Poems by Bagawath Bhandari

Humanity Buffering

If A to Z, like Amazon’s logo, can promise volumes of content,
If one to hundred needs a zero, though “worthless,” to look important,
Why can’t a single smile create whole volumes of smiles?
And quiver like the River Nile for miles and miles and miles.

A drop of water, poetry taught me, can make a mighty ocean,
A grain of rice can grow and feed a family in proportion,
Why can’t one hand of humanity stretch itself to feed the poor?
Or is kindness now too expensive to be offered at the door?

A drop of sperm is what begins a great being—human,
A second in time begins the universe in all its acumen,
Why can’t one deed, like that tiny drop, be equally precious?
And plant a seed of hope in hearts—so true and virtuous.

A single flattened tyre tells the whole sad story of a car,
The darkness of the night tells us we are missing a star,
Why not light one candle to brighten that murky room?
Or must we wait politely for the unemployed moon?

It is one single step that starts the adventure of life once more,
It is that little unknown light at the tunnel’s end we strive for,
Let the single tale of “I am there for you” become your story,
The story of your journey through life—not a museum of sorry.

Sacred Longing

The tender rain of morning skies touched my aching soul,
As barefoot steps dragged me along the winding road;
The zephyr of departing winter caressed my unkempt hair,
While the fragrance of thy presence lingered in the air.

The dreamy embrace of thy tender form overjoyed my chest,
Suffocating my soul in the cold dawn felt like bliss at best;
The sweetened lips of the universe kissed my chapping lips,
And breathed the fragrance of adoration through the silent breeze.

The nakedness of souls danced beneath the breaking day,
As carnal blood awakened in my veins and rose to play;
Cotton-like emotions veiled the breadth of the hemisphere,
While love climbed upon the horizon, and the fading light disappeared.

Thine eyes, and thee, held my gaze for millions of hours,
As I beheld thy nakedness beneath the sensual shower;
I wandered through the streets, bereft of thy hearth-like arms,
While the wind of my heart brushed my chapped lips, devoid of balm.

WE ARE BLACKS

I was born black under the chilly roof of late December,
So my mother tells the tale as fondly as she remembers;
Raised a little black boy among pinkish and yellowish cousins,
Learning every shade of life from the happy bees all buzzing.

The school has no different story to recount again,
I had many chocolate-coloured souls whom I still call friends;
We shared our desks and benches in that little cosy room,
Children of the same dark wonder, gazing together at the moon.

Black dresses mattered more than anything for us,
In monasteries, hostels, dining halls, or even in the class;
We, the black regents, wandered through the whispering woods,
Crossed the hills like mountain kings and drank our fill from brooks.

College was no exception, for I found more brothers dressed in black,
And like an express train of laughter, we seldom left the track;
People called us, quite lovingly, "the flock of handsome crows,"
Flying through the woods of knowledge where no thorn of sorrow grows.

University brought the same old blessings in black again,
Sharing my stories with dear friends amid our papers and our pens;
We laughed and called ourselves blackberries with youthful memories,
For millions of little secrets still sleep within those histories.

My pen shall never tolerate the poison of discrimination,
For I have written countless lines to awaken transformation;
No colour paints the worth of man, nor crowns a noble soul,
Humanity alone remains the measure of the whole.

I, the little browny man with a budding poet's bloom,
Still wrap my verses for my Blacks while gazing at the moon;
For black is not a chain to wear nor darkness to outrun,
It is the splendid shade that proves all colours live as one.

So here we stand, my black old friends, still laughing as before,
A brotherhood of different hearts that colour can't ignore;
For whether crow or blackberry, or midnight's gentle art,
The fairest colour in this world is kindness in the heart.

City of Dust

Dusts of war danced over the city and obscured the azure sky,
While children sobbed over their dead parents in eternal goodbye,
A bomb pickled humanity as bullets pierced countless hearts,
The city of mankind was showered in blood and torn apart.

A child walked down the street with no hope of staying alive,
For the roads were barbecued by inhuman hands in their strive,
They targeted peace and shattered it into uncountable pieces,
For love had fled the heavens, and humanity was what he misses.

A child of unknown origin craved a simple loaf of bread,
Ouch! It was painful to watch a bullet whistle above his head,
He knelt upon the street to sip water and soothe his thirst,
Yet the smell of war could offer him nothing but dust at its worst.

Rockets flew over mountains while blood dripped in the fountains,
A child was terrified by his own race extinguishing his lanterns,
He was chased from one street to another within his own city,
For guns were loaded with fearful bullets and hearts with cruelty.

Dust of earth rose from undesignated tombs of humans,
As questions of peace and war were fought with little acumen,
Again, the child dug through heaps of corpses upon the road,
Seeking a loaf of bread to ease the hunger his frail body owed.

Nothing but pieces of flesh and the blood of his people he got,
And with trembling hands upon shattered walls he wrote:
"I, the son of this land of seven years, take my final breath,"
"As war breaks down the country of my birth unto its death."

The clock was ticking on the deadliest day of the war,
The sun was settling beneath the horizon in distant afar,
My eyes grew heavy as light escaped through my window,
Alas! It was a fearful dream cast by war's endless shadow.

Lyrical Blood

A dream of millions of dreams, dreamt in the warmth of arms,
Solaced the dream of life devoid of dreams, free from harms.
It was a dream of a poet to ink his poem with his blood,
As love spilled akin to nectar of bloom in flood.

The moan of pain in the poet’s chest looked so real,
As memories flooded deep down the walls of heart in trail.
Every drop of blood wrote lines of bygone memoirs,
As couplets of poem kept arousing nerves in terror.

Another dream of the poet sprouted like a little seed,
In the lines of poetry, filled with the power of love and greed.
Sweat ruled the kingdom of the spinal cord in the bustle of poem,
As the heart sang a song of desire in lyrics to be known.

Memories flashed across the horizon like monsoon lightning,
As the sun danced above clouds of dust, quietly brightening.
The heart woke from its deepest dream to witness the game,
The game of love written by blood in eternal fame.

The soul of the poet melted into the lines of his own poetry,
Adorned by the colors of adoration, resembling pottery.
He gasped at the sight of his own pen dancing on the table,
Sketching words into a poem of desirous silence, unstable.

Biography

Bagawath Bhandari is an accomplished poet, novelist, and literary voice whose words transcend geographical and cultural boundaries. He is the author of three remarkable books: Sculpted Heart, Thirty Shades of Life, and Poems with No Rhymes or Reasons. His literary influence extends into Nepal’s national education system, with one of his poems featured in the Grade 7 English curriculum. With hundreds of poems published across international literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, Bhandari has established a distinguished global literary presence. He is also a co-author of Hyperpoem, a groundbreaking international collaborative poetry project published in Russia, reflecting his enduring literary legacy.