THIRTY TWO : This Sunday

Ever walked ceaselessly into turns
Shacks and hutments cropping out suddenly
Where every mongrel resembles some old frail
Coughing man, both on four limbs.
Struggling to struggle, so to keep breathing.
Heavy bosomed woman, once pretty,
Now pounding clothes to the clatter of vessels
Casting appreciative looks on the beads
Strung together loosely to form a lace.

Roasted corn in one hand
Chasing flies with the other
Stepping over filth and decay
To rejoin conversation abandoned midway
By sudden reminder of hunger.
Now seated comfortably under the shade of trees,
Politics passion, violence, depravity, as time passes.

This Sunday I spent my afternoon with friends
In the heart of my city in its best garden
Across which sprawls a small shantytown.

THIRTY ONE : Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a bitter taste in the mouth
Of memories gone haywire,
Lost forever somewhere in the dust
That trails to be called time
Friends and lovers:
The simple truths forgotten
But faintly recollected.
In the vacant hours.

Nostalgia is nothing but the past revisited
through the misty eyes called mind.

THIRTY : On the bus

She had come into the bus
heaving and sighing,
hair askew, face smudged
slowly she stood balancing on the flats.
The bag delicately poised on the frail shoulders,
Pushed sometimes by the maddening crowd.

I sat there motionless, escaping through the open window
Above the rattle and the dust.
I could feel her desperate eyes
Trying to locate a nonexistent seat.
Swaying to the slow rhythm
Of the creaking bus.
Yet I sat motionless, like the meditating Buddha.

She was out of the corner of my eye –
Imagination grew with every movement,
Slowly she metamorphosed into a dream,
Standing there trying to dodge elbows, gropes and pushes.
She had bloomed into divinity
in the fertile plains of my mind.

Soon she moved, her destination arrived
She trudged forward through the aisle
My eyes followed, shattered and broken.
- so ordinary a face as ever can be,
Yet I sat motionless, without inviting her to sit.

TWENTY NINE : The perfect moon

Beyond the bare branches that stand on the path,
The wires crossed across its face
Obscure in the smoke of the early dawn
Just out of reach.
Just above the horizon.
A small hope, in the dull gloom.
Paltry light, fighting against the streetlights.

This moon etched on the dark morning sky
Evokes gentle warmth in my heart.
The perfect moon on an imperfect day
A dream in an impossible world
The perfect moon worn out
By the endless ravages of time.

TWENTY EIGHT : Untitled

Don’t burn my verses,
Watch them sprout into life
Take roots in the barrenness
And sway to rhythm of your breath.

If I live
I will be there by your side
And if I die
I will exist in my book.

Don’t burn my verses, to reduce them to ashes,
But if ever your life becomes engulfed in darkness
Consign them to flames.
I will burn to show you the way.

TWENTY SEVEN : Celebration

Have you ever noticed?
Tiny droplets of rain dripping off in rivulets
Washing leaves with new life
Or the delicate touch of sunshine
Bursting in a celebration at the horizon.

All throughout it had been stormy
And now the shores are near
You must have noticed the laugh lines,
Newly emerging like the smile of a new born.
Happiness not born out of words.

Without so much as a whisper
Color and life have emerged,
Fresh, with out fatigue of unwanted burdens
Only joy and warmth
Not a trace of blurred images of yesterday.

Then finally,
Have you noticed, the tiny yellow flowers
Those constantly fly in our midst
When our talks get weary,
There is joy like you had said,
Only I had to search to find it.

TWENTY SIX : Mornings

Mornings, the mists of the ended dreams,
beckoning, calling from within,
The rain, splattering a million drops
Into the expanse of the world
Awakening, the instant realization of the world around.
The chirping of a sparrow and the wetness of a pet dog’s nose.
The young golden sun drops prancing on the dew covered sand.
Impaling itself on the tender morning glories.
Slowly coming back to the real world,
The screams coming from the yet tired body.
Each moment, movement enticing, inviting,
For another hour’s sleep.

TWENTY FIVE : Face lifts

Curls of wood evenly glazed
Away from my arms
Tufts of air disguised as breeze
Gently tugging at sleeves
Mind struggling to remember
Some profound piece of poetry
That some well read beard face
Stoically said was good!

Awake, not really,
Sleep not yet percolated into
The abyss of mind
It has not even seeped out.
Wetting the pillow on the other side.

Like I said, a few lines, years ago:
Curls of wood
Fall off every now and then.
As the planer glides by.

Leaving a smooth glossy finish,
Sophisticated.
Maybe a coat of varnish
And the sheen will be permanent.
Who says facelifts are difficult.
14/4/03

TWENTY FOUR : War

Blake wrote -
“energy is delight”

When bombs rip open
Lives rarely seen,
Flashes of light
Are energy personified
So are the sounds
And shards that kill.
Eventually silencing.

Souls, dreams, people, minds.

Where is delight then?
9/4/03

TWENTY THREE : Coffee Shop Blues

Orange predominantly in my mind,
Even the cheery Barista has an orange tee.
There are no deep meanings within this verse.
It is written for having had an urge to write,
And then not having anything to write about.

You know that these things do happen,
When they do happen, there is a fear.
Paranoia of losing my words, my voice.
Of being like that young man at the signal
Clanging the bowl, mumbling words,
That never formed syllables.

I have been seated here for an hour, in this coffee shop by the sea.
Orange swirls around like the sunset.
Some three hours away.
Am I having coffee shop blues or is it just one of those days?
7/6/03

TWENTY TWO : Summer sun.

bright sun shines
in the blue sky
ebony figures
get burnt to senna
on the land below
stray fingers of life
struggle to burst forth from seeds.

fumes of incinerated mud
putrid to the senses.
a couple of flowers burn to smoke,
letting out a gasp of frangrance
that falls like death.
heat - radiating, swirling.
burning, bright sun.


one whisper of rain,
one breath of cloud
life will return
to the vastness of plains,
the sun knows it's death is planned

and brightly the sun shines,
until the clouds
bring solace it its thirst.

Quenches and dies.

TWENTY ONE : Emerald Isle

Amber sunsets coloring waters
And another canoe reaching its shore.
Silence can be felt in the echoes
From the houses around,
Full of life, humming about.

And this home to the history of past
Of generations that saw births,
Celebrations, continuity and death.

How many children swung around the wood pillars,
And how many fathers stood proud.
The millions of seeds of rustic rice
And the flaming specks of kitchen fires.

While I chase my moons across the skies
And chart courses along some stars
Stumble and rise and life my life
I will know that here exists a small
Nook by my heart.

When todays of my days will be the histories of tomorrow.
And ever on until yet another
Son will step in here and marvel!
At the stopping of time along the river!

(written at the Emerald Isle, a little island on the river Manimala in Kuttanad, Kerala)