Obliterated Country…

In the dark street lights are nuisance
darkness is territory don’t you see?
mad forlorn, it does not want
to be lit. It wants solitude of space
so that people exploit its masquerading
body.

In the dark there is no wonder
no, what lives yonder, but only present
prescient. In the dark monkeys and maggots
play tricks with fire.

No upheaval, the dark is quiet, untenanted
it has no masks, it is dark, dark.

Walk streets of darkness
and in the dark there is penumbra
of old questions, terrifying answers
of a history and shores which are opal.

In the dark,
nights are turqueoise
have pot holes, rat holes

a bomb explodes in the dark

exploring vast reaches of an obliterated country.

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. He has been writing and publishing poetry for the last thirty years, and his poetry has appeared in numerous online publications. He holds a doctoral on the novels of William Golding and currently is a senior academic in India's Indira Gandhi National Open University. Read other articles by Ananya S..