WORDS ON THE HORIZON

MY TWO POEMS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED BY LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL.

My two poems, namely A SAPLING, IN RED and THE OLD GOA CHURCH, have been published by LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL, under the aegis of the brilliant and prolific STRIDER MARCUS JONES.

I'm happy that this is the third pair of poems that have graced the journal this year. I hope this journey continues to be cemented with more words exchanged. So read both of them as they are markedly different and enhance my poetic worldviews. The original text is here below.

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Lothlorien Poetry Journal

Two Poems by Prithvijeet Sinha

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A SAPLING, IN RED

An unusual deluge it was,

when a sapling was borne

not with green tendrils

but roots of red.

It occupied the garden,

A ghastly, doomed presence

Half bent from struggling

hands and coloured with the

red of demented growth,

Soiled by a dozen bullets

around, encased in Sunday's

bloodied nursery.

It had no two eyes to witness

its plunder

No visage to be etched upon

Or even the delicacy of

active movement

Mute target of terrors and

horror it was,

its branches slivered a day

before fruition

Its birth metaphor

impaired.

All that remained was a

crippled conscience.

A sentience of a sapling in

red

Its umbilical cord

separated,

Even before it could be

embraced by this

orphanage, all leafless yet

What a carnage ensued in

this garden, and what

doom could be foreseen by

the gardener?

His beloved sapling now

nothing more,

A spitting image of those

human trembles and sighs

Struggling hands and

sewered souls all touched

those tendrils so benign.

What fate had his sapling

borne?

Stroked by its ultimate

punisher,

A shadowless miscreant

As he uprooted its fine cord

Now a stillborn symbol,

The Sapling, renouncing its

incarnation, is buried in

its muddy womb,

mourned by the gardener.

Embodied by Sunday's

bloodied nursery,

Now dry and defunct.

The Orlando shooting left me( and us) benumbed . This is the poem that acts as a metaphor and symbol of the senseless cycle of violence that surrounds us.

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THE OLD GOA CHURCH

You expect chants of Hail and Hallelujah,

All you hear are Chinese whispers,

a muted melodrama of secret wishes

A dialect of goodwill and wishes,

marked by ellipsis and subtle pauses,

all too sincere.

The holy corridor and unattainable, imposing reserve of ceilings all bathed with January .

All crystallized chandeliers higher than our imaginations could leap to touch.

There's botheration of being overdressed

or underdressed here

But hardly anyone is overwhelmed under the aegis of this salient silence.

No judgements are here,

only a fluent stance and straightened positions.

Here in the Old Goa Church,

an assembly of tourists too become unsuspecting congregationists.

So many pious marbled wonders of virtuosity

They make us count our follies and sin,

like every inch of nail grown on our pruned fingers

Every inch of human temperance guessed,

and falling short by our marginal desires, we make our clever confessions.

A stark, domed curiosity is imagined by these pillars everyday.

A generous largesse found in this wonderful land of North Goa.

Who takes stock of their blessed flocks of virtues here ?

Under the great Shepherd's proper inspection, non intrusive and tactful,

inanimate smile and sophisticated restraint.

We are touched by His presence in the garden,

His flowing marble tresses fashioned by stone,

modelled by the air.

In the church, a precocious girl enunciates the term pew ,          

in place of wooden seats in time of prayer,

While the toddler's view of beautiful, devout nuns and saints is blocked by mountains five feet and above.

No lilies in the field are here

So I draw a rose on paper,

a rose baptised by this hour long sermon of joy.

And etch His eyes,

the best I can get to being a sketch artist.

Memories of January ,

flanked by the Old Goa Church.

NOTE: both the above poems were self-published by the author on his Wattpad poetry collection WHISTLING CHIMES around 2016.

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The writer's name is PRITHVIJEET SINHA from Lucknow, India, a proud member of the faculty of ENGLISH AND MODERN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES, LUCKNOW UNIVERSITY . He is a post graduate in MPhil, having launched his writing career by self publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA besides having his works published in several varied publications as GNOSIS JOURNAL, READER'S DIGEST, CAFE DISSENSUS EVERYDAY, CAFE DISSENSUS MAGAZINE, CONFLUENCE, THE MEDLEY, THUMBPRINT MAGAZINE, WILDA MORRIS' POETRY BLOG, SCREEN QUEENS, BORDERLESS JOURNAL, LIVEWIRE, LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL, CHAMBER MAGAZINE and RHETORICA QUARTERLY, encompassing poetry and prose.