Poems by Pulkita Anand

This road

This road buried the living hunger.
This road has the tyrannical sucking blood of the native
This road was filled with carcasses.
This road heard her pleading cries.
This road carries the waft of murder.
This road had the track of musk deer.
This road has a different grammar, different character, different syntax, and different poetry.
Sleep wanted to dive into those innocent, hungry eyes; they 
Can bite this cinder of hungry 
Hunger that remained long in her dying eyes
Paid more than the borrowed sum
Face covered with ashen policies and plans
The turn of the road is where their houses conjoined the dancing flames.
Here the white vultures feasted on the sweat and toil of deer.
Here once the old lions tore the flesh of the souls.
Here their hands designed the structure after structure.
Here they divided them into parties, sects, ideologies, beliefs, and preached pieces.
The ditch is where they learned to say yes.
Oh! Hunger, have some patience; they will be exiled soon.

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Crying

I heard the familiar cry calling
Sound is similar in Asia, Africa, Australia
Gaza, Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, ……
I wanted to write A for apple, but what it’s H
For hunger
That familiar crying child disturbs me
Day and night
That orphan on the railway station
Circling his dead, starved mother
To wake up
Though she has left some
Hunger for him to feed on

Click to hear the poet read the poem.

Pulkita Anand is an avid reader of poetry. She has translated one short story collection, “Tribal Tales from Jhabua”. Author of two children’s e-books, her eco-poetry collection is we were not born to be erased. Her creative works have been published in: Shortstory Kids, Twist and Twain, Tint Journal, Lapis Lazuli, The Creativity Webzine, Winc Magazine (Issue 1, 2, 5 &7), Stanza Cannon, Superpresent, Madwomen in the Attic, Poetica#11 &12, NCTE, The Uglywriters, Impspired (online &print issue) redsoethorns Journal (online) and magazine, Kritya, The Amazine, Carmina Magazine, Origami Press, Asiatic, Inanna Publication, Bronze Bird Books, New Verse News, Hakara Journal, Madras Courier, Convergence anthology (selected), MAI and elsewhere.

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