Appooppan Thadi

I leave her
and walk back
as the ferocious summer sun

seems to melt
the shiny black tar
under my feet

and I melt like wax -
beads of sweat
find its way down my forehead.

The shining white hair
on the tar
like a caged man

pulling at the chains
trying to break free
to lift itself into the air

and fly.

I remember,
once when we were together
and I held one of these fair

beauties of freedom
harsh,
crushing it

plucking the seed out
and how she scolded me
for plucking the purpose out

of a poor appoppan thadi.

Now I see men
and women
crushed

being plucked out of their purpose
between the fingers of everyday
grounded for what seems forever

while they were destined to float
to heights
to places

to where their seeds will plant dreams anew.

They are stuck
in the tar
and the heat

of everyday abstractions
of expectations
of impossibilities

and I see them wither.

I knew she was right
in more ways than one,
as she oft times is.

Note: Published in The Sunflower Collective on August 8, 2016. 

Lawyer

Today, I walked up to her desk.
It was messy, unlike her
brisk appearance
that wears the shades of the rainbow
with a casual finality.

There were books,
predictably pertaining to the laws
unruly, unlike her
hair that falls neatly
to her sides.

A hygiene product sat whispering
to the laptop cooler
all black, unlike her
words that smother you with their certainty
and playfully warn you to stay out of trouble.

Probably,
I will talk to her before I go.


---
Note: This poem was published in Algebra of Owls on July 22, 2016. 

The Elevator

My fingers play a tasteless rhapsody
as I slowly rise to my doorstep;

watching my fingers dance in the mirror
I realise
the girl in the elevator
has lost her voice.

It is the season of sickness
and longing wraps its long fingers around my heart.

I disappear into darkness,
a soap lather feather
dissolving in the shower.


---
Note: This poem was published on Spillwords on July 13, 2016.

Untitled: Prose Poem

Remembrance follows forgetting

what follows the river down its course is the truth of all the time that it flowed through: through my childhood mornings spent on the sandy banks shimmering in the early rays of the hungry summer sun still waiting by the horizon for us to offer our prayers, my grandfather offers his obeisance like his forefathers have done for ages as I dip my self in the water’s bosom to wash away the sins of stepping on a bug I didn’t see and of competing with a squirrel for the first bite of ripe mango this year

but time will flow by

sins accumulate with a revengeful ferocity and there is no river left this summer to wash me off my deeds and no memory as powerful as my late grandfather’s prayers lost in the din of the millennium. What will happen? What will.


---
Note: This poem has been published in The Unprecedented Review on June 14, 2016.

Silent Poem

This poem is silent,
lost his voice on his way to a protest meeting.
Now he keeps his silence,
protesting the silencing.
Or maybe the brave middle-class poem
is just scared.
Ever since he valiantly voiced his view
that silence is a weapon of the masses
the token of resistance
has been stuffed down the throats of his countrymen.
So the poem goes home,
and returns his awards to the Akademi. 

Note: Excerpts from this poem was published in a feature in the Deccan Chronicle on March 21, 2016.

Poem: Remembrance

i remember how well you remember me

meeting again
after
a brief gap
of centuries

you shook my hands
     welcome back
your eyes gleaming
your face split open in a terrible smile

Spellbound

It has all gone dark

and my spine tingles as excitement peaks

dead are the monsters who in my dreams do creep.

I remember cummings

i like my body

my memory is disjointed

against your body

oh, cummings! your words do excite my mind

but my body is mastered by a different softness.

When the fingers lay entwined

unable to find their true owners

but run riot over every bit of skin they find

the darkness prevails

and the excitement leave us breathless

and we pant 

and ponder

the beauty of existence

and tears roll down our cheeks

what mastery of the body

what bewitchment of the mind

I wonder if even buk can tell us

buk is careless

you tell me

but go to pablo, your mate

I know your distaste for buk’s dark honesty

but pablo, I agree, is our man of the moment.

While I still wonder, 

the calm washes over us

and we breath normal again

and darkness is blinded

by a well-meaning stranger

who haunts the dreary corridor.