In the Aguda Fort,
Massive and moss-covered
Brown-dark
Wind- kissed,
I see ghosts from the year 1612
Hovering over the light house and outer walls
Dark
Fearsome
Violent
Shades from a history repeated across many subject countries.
I see drowned Portuguese
Sailors
Soldiers
Priests
In the sea waters surrounding the ruins of the once-glorious structure
Power centre, unvanquished.
Ignorant of the specters
Tourists walk these imperial spaces
Chattering and clicking
The famous Goa wonder,
The “natives, the dirty browns” stomping these grounds
Once forbidden to them,
Recovering in their touristy ways
Foreign narratives and voices of the subjugated
From the lost centuries, and
Rewriting the conquest from a post-colonial angle.
Mumbai-based, Sunil Sharma writes prose and poetry, apart from doing literary journalism and freelancing. A senior academic, he has been published in some of the leading international journals and anthologies. Sunil has got three collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction, one novel and co-edited five books of poetry, short fiction and literary criticism.
Recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012.
Another notable achievement is his select poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree-2015.
He edits English section of the monthly Setu, a bilingual journal from Pittsburgh, USA:
http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html
Random Poem Tree 