PUBLICATIONS > POEMS > JOURNEYING I

JOURNEYING I

RICHA NAGAR, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN HUNGRY TRANSLATIONS, 2019

Living critique

a yatra

a journey

slow train ride of co-travelers:

ascending, descending, re-ascending

the train

sometimes leaving the ride altogether

on our unfolding journey

of life

 

 

               critique permeates

                               bones

               politics become 

journeys interbraided

               conclusion-free, unscriptable, everflowing

               currents

                              critics must learn to be

                                             currents,

               without compromising the core of critique,

               owned by all

               who surrender to the cumulative force 

 

 

               An organization registered as NGO

can still live critique, 

creatively refuse–

               institutionalization

                              flow with currents

                              gain meanings from

                                             tides 

rising and falling

 

 

 

               a community in struggle

               takes power and creativity

                              of coming together

                              of giving and suffering together

               battling loving losing 

               isolated souls becoming

               resilient                                           together

               no egos nor proclamations

—feminist marxist nationalist liberal— 

               tags dissolve in storms

               entangled we excavate, rebuild for ourselves

               flourish in our soils       find

               fuller languages of politics

               encompassing all life

               energies of all who rise with us, around us

               unstifled by singular identities.

 

 

               an intimate enemy

                              brahmanical capitalist patriarchy

               analyze it, personalize it, challenge it                intimately

               The Developmentalist State

               uncover hungry breaths bellies howls dreams

               tangled with its moves

                                             manipulations

               oppose by engaging

                              its discourses policies, 

                              souls of those who do its dirty work

               you and i are capable of the same greed, of

                              corruption                 violence                we oppose

               create spaces to feel-theorize-tell

(y)our complicities

               sharpen movement                               Move

ever open to all

all that throbs and beats in me, in you.