AN ODE TO MAT

Oh my dear Mat,
I lost you today,
When I went upstairs
I found that you were gone!
I searched for you all around
The compound
In my neighbour's compound
Do you know something?
I almost fell over the terrace
To see if you were somewhere
Down there!
I even sent Sobin, our helper
To go look for you,
But you just disappeared
Without a trace!
Oh Mat, where are you?
I wish you would understand
How distressed I am?
Mat, please show yourself.
Are you hiding somewhere?
Now look, this is no time
To play hide-and-seek.
Mat, you're getting me concerned!!
If you can see me now
You'll see the worry
Writ large on my my face!
The sun has set
I can't see a thing now.
Looks like I'll have
To start searching
For you, anew
Tomorrow!
Oh my dear Mat,
My dear embridered Mat
You were a loving
Gift
From my Mother!
The day she gave you to me,
She told me to take care of you!
Hope you will be happy wherever you are!
My friend rightly says,
"When the wind blows hard,
What will fly will fly,
We have little power to stop it!" 

AUGUST 2014

12 AM

It is past midnight
I am about to write you a poem
To tell you that you inspire me
Always; To write about my happy songs
And sad tears.
I can hear the rain coming
Pelting incessantly and untimely
On the neighbour's half-built shed!
It's distracting but
Does it know I cried today?
The whole day to wipe away
The tears from your eyes!
You gifted me a rainbow afterwards....
I have locked it away
In a sacred corner
Of my room where I can keep an eye on it
Lest it tries to escape
Through the small crack in the box
And disappear in the
Already light blue sky hanging overhead
Embellished with a tuft of stray white(or gray) cloud
And the Red?
Nay, it's the Cuckoo
But isn't spring over yet?
I wonder while I watch you walking up to me
With that same smile and ask, "Is my poem ready?"
And your flute sings the melody of my dream!
While your embrace is my worship

I know you know.....

JULY 2014

10pm

You and I wore 
At 10pm
The garb of 
The night,
Which you said,
"Bedazzling!"
I undressed
In front of your
Glazed eyes
Trying to preserve
My sanity
In a tangled
Warp?
You said, "No"
I followed you
To your temple
Bare feet
With a naked heart
Thinking you will 
Turn
And say,
"Look, the stars 
Look so near tonight
And your tree
Is in full bloom
Of daffodils and daisies
The tranquil waters 
Reflecting us?"
The sequence,
The story,
The summerday!
I wished you stayed 
Longer
To see me
Bleeding
Pleading you
To dress me
In the vermilion
Of your heart!

JUNE 2014

Could you see?

Finally,
Could you see?
No?
I thought so!
That cry? The cries?
No?
You couldn't feel the shrieks of agony?
Souls captive in bodies, still-born
Unwilling to leave.
They said they belonged to a God,
These people,
A different God!
Do you know Him?
You do?
So you know the religion coursing through their veins
And yes, they didn't look like you!

"Vermins!" shouted one as he pointed his gun and shot, then cut and shot, then cut and shot. Then a tirade. Then the terrorizing blood-bath. Ah, respite now! 

Loaded onto trucks 
Too broken to carry bodies.
One over the other!
Of helpless minds,
Yearning, crying
For freedom! "I wanted to live!"

Haters, writers, politicians...
All sang songs of joy, everywhere!
Mothers died a thousand deaths
Fathers wept
Too afraid to be alive
Too afraid to be dead?


(For the little children, mothers and fathers who died during the inhuman killing in BTAD in May, 2014)

April 2014

19:00

I leaned my head on my elbow
To look closer at your hazel brown eyes
They burned like orbs in a dark dense jungle
Empathy running in rivulets!

I met you yesterday when you were 80
And I was 13.

As the lights sped past in light years
On the highway
I dreamed a dream you dreamed
Not long ago
When you were 19
Both of us eagerly throwing pebbles
In the pond, one spring afternoon
Creating passionate ripples
On the surface-core.

The whirlpool cajoling the cuckoos
To sing louder? Or shriller
Than before?

And the jasmine tree bore 
The red Flame of the Forest.
Crystallized tears of passionate emotions?
The sound of our hearts dancing in the rain
Subdued the cacophonous thunder lightning!

It's 7pm!
I want to go back to when 
You were 19 and I was 13!

April 2014


CONDUIT

I walked
You walked with me, slow, fast
On that same path
I didn't want you to
But you walked
Paced well with me
Carefully at first
On the mossed and slippery briar path
Holding me at times
Sometimes hard
Sometimes gently.
***************
You walk closely
Your hand brushing my fingers
You slide your arms
Around my shoulder
And ask me, "Can you sing that life song for me?"

APRIL 2014

The War Dance: Scene 1

Garbed in a strange red
My river wished
To be caressed 
By my warmth
By my woman
Who loved it once
Singing a rueful song
A war lullaby
In its womb
A hardened piece of rock
Unsteadied the path
Of the North
A wind now blew
Rebellious, killing, stinging, robbing, raping?
Of none she knows
In her stead.

In the deepest, darkest core
Of a python's belly
Grew a soul-less devil
Ready to be born
In a vacuum 
Shapeless? 

APRIL 2014

THE CALLING: Chapter I


You are all that I am
You are all that I am not
In the summer spring of me
You kissed me
The butterflies of your dreams
Ecstatic as I was in feel
As you sowed seeds
In the rain of my life.

It was you, was it
Who followed me to the room?
And asked me, "What are you composing?"
While our Gods watched.

You knew once I was
Your mother
Then your sister
Your daughter
Now I am your wife.

Oh look!
Your tree has borne jasmine flowers
And two yellow-beaked horn-bills flew!

APRIL 2014

OF THE MOON AND LOVE

I didn’t know

The Moon would

Tell me stories

Even now

In a different language...

In his mother’s tongue?

We both knew

Though, there was a space,

In between the hills

Where the snake lives

In its slimy coat

To slither over the

Seeds?

We had sown them,

Remember?

In the fields....

One mystic  night?

But with our hearts

Abandon

Moon said, “If only you knew.”

I knew, I know

March 25th 2014

Fast reverse

Incoherent,
I tried to understand 
You
As I stood
Disheveled
Disheartened
Distant
Distorted
Distraught?
You looked
Askance
Unperturbed by the rapidity
Of emotions
Flowing through me.
Once upon a time
You braided dreams 
Through my hair
Now the putrid air
Stinks fouler than
When you told her,
"I don't find you attractive!"
I stood laughing anew
Waiting for the 
Menopause season
To rake new stories
Of gore and guilt
Through a body
You once glorified
As your own.

February 2014

Don't rape me please

I am only human
I am a woman,
I want to be loved
The way Mom stitched my frocks,
The way Dad dreamt of me going to a good school.

I am only human
I am a woman,
I want to be loved
Like when my cousins thought I was crazy,
Like when my friends said I laugh too much.

I am only human
I am a woman,
I want to be loved
Like the way my man loves me, unconditionally and intensely,
Like the way I love myself.

I am only human
I am a woman,
Just love me and respect me,
Please don't rape me....

January 2014


Nightmare



The clouds came...

Darkening everything in its fury...

She knew his heart would beat...

But nay...not for her anymore...

See my love...

The dark stead comes...

Fast and furious...

And has crushed your love...

Under its galloping hooves...

Knowing too well that she will die...but did she?

Hark! There she lies...beheaded and bereft of any life...

Breathing the last drops of jasmine...