Creation and Criticism

Dr D C Chambial (b. 1950) is a trilingual (English, Hindi and Pahari of Himachal Pradesh) poet, critic, and translator. He served HP Education Department for about 38 years in various capacities and retired as Associate Professor of English. He guided about 15 M. Phil and 5 Ph.D. scholars. He has published 11 books of his poems in English, one in Hindi, and edited one on the Poetry of Himachal Pradesh. He edits Poetcrit (since 1988), an international journal devoted to literary criticism and contemporary poetry. He resides at Maranda (HP), Pin: 176102; and can also be contacted at editorpoetcrit@gmail.com.

1. Oneness

4 AM

December 26, 2010.

The year looks at grave.

Star-filled sky

Crystal clear.

6 AM

The sky overcast with dark clouds.

Birds and beings

That begin to sing

The morning hymn

With the first ray on rim,

Silent in wintry bed

Lest the Nature be stirred

From her preparations

For the phonexian moment:

goodbye and greet in unison.

The naked hills

Await white robes.

7.30 AM

Sun pink with the frosty mist.

Rivers and cataracts gasping for life.

Brown earth cracked,

Drought of a quarter year,

Looks skyward

For pink and rose

With heavenly bliss.

Seeds eager to sprout,

Sadness to cheer

In this moribund hour.

Bless all!

YOU know no difference

Being ONE

And love oneness

Of beings and cosmos!

2. This Promising Age

In this antagonistic society

contradictions

tend to become acute

with unsympathetic attitude.

Civilization cannot reverse gears

nor present to past.

What, then, do we expect

in this jungle

of automation?

Vats-man is captive,

machines instruct,

calculate and infer

achievements

of Homo sapiens.

Bits of reality

concatenated together give rise

to a new set of ideas.

What other role awaits

insignificant cog

in this robot culture

where soul defies

the principle of metempsychosis?

and enters into

wires, screws, transistors,

magnets and diaphragms

to help, interpret and amuse?

Where has gone

logic of inventive thought?

Fissures of cerebrum dive deep

into the waves

of computers and genetic code

in a venture

to unriddle the skein.

Estranged soul entangles itself

in the criss-cross of vibrations.

Entirely new features prop up

The land nourished by

Synthetic culture and ideals.

Plethora demoniac

descends down on the earth

like a beam

to impregnate

the abortive eye;

compassions, pity, sympathy

face retreat

before hypocrisy and cynicism.

Eros – the fairest –

dominates the Murdoch’s scene

where human crucibles

boil and transpire

and fall down with rain

promiscuously indiscernible

like a chemical whole.

Nature has been cruel

to the honest individual.

Painful cries rend

the sky and ocean alike

on the pitiless planet

where to do ill is the sole delight.

Can clouds save any more

the blistering skin,

breeze balm

the parched mind,

the marmorial wind

stop the bleeding

of throbbing heart?

Thoughts peal in echoes

and defile the flow

of one serene and tranquil idea

Amazon deep and Mississippi long

and bound to leave

as clearly as one can

without having any kinds

to hand the sores of misery.

Individual bound

to lose moral identity

on the verge of catastrophe.

Ordinary time flows into

Bhrigu time.

Unknowingly centuries know

yet feel not so.

What is time?

Who cannot tell?

All know. Yet nobody knows.

In this affluent society

watch and sit, sit and watch

before the signaling knob;

morn to eve, eve to morn

sometimes

on the cross-roads of crises

minutes are stretching longer

than hours and days;

years contracted to seconds.

Passions degenerated into

mechanized smiles

while coming and going

lips frigid to flowery kisses

inside the tube.

Brooks and parks

mysteriously disappeared

in the forced isolation

as glass acquaria stepped

into a room of hundredth

storey steel-house.

The unique individual

steadily disappears

at the hapless fate of RNA

and the soil is ready

for a bumper crop of deformities.

A business-minded mother

decides to be pregnant

for those who do not want

to lose their shape.

Neuromycin frees the brain

from habitual reflexes

and switches off reaction

and drops blank

unconscious schizoid problems

of unreal schizoid individuals

of this promising age.

3. Dark Deeps

Before descending

into dark deeps,

unloaded the cargo.

If ever you decide

to crawl under the rock

and swim in the green waters,

do not delay,

for, mountains are budding

in the sea.

Sky-kissing mountains

begin to thaw and melt

into molten matter in sea.

Where is the rock

under which we sheltered

in the blizzard?

If ever you think

of trampling down

the twenty deep canyons,

come with your lights

lest you should grope

In the mazy despair.

4. I Know

I know:

he has entered my lungs

and digging holes there.

I know:

the sky is endless

for space ships to explore.

I know:

the green Earth is beautiful

in my blood too.

I know:

the green sea seen from the top of a tree

shows stars in its womb.

I know:

the pink and green leaves

that fanned life are yellow.

I know:

somewhere in the yellow He

ready to take, with Him, me.

I know:

welcome the guest and follow him

who has waited this long.

I know:

sincere shed blood-tears

not for gains but honour lost.

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5. A Proud Pyramid

I stood a proud pyramid

On the solid ground of vanity;

A flash!

Glass is brittle, not sand.

Learn to be a healthy ear of rice.

Humility bends all.

All walls of vanity

Crumble like a house of cards.

The debris melts

Into a molten mass.

I look around to find

A vast expanse pass.

The wind blows and storms ravage,

Waves dance on solemn seas,

Volcanoes erupt, char the sides

Before the floods wash the rot

To a land far and unknown

The languid crowd does trot.