Pragmaticism

by Sunil Sharma / June 26th, 2022

Life—
A dance of light and
shadow

hoping for the best out of the
worst, always or
occasionally, even when the sun is
down and the moon, not up, yet,
on a bleak horizon;

It is a restive movement
one place to another
like a tramp

from one situation
into another, equally
hopeless

one freight train onto
another
one burnt-out city into
another—Ukraine is just a name.

Trying to catch a smile from
a child
being deported to a treeless camp
with guarded gates

or,
at worst, trying to pluck a lonesome
rose
in the rubble and dust of
a block
of the

bombed-out homes,
with ugly, gaping
wounds.

Sunil Sharma PhD (English): An academic, critic, literary editor and author with 30 published books, solo and joint: Eight collections of poetry; five of short fiction; two novels; a critical study of the novel, and, 11 co-edited anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism; two joint poetry books and one joint fiction collection. A recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ Inaugural Poet of the Year award---2012. Winner, among others, of the Panorama Golden Globe Award-2023, and, Nissim Award for Excellence-2022 for the political novel Minotaur. His poems were published in the UN project Happiness, The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015. Read other articles by Sunil, or visit Sunil's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, June 26th, 2022 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.