Silver Poems on My Lips

In her third collection of poetry, Silver Poems on My Lips, Nandini Sahu's poems build mostly on the thees people are always thinking about: love and death, and their various manifestations of fear, joy, pain and loneliness. Through these images of change is a poet's life gently unfolded in her poems. 

More than anything else perhaps, Sahu has an eye and ear for exploring experience as verse. And there is no doubt that she is serious about this quest. It is a longing for identity for words that will indicate her own place in our world. 

--- Jayanta Mahapatra

Poetic tongue is the idiom that comes from the spirit, it has the potential, the innate ability, to mingle universally. In poetry, the tinge of metaphor becomes a rejuvenated vessel that relieves numbness and returns compassion to our lives. For the psychotherapist and patron, poetry offers a way to discover that numbness or feeling in a susceptible and creative reaction to life as it unfurls. Such margin is positively improved by poetry which may be assumed as the assumption of poetry, creative writing by Dr. Nandini Sahu. She pours out poetry that oozes from the secret chambers of the heart, though she knows well that in an age of material pleasures perhaps it is difficult for the heart to fit in. Thus, an insecurity and reservation moves her the most in her expedition through life. Her idea rotates around a belief in human values. Love and poetry are her therapy to live, breathe and sing.                                                                                                                                                                                                      

A Few Poems from Silver Poems on My Lips

                                                                                                                                       

Poetry III

It makes or mars the design
presents the words nude
yet hides the nudity.
Transmits the vision that 
what cannot be found here
can be found nowhere.
It is the beauteous damsel
with voice of a nightingale.
It is eloquent
and wordless.
Filtered through the brain, it
hides seconds and centuries
yet, it reveals
centuries in a second!!
It’s a confluence
of living and death,
it reverberates
‘Shantih, Shantih, Shantih!’


Spring, the Step Child


A mermaid roaming in an ocean floor
in the twilight world of the choppy sea
where you, my dream-come-true,
metamorphosed into a merman.


I created a partition in my heart
two chambers—the inner for 
you and me and spring,
outer, for rest of the world.

You told me we’d fight 
till the last breathe for spring
exchange the weapons with hearts,
nourish spring to grow young.

I guessed you stand for decorum,
dormant passions in my heart 
like a silent volcano erupted.
Spring, your (step)child was born.

I was a free bird, so was spring,
my pain was not just pain for you
it was voice of the the progressive world, and my smile,
the harbinger of an era ,unexplored.

Then the day came, you deserted spring like ash.
Undesirable hangover of springly passions 
vanished swiftly. Spring was called 
our step-child ,you blew off the candle.

Now evenings are tired, beaten.
Some swindler has abandoned the dusk.
Nights are longer than ever. Spring, my step-child,
carries life on her feeble shoulders.  

Burden of Unspoken Words

Time’s territory is touching 
shapeless sorrow,
a bulging heart trying hard 
to vacate the rooms
of relationships, all.

Only I know the burden of 
unspoken words.
In my own world of happinesses,
failures, achievements, absences of 
dearest ones,endless waitings
I have learnt the truth: of spaces between 
hearts.
I have heard the echo of vacuum
amid the memory of each time 
I touched you, and
amid this long shadowed waiting.

Sometimes I doubt
did we really exist?
You and I get frozen day by day
trying to travel quietly 
with our bone and flesh;
we pose colour-blind if the colour
of the heart seems red…
Now the whole length of time
sinks to dusky spaces.
We lick our silences 
with our very lips
ruminating, standing on either bank
of living, searching, waiting ,sighing…

Who says,
distances do not matter?


Moments, with You


To know you and to love you
is to love all those things
that give you and me the stark rapture
of a chill awakening
of being humane, and clad in our own flesh.
And the knowledge of a growing presence
of the most arcane melodic question—
can the seeds of sullenness in life 
be swallowed alone?

These days
you hurl me…when
I am open about a past that follows me
everywhere, and about my gift of 
accepting myself
of wishing that I were none other than
myself.
You keep reminding me of an utterly uncelebrated
thing, love.
I am conscious that this is my immersion,
a betrayal of the self.
Still I tell you 
of my loneliness every time I see you,  
of my long nights—lonely--of sleeping 
on one pillow, getting up on another,
and of my busy days that end up
minutes after they begin
and of the telephone numbers
and addresses
that I remember by heart
over the years,
and of a lifetime in my fist.

I have had always something on my platter,
you are just an welcome addition
to my too big universe.
This love that floats between you and me
is an unquestioned ritual.
I know someday you would leave my world
without fanfare,
I know I would be back to the
expanse of the wee little sky given to me.
You will feel no nostalgia for these winter mornings
spent together; you will speak reverently
about you and me
to people then your own
when once again 
I will be alone amid
a cloistered wilderness.
I would devote an hour once in a while
for your reminiscence
and allow myself a good cry,
revisit these moments of love, anxiety, faith
across our inevitable distances,
memories of which I would have nothing to do
then
with my life anymore
when I would be ripened enough to have learnt
the art of living all alone…

These days 
you hurl me.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Every Evening

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The anxious, awaited evenings 
come and go
every evening
against the yellow and black backdrop.

As the promises go out
leaving a permanent mark
on the day’s seamless shadow
at a faint corner.

Every evening
I fling my burning thoughts onto the horizon
I wage a self-defending war
against myself.

And think, may be tomorrow evening
I can do it, I can get it done.
The mysterious, quiet hope laps on my heart
while my child struggles with alphabets, numbers…

Finally every evening
I kill myself and vanish
I am a country withdrawn from war
and I am the prisoner.



Every Night



Oh dark mysterious sky !
Rise a bit high
I have put on wings
to fly.
In my flying I am left alone
even more than I yearn.
I have gone down so far
to seclusion that I may
never rise to surface again.

Every night I complain
of throwing up headache
and make do with the retreating 
feature of the moments.
Squeezed with only memories  
 more of memories
I fall half asleep,
chasing life breathless, sometimes. 
I guess I am busy upto my ears
I am full to bursting, while
the heart sinks to a bottomless pit. 

Wrapped up in the siren music
life seems magically serene
every night. 

I’m burdened in the weight of opposites
of living and not-living.
Life wins
always
taking snaps of every pain and pleasure 
flip- flap--
a desperate attempt
to steal more and more
from time’s suitcase.

Do I want to think life
 in someone else’s shoes
listening quietly to time’s
locomotive whispers?
What could be my lifeline now 
and my oxygen?

Oh dark mysterious sky
rise a bit high
I have put on wings 
to fly.
Let the Heart Reign

In the four secret chambers
of the heart 
lit the fire of freedom
from woes and snares,
live the realm mysterious
and the world and its splendour.
Plunge to the region unknown.

Sometimes some other faces surreptitiously 
plant themselves on your face – 
time worn faces – and you look tired.
Then gather your pieces bit by bit
arrange like a child would,
evolve yourself into a whole 
leave the orbit and be the sun,
to a distant world flee,
savor a heaven,
let the heart reign.

Remain faithful
to the sorrows given on your platter.
And to the words
when the pen pushes you to action--
and then 
the heart reigns.

 

My Heart

Think.
Think my heart
before giving your heart away
to someone, anyone, anytime.
This world is not so
splash
like you;
some bargain
some purchase moments
some may sell hearts
for coins of false hopes.
Understand the secret codes 
of the bow and the arrow.
Vapors of snow densely creep
into your tiny self
every time you
break;
learn,
learn to smile after the heart-break
like a mobile rain-bow, and
not to reveal the vacuum
of loneliness,
all the while entwining
your hands with climates of charge.

Think.
Think twice my heart 
before transferring your
calm self
into someone else’s
wounding times.
Better
hide inside the thick shell
of the unseen
do away with the gap
of companionship
time and again –
once for all
now it’s time to time your
disintegrating climates.

Close your spaces
ooze out all pleasures and pains
don’t go past 
the memory lanes,
cross with care
the slipping paths of relationships
on the vast canvas of life.
Perceive a bigger world
beyond this
love all these hearts
who need you –
need you
for their hunger, pain
and their river’s rustle.
Bear your heart-ache
till the time you acquire
the ideal.
Understand the body-language
of their transparent hearts
my heart;
 hearts are but the mix
of hues and shades
stuck in the unspeakable silence
under an accumulating
silken surface.
Don’t be stubborn anymore, oh heart,
leave the unwillingness
to have a shower
when the rain rains.

Now return home –
do not expect a procession
form all those hearts
who move away
move away in a stern march.
Climb higher 
fly in gay abandon
to your heart’s content –
this universe is 
just a nutshell
of your too wide self.

Think. Think my heart
before giving your heart away
to someone, anyone anytime.
This world is not
splash.

Lines to my Son – II

Do I ask for anything more?
Only a life
where dreams could be a reality,
a routine,
and smile, a habit,
worn with pride.

You are a paragon,
my savored Heaven,
after the sun sunk
taking away all my hope 
beneath the earth.

All my life
happiness come and go
like water buckets
into the well
filled in 
and 
emptied out.

I watch the human drama
unfolded each day
different.

Childhood memories
that I share with you
are frozen into me
as though I have been
living a dream.

You are my still water
in the pond
aiming at the 
flag of victory.

Time flies.
Scuttles in a hurry.
Now it is in you
that I sought a heaven.
You are my refuge.
I can live and die in you.
Can curl into the 
space between the notes of music
of your breath
and curl my back
to loneliness
again.

The Cosmic Upsurge – II

Do you know the 
loneliness of the peak?
The peak of godliness
peak of being humane
peak of the mountain
peak of success
glory 
pain
peak of the spirit?
The peak leaves you all alone.
The lonesomeness of the peak
no one understands, 
shares, when 
you become god,
beyond human,
your pleasures and pains
are not to be cared for –
your feelings you try to share
bounce back
capture you
with their dexterous enterprise. 
When there is absolutely none
go home – the heart –
the home of all homes 
the vacuum
and feel
the cosmic upsurge.

When man forgets the philosophy of love
relishes the inopportune climates
of the alien times
refuses to show you his spaces
hiding inside the thick walls
of selfishness
wounding times torment you,
transfer all your pain
to a heart inside the heart
close it tightly
throw the keys.
Forgive
ooze out all the twinge
in silence, and
feel
the cosmic upsurge.

Sometimes
the energy crackling about you
may succumb to the need of sorrow
when you’ve to walk a lonely mile 
on the perching desert.
Just look back
find
your footsteps faithfully following.
Do not worry when 
the world seizes your last drop 
of water. Be a giver, just a giver.
Change and swivel your life around,
discover a new day-break
exaggerating
the melting snow, pounding rain
pampering your inner soul.
Feel
the cosmic upsurge.

When the fear of death
would converse with you
in the language of the rock,
the noisy news of the death 
of the far and the near 
tears the silken surface
of the illusion called ‘living’,
take a long stride
up to there where the gate closes,
where stars emit glow drops
as priceless pearls.
Think not of a banyan – span
live each moment
as if it were a personification of joy
live like a crescent moon
feeling
a cosmic upsurge.

 

Signature of an Invisible Time
(for we six sisters)



Today as I went down the slope
of silence’s sprawling edge
I just discovered a signature
of time oblivion in the pores of my skin.
My contentment got massacred.
I discovered
on sharp edges of six mountains
we all, siblings,
each one of us
stand alone, facing the gorgeous glacier.

Who are those people , our very ‘own’
dancing a frenzied swirl
facilitating us to climb
the summit
where the signature on our skin
feels detached and dim?

We are swayed by the time’s steam
leaving the starting point
of the rivers
log back.
But life cannot be a river;
when the root dries up
the river stops flowing
But life? it goes on, flows on
rising above the starting point.
We are away from our roots
our parents are at the same point
same space. Only, years back
we were revolving around them
now they attempt, in vein, to
gyrate around us.

All I can do today
is sit for awhile, think of
that old house, so close to the heart,
rooms attached like railway compartments,
our cozy evenings, all of us
sitting around the lantern during
cherished power-cuts
studying, chatting, fighting
smell of our mother’s delicacies
sometimes sleepy
getting back to books learning
the tap-tap of father’s shoes.
Cooing of the cuckoo in the spring, 
mango afternoons in scammer
a bucket of red-yellow
mouth-watering mangoes
each one counting how many
the other can have,
pitter-patter raindrops
in July, and the thrilling, exhilarating 
water-tap in our yard, overflowing
all through the rain
and of course the long winter nights
one blanket shared by two of us
giving more warmth
than the air-conditioned rooms
in our ‘own’ houses
now.
We could feel each other’s minds
we were wet-wet about our feelings
and about our parents.
Now in this deep ocean of life__ of our
 lives alone__with only our ‘own’ children 
and husbands around
we are each one a disconnected landscape
an island
no transparent roots connect us
to each-other.
Our parents stand, wait, watch us
from a distance
like a lighthouse.

Today, we mirror each other
unknowingly 
in dark blue sky and the sea
in the faction of the clouds
in waves of the last horizon
in thundering sea-tides
when our roots flutter
like birds of a feather, yes
we are proud
that our parents are but 
birds of a feather.



We know
no more is there any chance of 
the cozy winter evenings
rainy days, romantic
and mango-summer-afternoons
every revisiting this yard.
No more is the chance of 
father’s shoes with their tap-tap
putting us back to our books,
no more can mother cool us up
with her rain-cloud looks
and touch of the Ganges
at this juncture of life
where we all are busy with the bore bargain
of blue dawns in our ‘own’
kingdoms of snow
in endless agony, sometimes
waving the rainbow flags
to lighten in burden of living in 
alpine deserts.
Now what reminisces with mother
is only the memory of the smell
of her sarees, so different from
anyone else’s, so comforting
so much life-giving.

Can we 
can we decorate our cottage
one again, feel the signature on our skin,
and reach
where life’s eternal springs flow?
Can we ask once more
our full-blooded pedigree
not to remove their white hands
keep them for sometime
on our foreheads?
Our souls, navigators, are
now looking for lost anchors.
We are lost in silence
forgetting to lit the candles
dancing in the comfier
of life’s trodden, trampled moments.
Our family tree, our roots are getting weak
time has started resting its hands
on its shoulder. Can we forget
the illusion of the near and the far
for awhile
cut loose every other obsession
put out the fire of passion
of our ‘own’ existing, for awhile,
give them our shoulder
till these electric quavers end
like a blurb
without the words?

My Home

The whimsical moon shot past me
like an arrow, in a flux
I saw it a mirror
revealing myself to me.

My home.
I love sitting here
in the windy balcony
and flying in the night sky.

This is my home in Delhi,
Delhi away form Delhi,
my dream home
the home of my long-cherished desires
at the foot of the hillock
flowers all over.

Here I am given more
than I could ask for.
Peacocks dance
to the tune of the wild rain
camels graze,
birds of hue 
sing lullabies to my tired soul. 

My little son plays around
runs like the wind on the sloppy road,
the country road,
a feast to my eyes;
lying on my bed I watch
him with flower-like kids
flying audible kisses from there
at me
I hum a tune to myself
in my velvety voice
keeping a book close to the chest.

The pretty dappled trouts 
with joyful haste
move in the aquarium
like the brook.
This was a present to my son
on his award of a medal –
he wants trouts
for he loves to see them
moving patient,
for not being noisey.

I arrange my home 
with a careless care –
nightlong in winter, I hear the silence
silently here. In full moon nights 
the nightingales sing frantically 
in summer.
The passionate rain
with its vibrations
tinkle my inner self, here.
I discover a newer world
close to nature, close to
a power, unknown, and
rediscover myself.

I cry no more
my world is wet enough
here my heart is grilled 
with green moss
I have transfigured myself,
the base of my harmony
is my loneliness.

I have just started
to count life beneath
my fingertips.







A Poem, Tonight

Carving out a comfortable corner
for myself
designed by someone
I am but trying to keep pace with life
swimming my way to the bank.

I do not know
neither I want to
who the river
and who the sea.
It’s like two spiders
racing to spin their webs
negotiating with a lonesome night.

Tonight
with the night’s rumblings
desires add wings to breezes--
panic in the clouds above.

This hot season carries the fragrance
of multi-coloured roses
and white jasmines.
We are the voices of the night
a night
that quibbles in ripples
on the surging anatomy
of a nuanced harmonious phrase.

Now on
shall we try
fishing on troubled waters??
Then
no more can branches bare
shame our eyes
while beauteous butterflies
flaunt their hues, and
fairest flowers entice the
gloomy glens.

The walls I wanted to pull down
mirror things mortal
past a barren world
prowling round my space.
Perhaps someone has laid out
the fabulous road
in front of me
decked with words.


Carving out a comfortable corner
for myself
designed by someone
I am but trying to feel the ground 
give way beneath us.




Poem, in the Morning

What a lovely bird comes flying 
from an unknown realm
in the morning!

Where are the feeble dreams gone
the visions of the hours of darkness
and all the dreams of intoxication?

The perturbed reeds of my heart
bend down with the burden
after the abyss of the dusk
is gone,
the autumn clouds are cleared.
The autumn vapors
my childhood friends
run in my nerves
against the silence of the morning.

I am I, once again,
living in the eaves.
I am the tree
my roots claw through
the empty wind and sky
new leaves sprout and fall each day
I only stand rooted to its place
never walking away
jumping the ‘laxman rekha’.
I know how to
laugh with my buds and flowers.

A poem, in the morning.
The exquisite bird is a sparrow.
I show her
the oceans, malady, death
and birth,
I ask her to say farewell
to the crimson horizon
hide in the comfortable corner
the space
where there is no end, no beginning
no pain, no grief,
no death.



Everything Becomes Past Tense, Someday


Quietly we live, quietly we die 
beneath the blue, azure sky
things become the past tense, someday
it is all done so diligently.

Tenderly in the grove of lofty thoughts 
it grows amid the weeds
it lives, does not go to the past,
everything else though the sun beats.

From home the soul departs
leaving the actual pearl
it is your virtue that lives forever
that epoch may never kill.

Fear not if you’ve to climb lofty mountains
soon cool breeze you’ll taste
pile up the courage in your heart

your splendor won’t ever go waste.

Everything becomes past someday
but the memory in human heart 
the tears for you live as uncommon blossom 
which time’s talon can never test. 



War



Unfathomable realities
get along with
the passion of heaving life
from the fragments 
after if is over.

Is our future
a match for the past?
Why are these fingers pointed?
Door thumped! Limbs separated.
Gitas, Qurans, Bibles 
are folded, guns encumbered…
What reminishes
is a past
that eclipses all future,
annihilates us in death.
In war. Futile war.

A cloud has buried the moon, today.
But what about a million
marvellous moons, hiding
behind the four walls
of the four cells?
In the hearts. Our hearts.


Future, a vessel, is
only a page
to ink the past myths on it.
Hope is the curator
of life’s museum,
and itself is the solitary caller.

At twilight
the sky above 
is a pristine, unblemished blue. 

 

That Foot
(for my Baba)

That foot that has walked
on thorns
all through the day for you.
That foot which has shown
you foot-steps to follow.
That foot.
That foot behind the orange sun
has walked through arches
bare foot
on fire, on water
near parapets
has cracked doors and windows
for you to enter safe.
That foot.
That foot walked, crossed the 
never-ending roads
when you aspired for the colossal.
That foot. Your passport
to utopia, to dream of 
new truths, passport to planets uncharted.

That foot, is walking away, weak,
parting with fantasia forever.
Will you join?

Puri Beach

Lured by silky sheets of sunlight clouds
after days of heat
nights of humid meandering climate
she flaunted her cold waves, the sapphire Bay of Bengal,
throwing tantrums of a woman.
Overwhelmed, enamored
I relaxed awhile, in October Puri beach,
where darkness died, white prevailed.


Here cold wind rebuffs the clutter
wind and air hum with
the consummation of love, that 
here we are equal, coloured and fair,
neutrally in words and spirit.
Here history creates chapters new
and He smiles all the while
with wide open eyes.

He is the Lord of humanity
Lord Jagannath
our steering principle, our vision
to see each day a rollicking fresh century.
The groan of the unfortunate, the poor suffering soul,
rend the skies with the reverberation of waves,
pull down the pillars of the paradise
in the chanting of mantras in 
His temple in the midst of music of drum
of dhol. The Lord of man
cannot afford to sleep, round eyes
large and open. He goes through birth after birth,
is reborn in you, me, him, her,
we all glide in the ocean of 
love, pious adoration, aspiring to lull in
 His open arms forever, 
resting in Puri beach
where love and compassion
glow, reflect, refract
turn into a multitude of rainbow worlds.

Here the sea and the sand
invite. Sun beams descend like day dreams.
Ripping the spaced out canvas of sky
life breaths.
Pretty damsels, dance and music,
food, chat, gupchup, colours, merry-go-rounds, 
honey-mooners, balloon kids,
lovely men and women
white Mems ,dazzling smiles,
their dresses bright, viewer’s delight,
the snake-charmers, puppet shows
the full-bodied fisher-woman
drying salted-fish
eyes fixed in the horizon
her man seems a dot fishing 
afar, singing a love song,
invite.
Even the bubbles, adult lusty foam
 invite.


Life breaths.
In October Puri beach
darkness dies, white prevails 
amid
silky sheets of sunlight clouds.

                                                                                                                                                                           

Who Says Death is the Only Truth?

                                                                                                                                         

Death stands at a distance
all day all night, smiling, unblinking,
like that picture under the staircase.

Are you waiting for the last bus?
Do you know, the sands are slowly
rolling through the gaps of your fingers?

Tighten your fist. You are enlightened to
pick one – the coffin or a life of action.
From one birth to another, augment the civilization.

Does your laugh tear your shrunken lips?
Open your wardrobe, cover the breast of the poor,
apply on your lips the balm of a millennium’s rebellion.

Who says death is the only truth?
See, your body of fog is still seated on the throne.
You still shine in the firmament of stars.

An Evening at Konark



Some evenings
time dies down
timeless
when the language of stone
overshadows the language of man.

Little boy Dharama
sat morose, one evening--
the king may sever the heads
of twelve hundred architects
tomorrow.
They couldn’t fix what Dharama did
Furnished the finishing touch
the final top-stone
to the Black Pagoda
the wonder of the world.
Dharma became timeless
as the Sun in the Sun Temple
pierced into the deep
saving lives of the architects.

In the melody of the dawn
Konark illuminated poetry
in the language of granite
words sanctified by sacrifice,
playing the flute of 
adoration, pain, awe, admiration,
exultation, knowledge, sculpture,
beauty, symbols, metaphors, mystery.
In the egalitarian song of the
cascading hair of women,
their contours like un-withering spring,
figures of man and women, their
erotic love eternal,
the wheel of time
the wheel of fire
kings and all the king’s men,
the Sun God, and all the gods,
the first ray of the sun
the last ray of the sun
the ancient tales of Orissa
the myth, history, songs and sonnets
all carved on the stone.
In the moon motif on the Sun Temple,
in the tales of nights on the temple of sunrise,
Konark metamorphoses everything but itself and 
Konark discloses all secrets but itself.


The desolate sands upto the horizon
at Konark 
tell the story of time, the curious baby, 
tell the tale of Dharama, a glowing, elevating
message for despised mankind.


Time is not deaf.
It hears the call of silence.
Time hears when stones are eloquent.
This evening, poetry is what lingers
in the nook and, corner of the inexorable
 and in stone’s heartbeats.

 

A World Without Walls

Like a pitcher of nectar it contains Truth,
the messages from Gita, Bible and Quran;
the ideals of Ram and Rahim
Christ and Lord Krishna come together--
Embrace all, purify all.
It is a world without walls
where visions of unity, joy, peace
dawn upon us.
Can we dream of this world?

Here spring softens its colour into breeze,
the happy day shares
children’s laughter in the park,
the birds sing spring songs
knocking the blue bright sky.
It is a dream world.

A house of dreams
its doors, windows, rooms
are eager to be possessed.
Evolution is no time’s achievement.
Man may accomplish it
allocate his head aloft
in a world without walls
and turn round and round
around it.