Two poems

    by Yamini Dand Shah

    Aj rakh

    Ajrakhpur (2001)

    Work on it today,
    sell it morrow.
    Add some more Madar seeds,
    make Gaalicho shine below indigo kakar,
    place central geometrical trefoil,
    gleaming Razzaq directed
    as was draped by priest-king
    excavated at Mohenjo-daro.
    ensure 7-9 pH
    modent kala cotton cloth
    one in Hardo and other in alum
    add variations,
    for we lack skills in
    digital marketing.

    A makeshift hammock for baby Lekhmi
    guided his imagination.

    Iambic Monometer

    I
    (i.b. Reena Saini Kallat’s Saline Notations)

    And she imagined herself
    drawing an alpana outside her home
    releasing salt with restraint
    shaping infinitesmal words
    she mugged
    before dropping out of school
    for marriage
    as she knew how to sign.

    She made the Kachchh-ua

    II
    Noe che,
    “Mi Mae pi.”
    Sa ro,
    Loo he
    bo di.
    Kae cho?
    Mu so,
    do di.

    III
    Sgrr, sgrr, seurr
    wouack, sthwack
    chwack, schwing
    shczm, shczm

    oar aside

    Lo!             Née
    drop                id

    in quotes and jutes

    Ru                kappa
    Chha                mu
    So                so
    He                hu.

    IV
    You try it, I said
    It is an
    Idiolect
    /micro-dialect
    :hurried,
    prescient,
    precocious and
    upturned
    like the tip of a mojadi.

    V

    cradled
    its stiff spine in her palms
    and heaved herself up
    over a decorated ledge,
    to recite a rhyming couplet
    after a year…

    Yamini Dand Shah A literary researcher, working as a Research Repository at the Asian Heritage Foundation, an Advisor for publishing houses and Board of studies for English Literature and has Co-Curated, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (Literature) in 2019. Editor of the biography ‘Life on the Edge’ by Paperwall. Poetry segment has the following contribution: READ (Poetry of Dissent from the Margins), Being left behind (Open your eyes Anthology), Phases~Unstory (The Odd Magazine), Bent (Shethepeople.tv), Talking about being boundless (longlisted for U.S. Consulate Poetry Tournament and part of Living Waters Museum exhibit) and a poetry collection ‘Abstract Oralism’ on Kachchh, to be out soon.

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