New | Poetry | Shirin Choudhary

Image via Viedoblocks Diaspora – Kampala In the marketplace Full of men and fruits Someone is speaking to us of God – With a Bible in hand and a voice That cuts through shop-curtains and loading trucks. For each time I have been asked of my religion There is a report of another lynching in the news. My Indian neighbour, from the city of sweets and riots, Does not allow the help to eat from the same dish. In this world of migration and blurring of boundaries, We transplant our caste even onto those with no history of it. Time and space have been misplaced in this marketplace, And God is somewhere lost amongst the people Desperately holding on to power in the name of culture. Delhi In a city that is cruel to those who love it most - Delhi – what can I give you That you have not already taken from me? In love and in hurt I wrote about you Spent evenings quietened by your noise. There are letters I wrote to my mother, never sent, Kept in a box on a shelf we use for grandfather’s old books To be given away to be passed on to someone who Deserves these words more. In these letters I have not said much As the city engulfs every poem we write and Waiting in traffic we forget where we were going The heat is unforgiving and I missed my chance when I missed the rain So I take these hands full of letters and remember The poems I have always used for comfort. Love Poem                                     We are too tired                                         To love and                                  It is much too easy to                                  Get your heart broken.                          I could write poems to you but                          Demonetization was pointless and               The government is arresting people for no reason and                          It has not rained in some time and                          The birds will not sing for free                                   In this market economy.                                        For Jeet                       My friend said: it must be brave                       To write yourself on the internet                    And I am wondering since when did            Language become hiding, become private property,              Since when did writing become dispossession.             In my mind the time blurs, was it 2014 or 2015,         The year I met you, the year our words met each other's                               And we learned, a little,                That literature is supposed to be shared,   Like a samosa broken in half or a cup of chai between friends,             A winter morning warmed by conversation,             And our voices are made and strengthened                       With the voices of others.