Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Stranglehold of expectations.

(another one from the decade and a half old diary. makes me smile now, cos the hysteria has died down.)

Thy ask me if I’m a feminist
I tell them I don’t know
But it hurts, oh yes, it hurts
When her fatigue is dismissed
And becomes a cooking vessel
When they cast the stone at her
Cos she did what he too did.

It hurts, godammit, it hurts
When she is called to be
The paragon of virtue
When she is put in her place
With ‘a woman is blah blah blah - -

It hurts, bl---y s—t, it hurts
When she is told
A lady shouldn’t speak like that
A lady shouldn’t sit like that
A lady shouldn’t think like that
A lady shouldn’t think at all.

Dash it, who the hell wants to be a lady?
What, by the way, is a lady?
Who, tell me, is to decide
How many lines a poem should have?

It hurts, oh God, it hurts
When one of your own gender
Turns around and fires
That final fatal shot.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Anniversary

(another entry in my diary - made a year after my mother's death. she, by the way, was the most powerful influence on me.)

A year since she left.


A year since the detonation

In the chest—or brain?

The steadying hand. Stunned Disbelief.

No more.

Gone.

Where?

Deaf to our grief

Dead to our grief

Where are you?

WHERE are you?


Then the vacuum.

The struggle for air in nothingness

Clawing to grasp the reality of absence.

The quake was better.


Can vacuum be so heavy? Oppressive?

Crushing the nerve from feeling the pain?


When was this sunya infused with grief?

When did it happen?

Brine and migraine

Sobs toppling poise?


Stealthily, absence grew into day to day existence

But - - - -WHERE are you?

Something in me sometimes screams

Can you just cease to be? What strange heaven bewitches you

That you choose not to reach out

And balm my pain

Which once you could not bear?


You too, heartless, ma?


Heart, I guess, belongs to the flesh and bone.

Alas!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

MA

(i discovered an old diary today - and in it my poor attempts at writing poems. this was written a couple of months after my mother died.the metre was all wrong, so i left it. today metre matters little to me)


Her stars were all wrong


She should never have been


But gods for cruel fun


Willed it!



The formula was ideal


For the tragic role


Misfortunes they came


In battalion




She withstood them


Her soul unscathed


Never did she wallow


In self pity



Clamouring for sympathy


Was alien to her grain


She bore her jagged cross


With poise rare.



Knowing the sting of pain


She spanned out her wings


To shelter those writhing


In anguish great.



What strange philosophy


Permeated her being?


A complete and total


Denial of self?



Was it worth it, Ma?



Not having afforded them


Their amusement


Did the Gods greet you


Heads hung in shame?


Saturday, March 26, 2011

Elusive regions of the mind.



Blue or green?



I couldn’t decide.



Blue morphing into green



Or green into blue?








Bur the thought returned



Or was it feeling?



Thought morphing into feelings



And Feelings into thoughts?








The blue green waters of the ocean



Taking the colours of the earth



As they approach the shore



Only to return



To its never ending pursuit



Of blue or green



Or both?








Once again



That strange sensation fills me



Every cell in my being



As they did



Ever since I remember.








Sitting on the steps in the evenings after shower



Waiting for amma to complete the ritual



Of dusting with rasnathi podi



The line where my wet hair parted



At the center of my scalp.








It was gloaming, almost



And the coconut trees stood large



To my five year old eyes.



They seemed to touch the heavens



And beckoned me to come



With the breeze that moved them.








I watched the birds trail across the heavens



And envied them



As some disappeared into the trees



So close to the heavens.








And that strange sensation



Of thought morphed into feelings



Spread in my chest



Creating a sadness



Or was it joy?



I do not know.






But it purges,



That sensation



And transports



To an unknown region.








I get the feeling



Or is it thought



That strange truths inhabit that land.



The blue green sea merging with the distant horizon



The sky and the swaying palms that shelter the birds



awaken in me



thought or feelings I cannot fathom.



But tell me



I have in me the elements of those regions



I long for a glimpse of - - -





Thursday, February 3, 2011

The return of the enemy

When the dreaded foe resurfaced


My heart crashed against the ribs


Knocking me down.




But soon I picked myself up


And the ground steadied beneath me,


And I faced the foe.




The apparition which had petrified me


Was now but a shadow of what he was


The first time




He’d been demystified.


His cards were exposed


And my reserves I’d discovered.




I mocked him.




You can kill only me


You can’t touch my spirit



Saturday, January 29, 2011

abandoned

my muse deserted me

leaving behind a vacuum

which grows and grows

and engulfs.

how did I frighten it away?

will it ever return?

dwelling in a vacuum

is no fun.

thoughts drift in

and drift away.

like a yo-yo

with the string snapped

i roll away

and stop in some corner

till the cleaner sweeps me off and dumps me

in the waste bin

to be trashed.