Seshendra Visionary Poet of the Millennium
Betrayed by Century
Lo! We hear the faltering footsteps of man Clutching at the walls of temples Shedding streams of blood
He is coming In the shades of those walls where The crestfallen god is lying in pools of tears Falling and holding on to those walls
Man is coming swerving and swooning on those walls he is coming
Pitying himself for his own helplessness Carrying on the shoulder the iron boulder of time
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Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister felicitates Seshendra Sharma on the eve of golden Jubilee celebrations of The central Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi) on Nov 1st ,2004. Seshendra is a fellow of the Akademi , a rare honor reserved for “The immortals of Literature.”.. |
He is coming Seeing the clouds of dust of the falling edifices of exiting centuries
Anxiously looking for the unrisen dawns
Heart rent sunshines, restless winds and rains moaning with melancholy
We were left with them as our kin
At the turn of the century we are left the betrayed--
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To toast this age,
One evening I lifted my glass and saw
In the wine shadows of falling leaves
Hopes fading every minute, as stars by dawn-
This age has filled living breath with sighs-
World, a hemlock thrust into our hands,
Where the sun waste his light
On the sand dunes of this land-
A Desert this
In which the stream of humanity lost its way;
My nation is engaged in a nude dance
Having shed the clothes of civilization;
Passion rises in the blaring orchestra of ravenous desires,
While questions parade the highroads of life-
When will the sun rise again
On this terrible scene of debris
With emerald gifts to distribute
to the colonies of nude trees?
O friend, lift the glass
Why spread the tear like a sea on the evening?
Take a sip of hope and look for the rising sun
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Seshendra in civil liberties meeting demanding lifting of ban on peoples war group, Sep 1995. |
And rise in happiness
I am the human sun
Don’t be blown off
Like the leaf
Wounded by the wind
I know your thoughts were
Birds
Chasing one another
In the garden once
Now you are a broken rainbow
Because
You hoped
That flowers would bloom
In the dust-bins
Oceans are going dry
What after all is a tear
Life is a fish
Running in the flowing stream of time-
Cannot be captured in the net of tears
Cannot be hooked by the rods of dreams
I set in pain
and rise in Happiness
I am the human sun-
