Two poems

By Asim Mudgal

Ear With Fear

Sounds of the distant voice, utensils clattering, water flushing out in the sewer are

possessing my rented room.

In this, I am caught up in the directions

Of east or west, north or south.

Dogs barking at a distance, cats

Meowing, car honking, and police

Patrols with sirens on.

In the old GTB Nagar,

I live in fear.

The one active sense

That I carry in a moment.

My mind says sleep on your bed,

How long will you let it be cold?

Three months later, at ear care

Help me entangle the node:

I can hear with only one ear.

So, the reasons for voices and fear

That acted like a high-sensing deer.

Feast

The wheels of the rickshaw that make

the bump bounce in the air from a seat

on crossing the edges of roads that cover the sewer

reminds me of

The feast that I had in the school’s rickshaw.

The feast of riding back home

in summer wind,

or surrendering to winter heat.

Then, again, all in the playgrounds, in the shade

of the Gulmohar tree. Fascinating

were the rides of pony climbers,

and swing in the air,

the closeted love. This all says

something

about

The art of living.

The art of living is to see the emerald river, the Bagmati,

and neem trees that border the city.

How wind motions the sleepy current of both,

only to make the eyes go out,

and cathartic to the afternoon meander:

What happens to a girl

when she grows into a woman

and a mother of three.

She became autumn.

Asim Mudgal is an Indian queer poet living in Darbhanga. He is an MA graduate in comparative literature from Ambedkar University, Delhi. His works have appeared in a tarshi, monograph (Kolkata Based Magazine) and postscript (saint stephen college magazine).