On heartaches and faults

I.

It wasn’t his fault,

Nor was it mine;

And yet guilt hangs around us all the time

Like mist in Coorg,

Or Nainital.

We met one day and parted

with such a deep wound in hearts

that it tore them to shreds,

Like an enlarging tear on clothes.

II.

I lied to him

That I was a virgin.

You are the first to touch me, I said,

And he hugged me in delight,

Slowly sliding his hands up my skirt.

I did not flinch.

He immediately withdrew.

No. you’re not a virgin.

You’ve seen men before.

I don’t want you, he said,

And moved to the next girl in the line.

III.

My heart ached, and the sun smiled at me.

My heart ached, and the sun said goodbye across the sea.

My heart ached, and the moon turned bright and round.

My heart ached, and the moon blackened its visage in grief.

My heart ached, and the winds sang to me.

My heart ached, and the winds roared at my window.

My heart ached, and the dust rose up in a cheer.

My heart ached, and the rain invited me for a dance.

My heart ached… and Mother Nature said, Move On, child.

Poetry in the rains

Rains spout romance.

Nature flaunts its sexuality,
Shows off its fertile and well-preened hues
Inspiring all living creatures to follow suit.

It’s the mating season, and
Every layman becomes a poet,
And mouthing metaphors and similes
Borrowed from famous brains,
They go preening about,
Trying to attract their mates.

Lovers moan and whine about separation,
Thirst for some company,
And make love in cosy corners.

While little sprouts of green
Show their heads on the soil,
Dark clouds gather on the horizon
And warn you of impending downpour.

Some revel in the pleasance of the rains,
Some crib about its gloom.

Poets never stop crooning
Of the rains:
They rave and rant like verbose viragos
Of the little rain drops.
Some Wordsworthians write of the nature,
And some write of human nature.

And I too become one of them.

Ruminations of lazy times

I.
Ah, the pleasure
of sitting in your balcony
on a bright breezy evening.

Conversations of neighbours,
barking dogs
and chirping birds in the background;
Greens of all hues
doing their little jingle
in the calm, soothing breeze;
Grey clouds hovering above
Tantalising you with thoughts of rain;
Hot black tea and snacks before you,
Pen and paper in your hand –
And your mind,
touched by simplicity,
Pouring its thoughts out.

Ah, the pleasure
of sitting in your balcony
on a bright breezy evening.

II.
On a quiet lazy afternoon,
I sit in the porch thinking of the moon.
The jackfruit, chickoo and mango trees
Serve to exaggerate the breeze.
A febrile ring of the phone somewhere,
Barking dogs and terrces bare,
Drive reality back into me,
But I deny to clear the glee.

Coffee, conversations, cigarettes,
Shabby clothing and colourful sets;
Life is a drama, yet unplayed,
Love is a farce, tackily displayed.
Far away on the horizon
A pariah kite taks a turn
And with no inhibition, no fancy,
My heart leaps for some lunacy.

I laugh at others' jokes,
I share another's smokes,
I work for someone I know not,
I clear the day for another's spot.
What do I want? The moon?
The river? The flowers? The shells? The silver spoon?
There's nothing but praising the dreary,
No joy but to thank my life's not scary.

Even as my thoughts traverse a light year,
My body's here, upon Earth's gear;
The trees still sway to the winds half-blown,
The tulsi in my vase is still half-grown.

III.
An early morning by the verandah
With birds tweeting gleefully
at the post-rain clime,
And trees all glad of being bedewed -
I sit again with a pen and paper,
Glad to be breathing the pleasant air.

Pretty-plumed birds,
Witht their yellows, greens and blues well pruned and glittering,
Give me company,
Tell me how nice it is to live.

The faint grey clouds are parting,
The sun awaits its chance.
The wind is just whispering -
too wispy to listen to its gossips.

My goldfish wants more space to swim,
The sprout in my vase is raising its hood,
My heart is yearning for a longer laze,
The mind refuses to let go of whim.

Far away,
A chimney barfs out black fumes
of urbanisation and modernity,
And the vague clamour of the highway ahead
Strikes the eardrum and breaks the peace.
Someone rings the doorbell
And life calls me back.

My song

I sang a song
That no one heard,
But it was sweet music to me;
It had all my little pleasures
And all the pains there could be.

Its words were my story,
Its music all my feelings,
Its rhythm was from the heart,
Its rendering, the soul’s dealings.

A smooth breeze went by as I sang,
And I thought I heard it whisper,
Then I realized she took my song along,
To sing to faraway lands and to the river.

The river gurgled, and it was my song again,
The ocean rumbled, and there too I heard it;
And when it rained, the pitter-patter
Sounded just like the rhythm I sang.

No one heard my song,
But there it was – everywhere;
It was sweet music to me then,
And sweeter still it is, now.

To the night

The glowing night steals upon me,
It envelopes my body in a shiver.
The trail of darkness leaves a sliver
Of pain upon the reverie.

No moon, no stars, no sound of crickets,
All there lies is the shroud of the night;
Against it I have no will, no might,
My body knots into thickets.

The darkness scares me not, nor soothes,
It touches deep but I budge not-
It leaves me cold, it leaves me hot-
And something deep inside me it uproots.

A seed of love,a ray of hope-
they are meant not for the lovers of the dark;
For what the night brings, it takes back,
When away from the sun it flies.

Journey of a poem - a poet's ramblings

I
It flowed from a pen like tears down the cheeks.
It came from the heart,
It rose in the mind.

Words and images,
Metaphors and metonymy –
The mind wrote a tribute to the emotions,
The heart sang a hymn to the thoughts.

A poem took shape,
Young and beautiful,
Carrying the burdens of a soul
Captured in the prison of a body.

II
It wafted away from the soul,
Gained various forms,
Made friends,
Gathered enemies,
Bantered with some and chided others,
Became one with another,
And playfully slid away from more….

Like the wanton cupid it struck hearts,
Like the impish Satan it defiled the minds,
Like the glorious angel it comforted some,
Like the morning mist it touched many lives.

The little poem cuddled
On a sheet of white paper,
A leaf of a book,
A page on a blog,
A pane on a website,
A scribbling on a note,
A memory in a bosom…

III
No name, no face,
No credo, no race,
It came to you
And it came to me;
It became mine
And it became yours;

And in that one poem the world found
A relation beyond boundaries.

Things on my mind

A strange wind blows my way -
Of melancholy, inertia and dismay.

I want to cheer up,
I want to be bright,
But an ennui stains all the delight.

The tales all ended in hope,
The dreams were all colourful;
But I wonder why, like the rainbow,
They always disappeared so soon...

No.
The images are too cliched
to be woven into a poem.

I wanted to be different.

To glide in the winds and not fly,
To flow through the ground and not run,
To melt in the rains and not play...

But now,
The limbs have dried up,
The brain has dehydratred,
The heart has coagulated.

Like sheets of rain,
I just fall on and off...
Flowing down the tarred roads
and into gutters...

Smiles become mere memories
for a page in an autobiography.

A word of affection,
A touch of assurance -
I die for them every moment.

No.
I cannot ask for more,
I am guilty of greed.
But still I crave...

I pass my time looking at Ravi Varma pictures,
Reading Shakespeare,
And aiming at stars.
I look out of windows, thirsty for a chirping finch,
And think of whether stars are aspirable.

But a lizard clicking above the kitchen light
Brings me back to the ground.
The rotis are burnt to cinders, and I am hungry.

I go back to the dreams, inertia, and strangeness.
I go back to my world.

It's a long long journey
And I'm dripping wet.
I don't have any money,
Just lost a bet.
If He was to come
before me now,
What would I say to Him?

Take me away,
To the land of your sway;
Give me break
From the curse of myself.

All I ever wished
Was to be a good girl,
Will You tell me
Where did I go wrong?

It's a long long journey
And I'm really hungry,
I just gave away
My food to the roadside baby;
If He was to ask
Why did I do that,
What would I say to Him?

On Stagnant Minds

I.
I breathe a strange feeling
That fills me with foreboding --
A stagnant smell is in the air,
It gives the fresh fish a scare;
And every bait just goes waste,
My soul somewhere sits in a daze.

My body hurts,
With stress it flirts,
A knot in the stomach,
A weight on the brain,
No, there's no luck
Life's just so plain.

Lives around me grow,
Relations snap, pace quickens,
We try to go with the flow;
But somtimes a matter thickens,
And you wish you could get up and walk
away from the monotony and the trade talk.

Somewhere, a heart beats with you
Wishing you would know too.
Like hills in a child's painting,
We live our lives, oscillating, vacillating.

II.
A silent music play in the head,
I'm looking for disappeared friends.
A thought,
Unclear, unshaped, unsaid,
Wells up as tears in the eyes.

There was someone once,
who wiped those tears away,
And asked me to smile.

That face, that smile, that hand,
is gone,
But the tear stains are yet around.

There is no loneliness, perhaps,
But a stagnancy
that creates a bog in life.

Every desire, every wish,
Used to begin and end with you.

Now you are a straying memory
That I force myself to ignore.

More pressing concerns of daily life --
the monotony, the humdrum, the chores --
Engage our minds wistfully
And we continue ignoring our hearts....

Swapnakkoodaaram

വാക്കുകള്‍ കൊണ്ടൊരു മാല ചാര്‍ത്തി
നിന്നെ പൂജിച്ചു വെയ്ക്കാന്‍ ആശ തോന്നി,
കനവിന്റെ പൂത്തിരി കനലുകള്‍ കൊണ്ടൊരു
പൂക്കളം വരയ്ക്കാന്‍ മനസ്സു വന്നു.

ആകാശത്തിലെ താരകന്ഗള് പെറുക്കി
നിന്റെ ചിത്രം വരകുവാന്‍ തോന്നുന്നിതാ,
സാഗരതീരത്തില്‍ ശംഖുകള്‍ കൊണ്ടൊരു
മണി്മഞ്ജല് പണിയാന്‍ കൊതിയാകുന്നു.

സ്വപ്‌നങ്ങള്‍ കാണുമ്പോള്‍ നീയതില്‍ അതിഥിയായ്
എന്നും വരെണമെന്ന പ്രാര്‍ത്ഥനയായ്
ക്ഷേത്രനടയില്‍ നിന്നെയും ഓര്ത്തു ഞാന്‍
കണ്ണന്‍റെ മുന്പില്‍ ചെന്നു നിന്നു.

ആശകള്‍ പെരുക്കുന്ന ലോലമാം മാനസം
കണ്ടെന്റെ കണ്ണന്‍ ചിരിച്ചു പോയി,
സാരമില്ല സഖിയെ, നിന്‍ സന്തോഷം എന്‍ ഭാരം
എന്ന് കള്ളന്‍ കാതില്‍ പതിയെ ചൊല്ലി ഓടി.