Poems by Somolekha Sur

We Failed You, Prometheus

 

We failed you, Prometheus,
We didn’t deserve fire.
What you gave us to build warmth,
We turned into weapons of desire-destruction

We are burning lives, hopes, dreams with it—
Turning every spark into a hunger,

Turning memory sun into our enemy,
That consumes more than it creates.

 

 

You brought us the gift of becoming,
And we made it a curse of undoing.
You lit the path,
But we used it to see only ourselves.

Forgive us, old Titan,
For mistaking your rebellion for permission,
For confusing light with power,
And creation with conquest.

 

 

The fire still burns—
But it no longer warms.

Doesn’t create.

Only destroys.

 

 

 Apricity :

 

At commander’s behest, the soldiers aligned…

Eyes burning from sleeplessness

Head buzzing still, damn the grenades

Loud, jarring, garish

 

The children, what did they do?

Why are they dead?

Who are the ‘enemies’?

The soldiers remembered not

 

Home was calling, the fireplace too,

The warm cot, the embraces

The guilt-free days, the loud laughter…

The apricity!