By Sudeep Sen
1.
Red is palash, red is alta —
it is nuptial, it is birth.
Red is Kali, red is Durga —
it is Sappho, it is Andal.
Red is my vocation,
my Chandipaath, your Onam.
On your forehead — I apply
triad-streaks of white-ash,
red vermilion mingled
in coconut-oil, glistening.
Love passion death decay, you say.
Red is forever & every day.
2.
Blood is not red, it is vital —
it is sanguine, it is sad.
Red colours my blankness,
my void, my needs.
It is hyoid’s reflected hue —
of hymen, fertility, flame.
It is frigidity, it is coldness —
it is passion, it is deep heat.
Red is cerise, carmine —
it is raw, it is incarnadine.
Each shade, a subtext —
each layer, a mood.
Each line, an absence —
each texture, a canvas.
3.
In Kalahari, red is quartzite —
sometimes, even dolomite.
Red is a toucan’s fossil beak,
a clawed deranged head
on a decapitated pedestal —
a cleaved log, bleeding?
Red is a carved skull —
hypothalamus hollowed out,
its spinal apex, a perfect hole —
tunnel sucking everything in.
A vulva’s cocoon — where
passion and pain meet —
waiting for an elusive epiphany,
cosmic timelines away.
A balloon, a red meat slab
scored in white-fat striations.
I hear an evangelist’s axioms —
banal truths, provide solace.
Or is it an ordinary tomato
in shopping aisle’s ordinary?
4.
My body’s wrinkled terrain
mimics Savannah’s skin-tone,
silk-sheen mutating to rough,
Bengali-smooth to red rash,
micro-warts birthing itch —
its discomfort, unpalatable.
My hand-nails are my tools —
their tips, my enemy.
The more I try to appease
my skin, the more it cries.
I am high on this veld air —
happy and sad, in orbital
parentheses. My brain cells
spark high-voltage
current. Even long-necked
African vultures perched
on high apocalyptic pylons
cannot absorb or mollify
the electrical impulses — my
magnetic field is in disarray.
5.
During my morning walk,
I encounter a ‘red’ hyena —
it’s rare appearance,
a blessing, I am told.
I spot a balletic impala,
it stares at me, piercingly —
I look away, unblinking.
Zebras in pairs soothe me,
I can hide in their hide —
their stripes, my camouflage.
The neighbouring lions roar —
baritone coarse, hungry.
I sit on a ruddy ancient rock —
its jaggedness, the secret
of its wisdom. I discover
an arm-length cochineal
stone, its digits perfectly
intact, folded as if in
communion — an absent
congregation chanting
songs invoking the rains —
ancestral guttural music,
understood only by those
from the soil of this earth.
6.
Layer after layer,
sedimentation, unpacking.
Is this rock, a mere fossil,
whose story has been
deliberately erased from
this land’s troubled
history? Pristine land’s
un-pristine past, an
illusion, a paradise-mirage
on the dark horizon.
I look at the slow setting
sun, soon to disappear
prematurely — over tall,
wild-grassed,
undulating blue-black hills.
Midges sting me, breaking
my stupor in this panoramic
evening penumbra.
7.
From a distant city, I smell
moon-flower’s aroma,
its elegant tubular chrysalis —
sheer, papery, enigmatic.
Lighting strikes in spectacular
colours. Capricorn-rain
pelts down with incessant fury.
In extreme slow-motion,
my memory juggles —
as I remember Pluto’s
not-so-distant vanishing —
from my intimate skies.
8.
Red is defiance, red is molten —
red is joy, red is love.
Love is ferric, love is claret —
it is infra-red, it is invisible.
It is the colour of my ink —
the saree that wraps you,
the colour that is wordless —
the colour of my madness.
Red, my Banalata, my Radha,
my Maud Gonne, my Dol.
9.
Red is an elongated shade
of healing, our love-song,
our alternating heartbeats —
a blue-bird’s lone seagull —
defiant, statuesque, beak red.
Dawn morphs, dusk ruddy —
rufous reed, rubescent red —
I read red, our spectrum’s end.
10.
The air now has turned wet, cool —
the weather, pre-autumnal.
My tequila-sunset red ink, will
soon replace the fading violet.
Before I leave for my home’s
warm climes — let me embrace
once again — this red. My loyal
indelible ruby-liquid, mapped
words without fail. No full-stops,
only ellipses. My skin’s red
rashes, unknowingly, tried to
impede its strokes — but didn’t
diminish its ardour. Everything
outside is orange, pink, red.
My blood — alive in red heat.
Red is visceral, red is amniotic,
red is rebirth, red is de rigueur,
red is livid. With the power
of poetry — I can transform all.
With the power of my poetry —
red will cauterise, torrefy, engulf,
exfoliate, recreate — alive, anew.
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
I have been a published writer for the last 40 years, and a cultural activist in the area of literature, film, photography, education and the arts. Soft diplomacy through the arts and humanities is one of the most effective ways to bring about positive change in our immediate communities and and the world at large -- and it is this precisely the idea that resonates with me.
Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?
I have long been fascinated and written about the natural world. The poem 'Red' that I have submitted is part of 'The Eco Trilogy' of books -- 'Anthropocene', 'Red', and 'Rock'. Climate change and its associated concerns are of utmost importance now, and its urgency cannot be overlooked anymore. We need to leave a clean and sustainable world for our next generation -- and I try to do this creatively through my books and artistic works.
