by Dr. Sambhu R
What happens to newspapers
when their stardom of half-a-day
evaporates from our amnesiac brains?
Do they spend their sudden dotage
in archives, the exigency of headlines
like “Bomb Blasts Rock the City”
subdued by the deadening effect of history?
Do they experience self-doubt
and withdraw from the public eye
like those prophets who, later in life,
disown their most searing insights?
They could help absorb
the extra oil off fries,
metamorphose into bags
for carrying household supplies,
and serve with all their promising data
on national growth as makeshift quilts
for the dispossessed and the poor.
Who cares what happens to newspapers?
When their brittle pages turn to powder
and they enter the purgatory of a backyard fire,
the turgid editorials and gloomy obituaries
tattooed on their crinkled skin
will glow one last time and be one.
Their scaly ashes might even take on
the resemblance of a sloughed-off snakeskin
and scare someone for a moment—
like they did in their heyday
with news about fuel prices—
before rain becomes their secular Ganges.
But who cares what happens to newspapers?
Who remembers every newspaper had half-a-day?
About the Author
Sambhu R hails from Kayamkulam located in the district of Alappuzha in Kerala. He writes both in English and Malayalam. He is employed as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S. College, Pandalam. Vavval Manushyanum Komaliyum published by Pappathi Pusthakangal in 2019 was his first book of poems in Malayalam. His poems in English have appeared in Wild Court, Bombay Literary Journal, Muse India, Borderless Journal, Setu and Shot Glass Journal, among others.
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