our blood memories
Dissecting paradigms of times and experiences
Where a bullet open a hole in our souls
I hold Tsietsi Mashinini’s fingers in frustrations
Asking if the free education is possible?
Damn yes and that voice is echoed by spells of deprivation
Red blood and black ink
Today my pen will be a metaphor to our poverty
As I slide in a pavement of colonialization
I am rejected and ignored because of my blackness
The song we chanted as slum dwellers for 500 years
I salute to Onkgopotse Tiro, Khotso Seatlholo and Mangaliso Sobukwe
From the trenches of dismembered memories
Our continent will once again have a voice
The voice whispers as we trace the footsteps of our ancestors
Following with our curse of innocence
Like Mqhayi debunking pseudo-scholarly of white canvass of distortions
A white settler’s story of us is a lie,
We are molded to withstand the pillage of our existence
In Black Consciousness we chant our black pride
And collectively prepare to return the land of our people
I heard a voice taking me back to Biko
An intellectual rapture inquiring my vindication
A call to my soul is an open door to my black fist
I heard a voice singing on top of the floating waters
Written in platitudes of our blood memories
Dissecting paradigms of times and experiences
Where a bullet open a hole in our souls.
Thembani Maat Onceya, a writer, poet and activist, studies African Languages at Rhodes University. He is the founder of the Cycle of Knowledge. Onceya transcribes and translates isiXhosa for English Linguistic Department researchers and sometime writes news for Grocott’s Mail. He is published in Areal 2009 and performed in many South African platforms. He has produced a theatre production titled “Programmed” and “World Revolution” for National Art Festival in 2012 and 2013. He is the founder of Black Student Movement at Rhodes University.
***
ON DOING LITTLE
By Muhammad Shanazar
Alone, I stood
On the round rock,
Beheld,
In the valley,
A smouldering substance,
Smoke rose,
Dissipating the spheres,
Explosives of stench,
Blackened the ground,
With burning blood.
A queue of angels
Descend
From heights
Of yonder mountains;
White, black and brown,
Down toddling
The singed valley,
In hands bearing
Beacons of dreams.
One by one,
They gathered,
Jumbled holding
Their tiny bare feet,
pricked, perforated
With points of thorns;
And similar complaints
On their lips.
“You scattered
The seed of bushes,
On the path
Whereupon the children
Of Adam
Would have to pass,
You multiplied miseries,
You snatched
Richness, and fertility
Of mother Earth,
You polluted
Rivers and streams,
You eroded
Mounts and hills,
Faults were yours
But we suffer the penalty.”
I listened,
Head drooping,
Felt guilty
Conscience stabbed,
On scattering seeds
Of thorny bushes,
Not planting
The cuttings of roses,
Ashamed
doing little
For angles:
descending generations.
Yes! I confess,
I made the world
A store of weapons;
Its plains, the battlefields.
Oh! Inhabitants of the Earth,
It is time to revamp
Our mode of actions;
Removing
Fear of extinction,
Disposing instruments,
Of conflicts and wars,
Conventional chemicals
And nuclear war heads.
Eliminate explosive stenches,
Perfume the world
With sweet fragrant roses.
Sing a song of harmony:
Peace for the East and the West,
Peace for the North and the South,
Peace, peace for the anti-poles.
Hand over the world
Beautified and worth-living,
For our children,
Let’s be residents,
Being makers and producers,
Architects and designers,
Manufacturers of commodities,
Of love, of faith, of tolerance,
Not destroyers:
Slayers and killers.
Muhammad Shanazar was born into a poverty stricken family in a village of Sub Division Gujarkhan District, Rawalpindi, Pakistan on 25th November, 1960. As a child he collected fodder and fire wood, grazed cattle and ploughed the farms. He lived in a house made of stones and mud. His father served in the Pakistani Army; he was recruited by the colonial rulers when he was only 10 years old.
He got his early education from the local school, passed SSC from Govt. High School Mandra, Intermediate from Govt. Ali Islamia College Rawalpindi, Graduated from Gordon College Rawalpindi and has a Master in English Literature from University of Punjab. After serving three years as a constable in the Police Department, he came upon an opportunity to join the Department of Education (Technical Wing) as a lecturer in English Language and Literature. Seventeen years after, he was promoted to Assistant Professor. At present, he is Deputy Director (Commerce) at the Directorate of Education (Colleges), Murree Road, Rawalpindi.
He started seriously writing poetry with specific purpose behind it in 1998. He chose English to express the voice of his conscience with the prime objective of making humanity aware of the sanctity of human life: A single drop of human blood possesses more worth than all treasures that the Earth contains. He has written more than 400 poems and is the author of three books Gems, The Cold Stars and The Dance of Darkness.