DR LALIT MOHAN SHARMA ON DR JERNAIL SINGH ANAND ‘S EPIC POEM ‘FROM SIEGE TO SALVATION’

SEIZING THE ESSENCE

Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma

Having harnessed a creative instinct to compare and contrast, Dr Jernail Singh Anand finds himself in the presence of a thesis, confronts the anti-thesis and arrives at a synthesis between the East and the West,  the ancient and the contemporary, the spiritual and the mundane, actualising in his poetry the conflicting claims of the sacred and the profane,  moral ethical and the narrow personal egotistical, the precious and the spurious. In the preface to the poetic drama, Dr Anand observes that ‘the siege of troy led to the exhibition of great personal  valour and national honorifics, while the Mahabharata shows us the way to immortality through righteous action’. In Invocation, the author juxtaposes the two events :

How the West revels in individual

And the East in a collective destiny for mankind. 

The thirteen Canto poem unravels through interaction between Chorus and Professor as they debate and deliberate in an argumentative manner on the ethical and human consequences of this juxtaposition. Other characters from the epic poems also mark with their appearance the progression in ‘Siege to Salvation’. Even as ‘an impersonal fate directs ‘unquestioning minds’ in terms of religious mythology, Anand has the Professor articulate how poor masses suffer ‘ not only mediaeval obscurity/ But also the identity stricken massacres of modern times’. Ancient time of  the epics or the contemporary scenario, the fate of common man is at the mercy of ‘ vain power’, for it is ‘not only siege of Troy/ But also the siege of human  will’. Professor wonders if ‘ Iliad has no moral framework’. Is it only to ‘settle personal jealousies, not epical issues’. Does Mahabharata concern itself not with victory only, but victory of ‘ good over evil’?  Only beauty of Helen is extolled, but doesn’t it ‘deny her individuality and personal will’ ?  Isn’t such freedom  ‘imparted to Cleopatra/ And other great women of epics/ Like Draupadi and Sita of Ramayana’?

During this juxtaposition between the great epics, Dr Anand raises a sequence of questions and erases a plethora of doubts about the celebrated happenings; 1184 BC events being the reflection of the heroic age Homer recounted in his epic poems, and the Mahabharata, the great Vyas, contemporary to the epic events serialised in his work!  How these great poems impacted Western literature and that of the  East is universally acknowledged. Dr Anand has taken over the audacious approach to access works of Homer and Vyas in a simultaneous gesture of looking at them  as a single imaginative canvas. Consequences are the lavish details Anand presents in this epic drama, leaving the reader with a freedom to arrive at his own conclusions  and reflections.

    Dr Lalit Mohan Sharma

Poet, Translator and Reviewer,

                      Dharmshala, HP.

You are all invited

Paper fiber festival

Puebla

City

Mexico

6-8  MAY 2025

Poets and artists of the world, we are receiving video entries. Send your photo and your environmental-themed video to 3 minutes with your name and country. 

Registration for non-official members of the Global Federation: US$15.

More information here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16LVYTToo6/

***PayPal account: mexicanosenred@gmail.com

Deadline April 15-04-25

jeanettetiburciomarquez@gmail.com

Organisation

CEO

Global federation of leadership and high intelligence

Mexico

Jeanette Eureka Tiburcio

China

Greece

Tunisia

The Earth is Calling Us

Look at the rivers.

Does their story flow freely,

or is it restrained by waste from our hands?

Listen to the forests.

Do the leaves speak of freedom,

or do they fall silent under the weight of human selfishness?

Breathe the air.

Is it pure, or does it carry the burden of forgotten choices?

Look at the ground beneath your feet.

Do you feel its pulse?

It feeds us, carries us, protects us,

yet we consume it as if it could never be exhausted.

Protect the river – it holds the future.

Protect the forest – it is a home.

Protect the air – it is life.

The Earth is calling us, softly and patiently,

but its voice grows weaker.

We must hear it now,

or one day, it will fall silent forever.

Maja Milojković was born in 1975 in Zaječar, Serbia. She is a person to whom from an early age, Leonardo da Vinci’s statement “Painting is poetry that can be seen, and poetry is painting that can be heard” is circulating through the blood. That’s why she started to use feathers and a brush and began to reveal the world and herself to them. As a poet, she is represented in numerous domestic and foreign literary newspapers, anthologies and electronic media, and some of her poems can be found on YouTube. Many of her poems have been translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali and Bulgarian due to the need of foreign readers. She is the recipient of many international awards. “Trees of Desire” is her second collection of poems in preparation, which is preceded by the book of poems “Moon Circle”. She is a member of the International Society of Writers and Artists “Mountain Views” in Montenegro, and she also is a member of the Poetry club “Area Felix” in Serbia.

Vintage

I asked the divine rhythm to
Paint my dreamscape a little more drowsy
A Keatsian mumbling I pine for
Pine forests all around my dapple branches 
The rose garden spoke a little louder
For full of grooming, a nebulous touch 
The sky's limitless fantasy, a historic algorithm
Oh my godly hour I speak to my angels
For the love of vintage murmurings
A hissed purple hibiscus I care for
As the lonely hour called for the blameless rose. 

Poetry from Su Yun

1.攀桥花

你可知攀桥面对乌漆铁栅

你可知宿处不为天然泥崖

不留意鸟歌高不过喇叭

只在乎泥印密不过白花

你吻过泥板灰墙

告别他的掩夹

你拥上尖埃旧梁

还要展却枝丫

近看天色多日沉霞

不比前月胭华

近闻人声多言愁话

不比前时笑洽

指点轮辙辗过绒花

指点红灯笛鸣吹沙

你可见暗色言语人车深压

等待淡化

等待你描尘抹泥的白花

Creeping Bridge Flowers

Do you know you face ink-black iron bars

Do you know your bed’s not natural clay and stars

Heedless that birdsong fades beneath urban calls

Caring only that mud prints out bloom petals’ falls

You’ve kissed earthen boards and ashen walls goodbye

Released their sheltering hold with a sigh

You’ve embraced ancient beams dusted with time

Yet still unfold branches in their prime

Nearby skies hold sunset’s fading grace

Less fair than last month’s rosy face

Nearby voices whisper sorrow’s trace

Less sweet than former joy’s embrace

Watch wheel tracks crush velvet blooms below

Watch red lights and whistles stir dust’s flow

See you not how dark words, crowds, and cars oppress

Waiting to fade away

Waiting for your white flowers to cleanse time’s clay

Su Yun, whose works have been published in more than ten countries and who won the 2024 Guido Gozzano Apple Orchard Award in Italy.

 

Poetry from Qiyue

2.这些年

在雾中，天空被倾斜

这悔恨

无法命名的十年

这朦胧，这默

不能挑剔的十年

叹息或者叹讶

这凌乱，这夜

层叠着反复的这些年

这无序，这恋

我并不能找出遗忘的理由

月色正好，足够颠沛流离

These Years

Through the haze, the sky slants  

—this nameless ache—  

A decade dissolved in mist  

This muted world, this silence  

A decade too vast to judge  

Breath caught between sigh and marvel  

This tangle of shadows, this night  

Stacked like paper—all these layered years  

Disorder dressed as longing  

No reason justifies forgetting  

The moon pours its silver  

luminous enough to bear our wandering  

**Qiyue** (pen name), formerly known as **Yaoye**  

Born post-2000 | Member of Chongqing Fengdu County Writers Association  

Graduate:  

– Intermediate Poetry Class (7th term), Wangyue Yaji Public Welfare Poetry Academy

Poetry from Ding Yuze

3.水山

文/丁宇泽(7岁)

水山跟火山一样

又高又大

也能爆发

The Water Mountain

By Ding Yuze (7 years old)

The water mountain is just like a volcano,

Tall and huge.

And it can also erupt.

Poetry from Bai Ziwei

4.花朵

文/白子薇(10岁)

花朵有很多种

我最爱桃花

它在我家乡

桃花可以帮我看家乡

Flowers

By Bai Ziwei (10 years old)

There are many kinds of flowers.

I love peach blossoms the most.

They are in my hometown.

Peach blossoms can help me keep an eye on my hometown.

Poetry from Luo Yuxing

5.只是一颗糖

文/罗宇兴(9岁)

一颗糖的含义，是什么?

是一颗纯真的心，望着那飘扬的红旗。

一颗糖的含义，是什么?

是一位医生在抢救病人时，医生失去的生命。

Just a Piece of Candy

By Luo Yuxing (9 years old)

What is the meaning of a piece of candy?

It is a pure heart, gazing at the fluttering red flag.

What is the meaning of a piece of candy?

It is the life that a doctor loses while rescuing a patient.

Poetry from Xiao Shiqi

6.世界

文/肖世琦(10岁)

整个世界都是优美的

和平的

平等的

我喜欢这个世界

The World

By Xiao Shiqi (10 years old)

The whole world is beautiful,

Peaceful,

And equal.

I love this world

Poetry from Li Lvtao

7.牺牲

文/李吕涛(10岁)

军人最大的光荣是牺牲

他们不怕牺牲

只怕——

辜负了人民群众

Sacrifice

By Li Lvtao (10 years old)

The greatest honor for a soldier is to make the ultimate sacrifice.

They are not afraid of sacrificing their lives.

What they are afraid of is only ——

Letting down the people.

湖南小荷诗社，由一群乡村小学生组成，指导老师刘杏丽。

Xiaohe Poetry Society in Hunan Province is composed of a group of rural primary school students, and the instructor is Liu Xingli.

Flawed

Orchids are delicate,

a passion,

an obsession.

Roses are appropriate

for love

or death.

The Buttercup is overlooked

and the Easter Lily

is always acting

to entice you.

Know

that I love lilacs.

They are not bashful.

They announce their presence

even before being seen.

I am careful or careless

depending on one’s

definition.

Simply self-assured or selfish,

depending on my mood.

Flowers are intriguing images,

like a dazzling ring on a finger

or a glowing branding iron

about to touch your heart.

Lost thoughts gather

among the clouds

and then disappear

when the Sun

breaks through.

That same Sun

that nourishes flowers,

turns them pale yellow

and

brittle at the edges.

I can’t seem to grasp my actions,

I love,

I lose.

I buy flowers

they die.

I once had dreams

but they were flawed

often centered

on sight and scent.

Picture me in a garden

surrounded

by beautiful flowers

celebrating summer.

I was among the Tulips

and

unprepared for

the wrecking ball

about to smash

into my desires.

It only took

a few words

and what was colorful and stunning

and what was not

became questionable and gray.

Leaden gray.

Gray, the blush

of no garden.

I notice Marigolds now.

Golden Marigolds.

They are polite

not intrusive.

They give one permission

to see beyond

what is staring

past them.

Philip received his M.A. in Psychology from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He has published five books of poetry, Mirror Images and Shards of Glass, Dark Images at Sea, I Never Finished Loving You, Falls from Grace, Favor and High Places, and Forever Was Never On My Mind. Three novels, Caught Between (Which is also a 24-episode Radio Drama Podcast https://wprnpublicradio.com/caught-between-teaser/), Art and Mystery: The Missing Poe Manuscript, and Far From Here. Philip also has a column in the quarterly magazine Per Niente. He enjoys all things artistic.

Visible, For Ellyn (Maybe?)

As I wait for our nearly ten hour conversation to upload

This poem is always already published in heaven

with respects to Patti Smith

“Oh wow”-Ellyn Maybe

“There’s something in the collective paw of the world”-also Ellyn (“Whiff of Wonder”)

So where do I begin

of all the

Encomiums pinned to the

goddess fold this is among

The flowers

the surface of the turf of the waves of the silver mine

The dramatic unfolding of the rose within the heart of matter melting into infinity

The remarkable steep climb down/up a very short/long limbed cliff

That makes the counterintuitive look like:

The breath of God

Or maybe the ear God scratches on its fins

Or maybe the…

Gosh

Golly

So yeah

so yeah

so yeah

(Giggles)

Wow, what a trip, right?

I agree

That was wild!!!

A really intense, pleasurable, purely innocent

walk on the moon’s moon

walk on the star’s spume

Walk along the

Hands of the

Golden clock walk in the

Shade of the garden of the

Fauns

and frankly, fuck

Adam and Eve

Nothing against them, but boy is that mythology

Begging for a reboot ‘

‘

Let’s let lapsarian swim some

Laps at the bottom of Rimbaud’s alchemy of the Word

L’alchemie du verbe

Let’s allow the glow to

Gather at our

Toes let’s

Freeze frame this desolate timeline for once and

All

Let’s make quantum theory look like Santa Claus

Flowing in and out of the chimney of God’s

Hair

Let’s make quantum computing look like if

Iceland

was really

Sweden was really

A

Forest of star-spangled

Elephant meerkats

Let’s turn over

First principles

Let’s unearth

the

Satellites we stole apparently Emily Dickinson

Let’s deface the astral mime-field of

Walt Whitman let’s and

Let’s and

Lettuce

See

What is at the end of

The final fork

Oh beauty of a dream of life, terrible and

wonderful and

throned in blood

Oh verite cinema complex where

dragons hit the

Snuff pipe of radiation

Oh Weimar complex where the

Dusseldorf vampire is doing bumps with

The Sno-cone nose of

Adolf Hister

Let’s turn over a new lava lump

and glow

glow

glow

Like

Fabulous

Opera…

Love is a multiple Folio William Shakespeare’s sonnets

paddled out through the

Desert of the waters of the

Future

Love is a pincushion made of

Elves in a

Sidereal blast you

jogged me at the

Elbow saying

In the end it will

be

Okay in the

End it was our communal landing strip where

Bob Dylan and

Dylan Thomas and

William Blake and

All the other

Rock and roll niggers were

Examining the

World’s largest

Tuning farce inside the

Grimdark nostrils of

the grumbling stones.

Photo credit: Alex S. Johnson, taken from a ten-hour zoom conversation Sunday March 23rd, 2025 or it was a minute.