Poetry by Emisenla Jamir

February 14, 2019 1331 Views No Comment

Poetry by Emisenla Jamir

Learning to walk on Water

Words can only say so much until they fold

into finely pressed smiles and die inside you.

Somewhere between the forced crinkles and

tightened skin, is a fragment of the person

you used to be, but the mirror only mirrors

the many Mr.Grays living under cloth covered

canvases that only you know of.

We are just coloured, splattered beings in

bold reds and weak yellows, because

dead words are hard to resurrect.

Our brittle bones will not be payment enough

to row us to the other side,

so, we might as well learn to walk on water.

Old Bones

In time,

I’ll bury you in old journals

and hastily written notes

that’ll never be read.

I’ll smudge your edges with ink

until you become a blot

for patients to decipher.

All bones look the same when

they are stripped of skin and flesh.

So, when my shoulders no longer

carry your weight, when I can

finally peel you off my skin,

I’ll burn these words to warm

the cold feet of strangers

waiting to let go.

Night-time Companions

There are drunks outside my window,

talking philosophy and politics

in a language borrowed,

a language they seldom speak in, except when drunk.

Daylight brings its own amusement

in the bickering of old men,

re-enacting Julius Caesar,

mouthing his last words

in an infinite loop.

Ettu, Brute?

Ettu?

But that is for tomorrow.

My night-time companions

are beginning to disperse,

and I’m left alone, listening

to the sound of unsteady feet

shuffling away on patched roads,

hastily made just for December.

Emisenla Jamir is a writer from Kohima, Nagaland. Her short story “Deliberate Delirium” was published in an anthology of short stories titled Raconteurs from the Hills (Penthrill). She has also co-authored a collection of women’s poetry titled Woven Words (Heritage), by the Department of English, Kohima College, Kohima. She is currently working as Assistant Professor (English) in Kohima College.

Her collection of poems titled Loneliness is an orange (2018, Barkweaver) has been very well received.