ढीठ चांदनी / धर्मवीर भारती

आज-कल तमाम रात
चांदनी जगाती है

मुँह पर दे-दे छींटे
अधखुले झरोखे से
अन्दर आ जाती है
दबे पाँव धोखे से

माथा छू
निंदिया उचटाती है
बाहर ले जाती है
घंटो बतियाती है

ठंडी-ठंडी छत पर
लिपट-लिपट जाती है
विह्वल मदमाती है
बावरिया बिना बात?

आजकल तमाम रात
चाँदनी जगाती है

ध्वनि / सूर्यकांत त्रिपाठी "निराला"

अभी न होगा मेरा अन्त

अभी-अभी ही तो आया है
मेरे वन में मृदुल वसन्त-
अभी न होगा मेरा अन्त

हरे-हरे ये पात,
डालियाँ, कलियाँ कोमल गात!

मैं ही अपना स्वप्न-मृदुल-कर
फेरूँगा निद्रित कलियों पर
जगा एक प्रत्यूष मनोहर

पुष्प-पुष्प से तन्द्रालस लालसा खींच लूँगा मैं,
अपने नवजीवन का अमृत सहर्ष सींच दूँगा मैं,

द्वार दिखा दूँगा फिर उनको
है मेरे वे जहाँ अनन्त-
अभी न होगा मेरा अन्त।

मेरे जीवन का यह है जब प्रथम चरण,
इसमें कहाँ मृत्यु?
है जीवन ही जीवन
अभी पड़ा है आगे सारा यौवन
स्वर्ण-किरण कल्लोलों पर बहता रे, बालक-मन,

मेरे ही अविकसित राग से
विकसित होगा बन्धु, दिगन्त;
अभी न होगा मेरा अन्त।

A Lesson For This Sunday / Derek Walcott

The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
And rituals no more upsetting than a
Black maid shaking linen as she sings
The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna—
Since I lie idling from the thought in things—

Or so they should, until I hear the cries
Of two small children hunting yellow wings,
Who break my Sabbath with the thought of sin.
Brother and sister, with a common pin,
Frowning like serious lepidopterists.
The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.
Crouched on plump haunches, as a mantis prays
She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.
The lesson is the same. The maid removes
Both prodigies from their interest in science.
The girl, in lemon frock, begins to scream
As the maimed, teetering thing attempts its flight.
She is herself a thing of summery light,
Frail as a flower in this blue August air,
Not marked for some late grief that cannot speak.

The mind swings inward on itself in fear
Swayed towards nausea from each normal sign.
Heredity of cruelty everywhere,
And everywhere the frocks of summer torn,
The long look back to see where choice is born,
As summer grass sways to the scythe's design.

Bigotry's Victim / Percy Bysshe Shelley

I.
Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair,
The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.

II.
Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches,
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches
Thirsting--ay, thirsting for blood;
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;
Yet more lenient, more gentle than they;
For hunger, not glory, the prey
Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.
Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer’s head.

III.
Though weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains,
And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air,
Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains,
Though a fiercer than tiger is there.
Though, more dreadful than death, it scatters despair,
Though its shadow eclipses the day,
And the darkness of deepest dismay
Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around,
And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground.

IV.
They came to the fountain to draw from its stream
Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see;
They bathed for awhile in its silvery beam,
Then perished, and perished like me.
For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee;
The most tenderly loved of my soul
Are slaves to his hated control.
He pursues me, he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly:--
What remains, but to curse him,--to curse him and die?

Lion in an Iron Cage / Nâzım Hikmet

Look at the lion in the iron cage,
look deep into his eyes:
like two naked steel daggers
they sparkle with anger.

But he never loses his dignity
although his anger
comes and goes
goes and comes.


You couldn't find a place for a collar
round his thick, furry mane.
Although the scars of a whip
still burn on his yellow back
his long legs
stretch and end
in the shape of two copper claws.
The hairs on his mane rise one by one
around his proud head.
His hatred
comes and goes
goes and comes ...


The shadow of my brother on the wall of the dungeon
moves
up and down
up and down.

दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है / मैथिलीशरण गुप्त

दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है।
सखि, पतंग भी जलता है
हा! दीपक भी जलता है!

सीस हिलाकर दीपक कहता--
’बन्धु वृथा ही तू क्यों दहता?’
पर पतंग पड़ कर ही रहता

कितनी विह्वलता है!
दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है।

बचकर हाय! पतंग मरे क्या?
प्रणय छोड़ कर प्राण धरे क्या?
जले नही तो मरा करे क्या?

क्या यह असफलता है!
दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है।

कहता है पतंग मन मारे--
’तुम महान, मैं लघु, पर प्यारे,
क्या न मरण भी हाथ हमारे?

शरण किसे छलता है?’
दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है।

दीपक के जलने में आली,
फिर भी है जीवन की लाली।
किन्तु पतंग-भाग्य-लिपि काली,

किसका वश चलता है?
दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है।

जगती वणिग्वृत्ति है रखती,
उसे चाहती जिससे चखती;
काम नहीं, परिणाम निरखती।

मुझको ही खलता है।
दोनों ओर प्रेम पलता है।

Life Cycle / Nikki Giovanni

she realized
she wasn't one
of life's winners
when she wasn't sure
life to her was some dark
dirty secret that
like some unwanted child
too late for an abortion
was to be borne
alone

she had so many private habits
she would masturbate sometimes
she always picked her nose when upset
she liked to sit with silence
in the dark
sadness is not an unusual state
for the black woman
or writers


she took to sneaking drinks
a habit which displeased her
both for its effects
and taste
yet eventually sleep
would wrestle her in triumph
onto the bed