THUMBPRINTNE POETRY COLUMN
POETRY EDITOR ANANYA S GUHA'S COMMENTS:
Jharna Choudhury’s poems short and brief are philosophical aphorisms meant to look at an invented world of things and people. What happens there in this world, is a silent unnoticed happening. To the poet these are poignant experiences meant to be captured in a holistic framework -- subtleties of art
==============
Mother of Three
Oftentimes, she wrote: loneliness is an ordinary rattle;
and never wrote more,
cleaning the nursery seven times a day.
The rough nib of her rusty sentences
has forgotten her.
She is an apothecary now, with bottles and jars,
pumping her milk, storing, dehydrating food,
unspooling memory clothes,
archiving rash cream,
being careful,
turning herself into a personal folklore
called Mother Alert.
In her dreams
she fell from the cliff of the letter M.
***
That goes unnoticed
Sometimes I fall.
Sometimes I f
a
l
l
Sometimes I f
a
l
l
Sometimes I f
a
l
l
it’s a new fall, every month and year.
I am trying to be organic.
***
Shoe
In between the conversation,
I felt an ant,
a baby rat,
a tiny bird's eggshell
in a nestbox.
I felt a hole, a home, a shoe,
Dug by the trapped colours
of withered flowers,
trying to seep into an address.
It says my name.
***
Of Wanting
I am the word more.
Today I measure myself like a field,
I do it differently,
my smell touches like hands.
I open my eyes
and ogle at me from inside,
bone to flesh, innards;
reach out for a new thought,
new ashtray, new sky, new people,
yes, new seas;
to enter everywhere, everywhat,
conquer and say -
some more, tender flowers.
***
Half a minute heaven
Constellations
have no pattern on skin,
It is all in the head.
Travels, travellers, tides.
***
Dr. Jharna Choudhury (she/her), poet and hand embroidery artist from Assam, India, published her Assamese poetry collection Kaya in 2023. Her creative writings appear in Ethelzine, Parcham, Pine Cone Review, SETU, The Little Journal of Northeast India, Muse India, Spillwords, and several anthologies. Her works reflect on flesh narratives, intergenerational trauma, memory, illness, and cultural and maternal identities. She is also an Assistant Professor in English Literature, at Dimoria College (Autonomous), Khetri, India
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