NaPoWriMo Day 5: Trampled by the World

Today, the challenge of NaPoWriMo is to write a poem that reacts both to photography and to words in a language not your own. Begin with a photograph. Now find a poem in a language you don’t know. Ignore any accompanying English translation (maybe cover it up, or cut-and-paste the original into a new document). Now start translating the poem into English, with the idea that the poem is actually “about” your photograph. Use the look and feel of the words in the original to guide you along as you write, while trying to describe your photograph. It will be a bit of a balancing act, but hopefully it will lead to new and beautiful (and possibly very weird) places.

So, I searched a picture (And, I loved this picture and the artist!) and wrote what this picture spoke to me 🙂

                                                    Poem: Trampled by the world

I heard some voices as I endeavored to soar

My instinct struggled for me to restore

Unheeding to my hunch, I turned back to riposte

Alas! Soon enough I found myself embroiled

I was insinuated all words to make me paranoid

My dreams were crushed with hands of opinions

My beliefs were infected with social perceptions

My feelings were pelted with stones of judgment

My spirits soon drowned in the ocean of qualms

My visions were tilled with me in the sand

I have endured the pain of my shattered dreams for years

I have stared at those stars that I failed to reach

I have condemned myself for heeding to those beasts

I have been heaping all vigor to recuperate myself

I will soon bounce back with all my strength

©Vandana Bhasin