(7th October 23 to 7th October 24…)
A long Year and the year is not going to end soon
How does a poet measure an endless year?
When the Second World War broke out
My grandmother’s grandmother was knitting
Wool for a newborn calf.
She had a hen and a goat to look after.
The flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t reach her
Later every time her grandson read that in textbooks
She shouted out loud-
Fuck off, bloody warmongers!
Now in real-time streaming
While having lunch
I watch the ruptured heads of
16891 children of Gaza
And I ask my help to serve me
One more spoonful of veg daal
And Netanyahu continues his lectures on
Rights to self-defence on my mobile.
My help accidentally drops the daal
On my white Kurta
I cursed out loud-
Fuck off…
I don’t dare to put Israel
At the end of the sentence
I prefer to shout at my household help.
When a genocide is streaming in real-time
Do the poets measure an endless genocidal year with silence?
2Where Is Your Tongue , Arab, HE asks You?
Islamic brotherhood is a dodo bird.
Is Mecca a travel destination?
Palestine is thousand nautical miles away from prayers.
But prayers aren’t only whispering to the dead
Innalillahi wa innalillahi rojiun…
(Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Him we return)
To return to HIM
What will you the supposed believers tell HIM?
Where did you leave your tongue?
On the cliffhanger of the American wardrobe?
You might ask me
Who am I to ask!
Let it be clear: I’m an advocate
of the Dodo birds.
So I put up my questions regarding extinction.
My dodo birds are the 40000
murdered Palestinians.
And I have a tongue that
ask unsettling questions.
HE gave you a tongue to words
the dodo birds, dear Arab.
So doo – doo, doo – doo, doo – doo, doo – doo…
It’s a genocide behind your nest
And where’s your tongue, Arab?
Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection, The Musings of the Dark was published in 2020. The book has about a hundred poems written in protest against the humanitarian crisis from the abrogation of article 370, the Delhi riots, and the Shaheen Bagh movement to the unbearable sufferings of the migrant labourers due to the unplanned COVID-induced lockdown. Her second poetry collection, Poems At Daybreak has been published by Red River Publications. The Telugu translations of her poems have been published in a collection titled, Poems That Should Not Be Written.
