Saturday Poem

Posted on by Jim Culleny

Broken Teacups at the foot of Mount Sinai

I search the desert, Moses wandered for years, in me

On a bright summer afternoon,

……… the military barged into our
……… living room
……… On the porch
……… I waited
……… with a handful of sugar,

……… for my army of ants

……… The military men ordered my mother to bring tea
……… as they watched Mahabharata on our TV

……… ecstatic about the triumph over evil

……… I wonder how that tea tasted in eyes of the Benevolent God.

(I can still start the poem with: I was atop Mount Sinai.

My sheep were hungry and the snow storm was approaching us. . .)

……… A curfew night
……… A power cut-off

……… I am five years old

……… Malika Pukhraj sings from the cassette player:

……… ye kaun sakhi hain jin ke lahu ki ashrafiyan,
……… chhan-chhan, chhan-chhan,
……… dharti ke peham piyaase kashkol mein dhalti jaati hain,

……… kashkol ko bharti hain

……… (Who are these generous youth whose blood –
……… like the clinking gold coins, pour
……… into the earth’s unquenchable begging-bowl

……… filling it to the brim)

……… Years later, the cassette player broke into pieces.

……… I don’t remember, how.

……… As we sat huddled like unlit campfire wood
……… My father proposed,

……… Let’s each say a story or recite a poem

……… Do you want to say something dear?
……… My mother asked,
……… her eyes— a lamp lit by metaphors
​

……… I stammered as I put together a line,
……… still fettered in belonging:

……… Adam’s fall, from a faraway home, ended in a demon’s lap

……… We laughed and
……… soon our laughter sank
……… muter than silence

……… as the night flickered away.

……… (Does Adam fall in all languages?

……… Do metaphors in all languages carry his pain?)

as-salaam as-salaam ay shaheedon as-salaam,
aaj teray khoon pe roraha hai asmaan

rorahi hai ye zameen, roraha hai asmaan

(Peace! Peace! O’ martyrs let peace descend upon you.
today, in the remembrance of your blood, the sky weeps

this earth weeps and the sky weeps)

Had God left me and my sheep?
Why are my hands bloody?
Did I cling on to the dead for long, or

Did I kill all these people who are to be buried?

……… I envision asking Khidr: What does it mean to be a poet?
……… He points towards Mount Sinai—
……… crumbling to ash and dust—

……… and leaves.

……… Can I win this war? Will my Red Sea split?
……… Should I entrust myself to the Nile full of blood?

……… Will my Moses come?

In one of my dreams,
I saw people leaving the city
with their belongings
The iron gate to my house, was locked,
entwined in wild briars and thick vines

I couldn’t leave.

……… It is raining now.
……… I hear bullets galloping with thunders

……… acrossthe home skies.

……… ‘Bismillah’– a stone was pelted.

……… (I could end with: A five-year-old died)

by Moin-ud-din

Moin-ud-din is from Srinagar, Kashmir. His work has appeared in Hakara Journal, Kindle Magazine, Gossamer: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry (Ink Publications, 2015) and others.