Category: Poetry

Right when the tip

of the pen hits the paper

Before the ink ploughs on

To a stroke, to a shape, a something

To dry and to die

To be the shadow of my thought

Right at this tip

I …

She grips and grasps and holds

my hand

In her hand

both shaken

Her fragile palm

freaky, feathery

For me

Her veins,

popped and purple

run through hers

and mine

 

Years of

gripping, grasping and holding me

In her arms

The monster me

softened, slowed and sober

In her touch

Fit inside, bouncing off

the ceiling and the surface

My lines go along and across

these dotted tunnels

 

My words build on

My thoughts overflow

A hundred-storey building

flown horizontal

 

Shapes of my mind revealed

on the blank page with

a fence-work of

tiny black dots

 

His designs,

the unknown maker,

his thoughts unknown

Shapeless and vacant, for

 

My words,

scrambled and sullied,

in slots within dots,

in my search for a form

They drift away in their whining bubbles

My feet tap unsettled, food getting cold

My passive eyes unfurl those greying bonds

 

Once common threads,

Once frizzle, now free

We branched apart

from the common tree

 

Their blatant views on the many,

“cringy”, “stingy”, “reckless”, “unfair”

They hate in a rush, judge in a hurry,

“The others” they loathe,

still boxed in the old

 

Torn, untethered in quiet,

adrift far they leave

The taste of a fine spring,

A table and the wind.

Lost,
in the deep
in your ocean,
in your search, while

Invisible,
to those who tread the surface
who judge, who plan,
who are lost in search of maps and compass
taunted by skies and sharks, while 

Lost,
in search of the unknown
to touch the elusive,
in your own depths,

lost.

To the bird, the river smiles,

like a thousand leaves fluttering,

shimmering and shaking,

each claiming

a piece of sun,

each claiming

to be a piece of sun.

 

To the bird, the leaf rebels,

scorns the metaphor.

A thousand voices thunder:

I suck in the sun.

I am the sun!

I borrowed the words of others
To face the truth
The unmistakable presence of reality
My tongue swirled, blurted out sounds

My eyes looked down, searched for nothing
The ears got a lot from all
I repeated what I heard
My sense was not constant
My fear was
What I saw, what I said, what I felt
Didn’t matter
For, he was not there
To watch, to feel, to hear

He was there
A month ago
I said what I said
Unpolished, raw, unleashed

My words.
Not borrowed.

We roam about our own unique worlds. Every once in a while, a friend appears, a flash of lightning strikes the sky. They shine on a patch of hidden garden, spot a faint promise silenced forever, and salvage a parched, passive soul. They gleam for a mere second, whoosh! back to their world. The velvet blue sky retains the only proof of their presence, a glimmer in our eyes cast wide.

8’o clock, and you walk into the bee-hive of Brisbane CBD. Your ten minute stroll to office is a full length feature film. A kaleidoscope.

You sidestep a broken tile, almost bump into the coffee cup of the man in front. School kids cross you like a herd of sheep, jostling, screaming, joyful. A lone smoker puffing away at the corner of the Marriott, watching an animated couple arguing in Spanish. You pass him fast, your lungs still suck in a hint of blue nicotine.

The signal turns red, twenty more seconds. You close your eyes to bring in the smell of fresh coffee from the cafe called Morning Ritual. You open your eyes to the climbers and creepers up the stone-walled 19th century church, up to the many colours of Brisbane sky, coloured by its river, textured by its people. People you don’t know, you don’t know yet. New colleagues, new customers, new neighbours, new fellow-pedestrians.

New cafe baristas too. You made a new friend earlier today. Karpin, the cafe owner, the sole barista who opens his shop each day at 6am, even on a Sunday. He told you he never took a break, never took a single day off in all ten years. Did you believe him? The man looked calm, and his flat-white stirred you up. You liked talking to him, talk about your grandfather, how he ran a restaurant, back in the day, not so successfully. You didn’t tell that part.

You soak it all in. The signal is still red. What’s wrong? Ah, did time stop for you to breathe-in this glorious new city?

You see the old lady with wild hair, storming across the pavement, deranged, rambling, in pain, almost blocking you. You sense she is hurt, lost, lonely, and never in a million years going to be a threat, yet you try ignoring her, avoid her trajectory, leaping towards the signal, and hope it turns green, oh God!, rush and jump into the pedestrian crossing, all the while astonished by your flight, your fright, and your sudden descent from that self-congratulatory, priestly state of altruism into a hollow pit of apathy, worse, disgust.

You walk.

Amma will move
Amma will move again
She moved when asked
She moved without asking.
 
She moved across cities, jobs, and houses
She moved well when she had it in her
She climbed up the parapet
To clean, to dust, to remove
She ran to catch the bus to office
To earn, to support, to care
 
She lent her limbs to grind spices
She bent her hips to sweep corners
She swirled those wet clothes under the sun
She spun around like a top
 
She held her son
She rocked her daughter,
She kept eyes open, 
as they fell to slumber.
 
She walked when needed
She ran when needed
She gasped for breadth
Her legs were tired
Her eyes were dry
Her hips were weak
Her hands were trembling
 
She moved when she was young
She moved when she was a teen
She moved with her father
She moved with her brothers and sisters
She moved with her husband
She moved with her son and
She moved with her daughter
 
She moved from Ramanathapuram where she was born
She moved to Pudukkottai, and then to Coimbatore. 
She moved briefly to Hyderabad
She then moved with all to Bangalore.
She moved across three houses within Bangalore.
She moved across two floors of the same house in Bangalore.
 
She was moved again to Coimbatore
She has been moving for the last seventy years
She cannot move anymore.
She cannot be moved anymore.
 
Amma cannot move.
But,
Amma will move.
Amma will move again.