Month: November 2022

No time there is to write today.
No point there is to write today.
You always write, so write today.
You write, though there’s no light today.

The drums were at the heart of war.
Two raging bulls were sacrificed
To Mother Goddess day before.
Their skins were dried, and dyed, and stretched
Within the span of single day
And now they pumped the blood for war.

They quickened to the marching pace.
They loudened to the flank attacks.
They deepened to the fallen friends.
They quietened to the fallen flag.

Two raging bulls were sacrificed
To Mother Goddess yet again.
The rebels did not want to risk
The wrath of such capricious powers.
Their skins were dried, and dyed, and stretched
Across a span of twenty days
And now they hung from ramparts tall,
Engraved with bloodied stylus pens,
Enumerating “Human Rights”
The usurpers would guarantee.

No wonder their republic humped
On backs of voiceless, blameless bulls,
Was overturned within the year
By choiceless, shameless rebels new.
And so went on for centuries
The practice of beheading bulls.
And now remains no fort, no walls,
Except the Mother Goddess foot
That stamps the fallen bullock heads.

I am enough the way I am.
I’m peaceful, present, satisfied.
Or am I just complacent now?
Am I okay with how I am?
Of course, I can be so much more.
I’m far from my potential still.
I’ll start to push a little more.
To push beyond my limits now.
A little harder, little more.
They’ll understand my need to push.
They won’t be happy if I’m not.
Why can’t they simply leave me be?
What’s wrong with them?!!
What’s wrong with me?
It’s me who’s been ignoring them.
It’s me who’s pushed them far away.
I have to make some time for them.
Perhaps, remove some things I do.
Not just for them, but also me.
This “not enough” is killing me.
I am enough the way I am.

It’s just another thing to do.

No joy remains. No sloth revolts.
No memory of why returns.
It’s just another thing to do.

To do because it’s always done.
To do because to do is safe.
To do because to don’t will daunt.
It’s just another thing to do.

The chats I have in confidence
Are chats I trust the least of all.
If one can be whoever in
The different windows of the chat –
So flirty here, so angry there,
“Professional” in groups we share –
I wonder who I’m talking to.
I wonder who I’m talking as.
We split our psyches by the second,
Swiping through carousel trays
Of masked emotions practised well.
So many lives. So many lies.
So many us to put to sleep
Before we switch off for the night.

He saw me flatten paper cups
To write on them some poetry,
And pointed at the writing pad
They keep beside the pottery.

Along its perforated neck
I tore a paper, bit by bit,
And with forgotten instinct made
An Origami cup of it.

The park behind the hospital
Has greying hair and reddened faces.
The greyheads talk without a shame
Of fantasies unfulfilled yet,
While sons and daughters blush aloud –
How even in the sunset days
Their parents still embarrass them
Without a care for how they feel.

No poem, please. I can’t today.
My mind is pizza-cut between
My shuffled Jigsaw family,
My Snakes and Ladders sanity,
My Jenga ego tottering,
My shaky choices Carroming,
My Two-Eight hand of confidence,
My Origami common sense.
Today, my tryst with poetry
Is Mentos-cola rocketry.

It’s just a number. Vanity.
We’re number-chasing animals.
Our eyes are set binocular
To focus on specific goals.
We have the freedom, yeah we do,
To choose this number or that one.
We do not have the freedom, though,
To choose no number, whatsoever.

That’s the rub, eh, little one?

And, say, we choose the one to chase.
We’re haunted by the others too –
What if our chosen number’s wrong?
And, panicking, we make a switch.
And still the other numbers haunt.
And, panicking, we switch again.
And still the other numbers haunt.
And, panicking, we grab them all.
Binocularly twitching eyes.
And still the other numbers haunt.

Before we know, our time is up.

And then there are the ones who say
That there’s no number fully right,
That living means to pick and stick,
That switching isn’t worth the fight.
If every number bites our bum,
Exploring different ones is dumb.

But how has that worked out for them?

So, when you ask how many more,
I don’t know, kid. Shut up and pour.

The queue was full of flower-heads,
Who wore their choices on their sleeves.
Of course, the party’s not at fault.
These mango men need handkerchieves.

“You cannot wear this,” someone said.
“It’s not allowed,” said someone else.
The polling officers, instead,
Refused to say a word themselves.

The flower-heads went one by one
And beeped the symbols that they wore.
They praised the Prime Minister’s work
And prayed he gets to serve some more.

My mother eyed an officer,
Who used to be her student once.
He shook his head and tapped his belt.
I told her they are carrying guns.

My mother eyed the constable,
Who used to be her father’s aide.
He shook his head and tapped his chest.
She understood they had been paid.