In Search of Salt – by Yogesh Patel
There is a jungle in this desert!
The baboons of media are having a breakfast
of Satyam Shivam Sundaram.
Write as much as you wish on the sand
from your oasis, where your
pig-headed trees foliaged
to be a home for baboons’ tablet-bacons flashing
your meaningless borrowed words.
Sea will wipe them off.
Wind will sweep them away.
The sand cannot hold the truth!
There are always fresh storms brewing.
You think they divided the notion.
Look closer, it is you–ripped-
blaming fire, virus, floods, wars,
maps, winds and holes in the sails.
Drift has hummed a dangerous song
and you are charmed like a snake.
You venomboarded the inscribed words.
What is a drop of venom to an ocean?
Truths you seek are pirates of high seas.
Mahatma will find your truth in salt!
A sincere Satyagraha needs salt…
Yogesh Patel has received MBE for literature in the Queen’s New Year Honours list 2020. Internationally celebrated, he edits Skylark and runs Skylark Publications UK as well as a non-profit Word Masala project to promote South-Asian diaspora literature. Previously he has received the Freedom of the City of London. With LP records, films, radio, children’s book, fiction and non-fiction books, and three poetry collections to his credit, he is a recipient of many awards, including an honour in April 2019 at the New York University as a Poet-of-Honor. Amidst many venues, he has read in the House of Lords and at the National Poetry Library.
If you want to read more about Yogesh Patel and his poetry, you can download the essay he wrote recently for Writer’s Mosaic here, and hear him reading one of his poems.
His writing has appeared in many important literary journals, including PN Review, The London Magazine, Asia Literary Review, Under the Radar, Shearsman, IOTA, Envoi, Understanding, Orbis, The Book Review, Confluence, on BBC TV and Radio, in newspapers, and more. His work also features in The National Curriculum anthology, MacMillan, Sahitya Akademi, and numerous anthologies across the world. By profession, Yogesh is a qualified optometrist and an accountant.
Author’s websites:
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