Bring Back the Music by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca
The instruments sit quietly
in the sunroom
as elegant statues in a park
Two guitars rest upright in their stands like soldiers at attention
a keyboard covered in a Kashmir shawl
which keeps slipping to reveal black and white keys
a voiceless microphone still in its black case
a Darbuka, a Middle Eastern drum, keeps the silent beat.
The room becomes a forgotten melody
to be revived in dreams
I am reminded of Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’
*Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter
The musicians have left to build other homes
one to a far distant land.
Some nights I hear the notes float
through the darkened house
I awake to the sweet songs of the birds
they play musical instruments
with tunes natural to their throats.
I wonder when the musicians will return
to reclaim their beloved instruments.
I can play chopsticks on the keyboard
strum a few chords on the guitar
learned in my youth
sing my favorite songs in a lower key
The instruments express preference
for the touch of the original musicians.
Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca has taught English in Indian colleges, AP English in an International School nestled in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains in India, and French and Spanish in private schools in Canada. Her poems are featured in various journals and anthologies, including the Sahitya Akademi Journal Of Indian Literature, the four issues of the Yearbooks of Indian Poetry in English, among others. Kavita is the author of two collections of poetry, ‘Family Sunday and Other Poems’ and ‘Light of The Sabbath.’ Her poems celebrate Bombay, the city of her birth, Nature, and her Bene Israel Indian Jewish heritage.
Iron Voice by Sreya Sarkar
At eighty-seven the lyrics had dried up
The fog frozen into a wall
Jammed sound and thought
Rarely could he climb over
To reach the half-remembered tunes
Lines drifting in pieces
Some memories still had fangs though
They hissed when ruffled
Filling him with the craving to remember again
The once fiery speeches he delivered
Inspired fellow men and women
Won their hearts with ideology-steeped melodies
The heady message to take back Jal Jungle Jameen
War-song more potent than weapons
The echo of rebellion enveloping a generation of idealists
The roar was loud, impactful
But with age, it turned frail
His booming voice lost its rumble
Yet he thought he heard it again
The same timbre, the familiar throw
It was his yet not him
It flowed from another world with a different plight
Unfamiliar in texture and sound
The rage felt familiar though
He played it for him
On a tiny screen
Voices cheered for him
His songs spoke of low-lying islands,
Wrecked by cyclones,
Swallowed by sea
The boy next to his bed
A spitting copy
Son's son inherited his volume and spirit.
Sreya Sarkar is a public policy analyst, journalist, and author. She worked in public policy
research and advocacy in U.S. think tanks and non-profits before becoming a freelance writer
with her fingers dipped in multiple fiction and non-fiction projects. Originally hailing from
Kolkata, she nurtured a wish to write from an early age. Sreya currently lives in Sudbury,
Massachusetts with her spouse and teenage son. Her debut novel, Beneath the Veneer, was
released earlier this year.
Refugee Song by Gayatri Lakhiani Chawla
I have no country of my own
no home no shelter to call my own
these dragon flies they navigate
my journey on the road
my body moored to life
stillness is a baby in a womb
a world within a world silenced
How do you spend these days of summer?
Carrying the weight of our ancestral phantoms
in our frail bodies hoarding grief in knotted potlis,
walking towards an endless abyss.
A flock of birds fly over
a forgotten ceramic bowl of water
left behind in haste
empty, arid bastille bitterness
Last evening in a fit of rage Dad screamed
We are not refugees
the little voice whispered
But we are Father, we are.
Gayatri Lakhiani Chawla is an award-winning poet, translator, healer and French teacher from Mumbai. She is the author of three poetry collections – Borders and Broken Hearts, shortlisted for the PVLF Author Excellence Awards 2023, Invisible Eye and The Empress’. She is recipient of the Rahi Kadam Inspiration Award 2021. She is the author of ‘Healing Elixir’ The Hawakal Handbook of Angel Therapy, Numerology & Remedies.
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