Thunder

Darkness and Pleonasm

Nonsense Poetry
“Dear giraffes, turn around and look up”, said the moon.
Pleonasm – the use of more words than necessary to convey meaning.
[Source – Pixabay]

*

Dark night, night dark

Like thundering clouds sans lightening

And we missed, skipped the enlightening

Message. “You damn fool, think hard,

You didn’t hear anything?”

Lub-dub, lub-dub, quack-dub,

“Quack dub?” Yes, the darkest darkness

Followed us that we failed to see in the darkness.


Lights off, there was no light!

Scared, we threw our candles away,

Out of fear we trembled,

And threw our matchboxes haphazardly,

A few hit my head, I caught one silently

And hid it in the fish tank for emergency.

(The fish lit a bonfire! They tried to!)


“What?” Madness ruled us, yes, madness!

Madly we wept and stood still in one corner,

Or was it the centre? Uncertain, afraid,

We slept quickly, peacefully and

Woke to see the dark knight

Who had come to return our torch light;

Said, it helped him cross the teetering bridge

Twice, for he came to return our torch light.

Listen, not a lie this, later we heard it, all of us,

The breaking of the teetering bridge

And a desperate goodbye.


“It was the dark knight!” O-but we

Couldn’t see anything for our torch light

Died along with that goodbye-cry,

Both engulfed by the darkness and its hands,

Crushed under its dark feet, that we failed to see

In the darkness. For clarity now

We have all blindfolded ourselves.


After heavy rain, hail storm, whispering winds,

We can now feel some warmth,

Feels like the sun, but who knows-ya,

Not us, for it is impossible to see-ya,

Especially in this darkness. “Ahhh!”

(The one who said ‘ahhh’, rushed away.)

Rushed away? In such darkness?

*


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She Wanted Storms

Feature Article
Time flowers!
[Source – Pixabay]

In ancient Rome, they say, there was a belief that intimate/ urgent/ special prayers had to be spoken aloud, a mandatory act for the prayers to be answered.

A mandatory act? Yes! I say, if not spoken aloud, how will a prayer then cross the ocean of voices and climb the mountain of whispering hymns?

A prayer needs to begin its journey before reaching its destination.

What if the prayer holds a secret and when spoken aloud, huh, a devilish soul, a rival, a conspirator hears it?

Darn it, don’t fear, make a move!

Don’t let a passionate prayer rest amongst the unspoken, ignored, forgotten, suppressed thoughts.

Let it be heard, this secret prayer, for what if a poet catches it and turns it into a timeless sonnet or a dramatist turns it into a tragicomedy or a composer turns it into an epic melody…


Anna Akhmatova uttered a prayer aloud and heard it carefully, herself first, and then turned it into a poem for the rest.

Writing, perhaps largely just making mental notes, living in Stalin’s Russia, facing censorship and strict impediments, Anna Akhmatova stood her ground to witness the brutalities Time threw her way – her dear ones struggling in soviet labour camps – and refused to leave her country.

What anchored her in the storm?

How come the maddening drama unfolding in her life did not suffocate?

Is not her work a verdict that catches Time in the witness box? And her poems a passionate prayer that acquits Time for she knows it will change? Her loud prayer a promise not meant to be broken? Yes, yes, yes!

*

You Will Hear Thunder

By Anna Akhmatova

*

You will hear thunder and remember me,

And think: she wanted storms. The rim

Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,

And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

*

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,

When, for the last time, I take my leave,

And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,

Leaving my shadow still to be with you.


Anna Akhmatova prayed for Fire, for storms; not the fire that spreads strategically to plunder, but the fire that engulfs to bring an end, former started by a selected few and latter by the overwhelmed masses.

She knew well the dual persona of Fire and thus invoked it.

When lit as a ritual, Fire remembers to abide by the fancy cultural twists, but when lit for destruction, it does not stop until it destroys the destroyer, forgiving none, consuming all, levelling the ground for a new beginning.

*


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