A Father's Advice
There you go again,
My father says,
Writing about things, people, places
Far far away
Not connected to you in any way
You've never visited these hills
Or met the child with the scar before
You've never been chased by fire
Threatening to consume your memories
You have a home,
You have parents
You have limbs
You have peace
You have a future
The only sound that pierces your ears is the music from your earphone
The only blood trickling out of your skin is due to a paper cut
The only time you leave behind home
Is when you go on a vacation
The only guns you know of were in the
Video games you played as a child
So why do you write?
Write about things, people, places
Far far away
Not connected to you in any way.
Go on, leave behind these worries
That give you sleepless nights
And swollen eyes
Worry about the next exam
Worry about your future
Worry about money
Worry about heartbreak
And remember,
Worry about blood
And guns
And lost homes
And broken limbs
Only, only when the disaster
Strikes home.
Walk silently on broken roads.
Keep your head low
And don't,
Don't help a lost soul
Run, run away
Hide behind dark corridors
When a sword emerges
To cut off a stranger's head
Stay inside, stay inside
If a curfew descends on your city
Hush
No words
No screams
No,
Not until it is your head
They put the sword to.
To A Turkish Migrant
Looking over the Bosphorus
Watching a city steeped in history
Walking on tiptoes, silently,
Too afraid to wake up the past in slumber
Too afraid to face the dawn of tomorrow
Watching a city, where every road
Branches off in two directions-
Left and Right
Where every signpost asks you-
Where do you belong?
Did you cheer when Ataturk was crowned?
Did you celebrate his funeral procession?
Did you play with fire
In the revolution that promised
Too much and changed too little?
Where were you
When leaders were toppled
By men in uniform
And people held up for being Communist?
Were you hiding behind religion
Were you practising an apology
For the lives destined to be martyred
At the hands of extremists?
Where were you,
When the streets that once held
An entire empire in their lap
Collapsed under the weight of
European imperialists?
Were you too busy, too drunk
On too many rounds of raki?
Were you waiting for the boza-seller
To come for another round of sale?
Where were you,
When the Bosphorous needed a friend?
It still stands, as still as a lake,
Waiting for you to return.
My Poetry is A Battle Cry
I have been told countless number of times,
That my poetry doesn't rhyme anymore
It doesn't have any fixed metre or rhythm
It cannot be neatly classified
Into stanzas of four lines each.
I have been told
That my poetry doesn't rhyme anymore
It lacks the punctuation at the right places
It is not perfect, complete or cohesive
It fails to provide comfort or solace
It has lost the naivety
That comes with belief in happy endings.
I offer no apology, justification or excuse
You see, I salvaged my poetry
From the debris of a world
Pulling itself apart at the seams.
I saw it burn in a furnace of
Bones of fathers, who died
Waiting for their sons
To rise from unnamed graves,
Like refugees in wait for asylum.
I saw it pick up the syllables
Uttered by hollow-eyed kids
Who were robbed of their
Tongue, before even learning
To pronounce the twenty-six letters
Of the alphabet.
I saw it gather from the ashes
The hopes left charred
By countless UN resolutions
That promised too much
And delivered too little.
I saw it break out
From the cocoon of a melodious hymn
And turn into a battle cry
And I cannot, would not, must not
Alter it in any way
For this world needs poetry
More than it needs prayers.
About the poet:
Shruti Sonal is a Delhi-based poet and journalist. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies, including Penguin India's ‘Ninety-Seven Poems’, HarperCollins' ‘The World That Belongs To Us’, and Alipore Post's ‘Memories On A Plate’. Her debut poetry collection 'In Which Language Do I Remember You?' was published by Writers Workshop.