Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Moving On



How exactly do you write a blog post about a book cover? That too, if the book is yours? And if there are the proverbial mountains still left to be climbed to get the book printed and released?

All I will say is this took a lot of thinking (and unthinking) and some doing!

Now, let me move on to the mountain climbing :-)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

A dead leaf's dervish whirl

Blood rust red
spider web hung
from living green
you twirl
in a dervish whirl
drunk - forest breezed.

That breeze died -
an air river dried
into nothing. For placid green
to float and bob
as still life's
anchored and treed.

You hang limp
spider web hung
by living green,
blood rust red, very dead.

Memories

How do you stop memories
dead-ends they don't know
unchided they lead and follow
light as a shadow.

How do you dam memories
that silently in you flow
undamned by you they won't slow
no deep sea do they know.

How do you school memories
these joys you babysat
that refuse to grow
where will you ask them to go?

Monday, November 9, 2009

Ode to Narsapur forest

Its a misty winter morning
and the world's awash with dew;
come, lets leave yesterday, its troubles hanging
lets start life anew.

Come, where time walks slow
in simple cycles of day and night
in which smoothly come and go
dawn, noon and gay twilight.

Where, nature her wand does weave
raising verdant seas of green
and charms out a treasure of sights that leave
memories colour drunk, senses rapier keen.

Where every tree, shrub and grass
rock, gully and jungle trail
hum with life and in living amass
richness of simplicity beyond human toil's avail.

Where bright flashes of colour herald
birds of which we know no name
and animal spoor; of pug, paw and hoof
this, a wild domain proclaim.

So, come and drink your fill
of this bounteous spread
and let its sounds and smells till
your self, to cultivate hope and bury dread.

And as back we make our way
to a life of monotonies, drab and gray
let's pray for yet another day
when you and I come Narsapur way.

Mountain spring

As sheets of tinted gold
or molten silver, you glow
springing free, from a rocky hold
with blithe abandon you flow.

Bubbling, gay, you make your way
under this eroded arch, over yon hard rock ledge
while your merry gurgle seems to say
to lifelong goodness, a pledge.

Pray, what makes you so
merry, buoyant and free
is it some unknown you know
or some holy light you see?

Perhaps it is the relief,
of a new life you see (under sunny skies)
for you must have known the grief
of a rocky prison, which no sunbeams prise.

Or its that you just rejoice
as the bearer of nature's elixir
and through your mellifluous voice
herald providence, light and cheer.

I really do not know
the secrets in your blithe voice's peal
yet, on your rocky banks, as you gently flow
my puny despairs die, my imagined wounds heal.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Woodsmoke is a blanket

Unlike the silent sheet
of morning mist
or the shroud of fog
leading evening into night
woodsmoke is a blanket
spreading like a story
raconteured by a fire's crackle - twigs telling
how tree droppings were brought home
bought free by poverty
to smoke and slowly cook up
small helpings on big plates
for cavernous little mouths
gobbling morsels
seasoned with lots of smoke.

Before the matchstick

Before the matchstick
turns darker than its head
flaming golden, it
gives your face
a third eye
red, oxygen sucking red
yours to suck in
a lungful of smoke
before the matchstick
warps into death.

Clouded smoke

No white boats
swimming in blue
not a white spread
with blue tears showing through
the skies are
smoke, smoke, smoky
grays unbraiding out
tendrils of black,
clouds smoking cloudily.
Can I reach up
and suck in
a lungful of
this smoking wetness?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Railing at love

Is love a set of subtitles
that's seen, written true
on a sleepless TV screen
where everything else is muted out?

Is love a burst of remembered song
blood warm and flowing strong
drowning the soul, a call
echoing in the heart?

Or is it a tyre gone bald
lacking grip, not bothered by
the careenings
of a motorcycle belching loud litanies?

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Dragonflies

If I could go back 25 years in time, around 3.00 in the afternoon today, I would have been besides some Pokhuri in Rourkela, watching the buffaloes from the Khatals all around it wading into the dull emerald green (rich in spirogyra) waters, marveling at the recalcitrance of the egrets - blobs of sun-splashed white on the dark bovine hides - most of them waiting till their feet are wet before kicking off and flying around....

I would have been chewing on a stem of grass, the sun would have been hot on my back and I would have had thousands and thousands of dragonflies all around, transparent winged specks of yellow, red, black and green, there but still not there, as whimsical in their flight and direction as the kapok parachuted seeds floating out of a Bombax fruit that has ripened and burst.....

I didn't go back 25 years in time today (I did go for cycle ride sometime back, charmed out by the moonlight, more about that later) but I have been seeing quite a few dragonflies here in Alwal (a locality in Hyderabad) too (quite notably above the Football ground near Loyola Academy, that becomes almost a mini-pond every year after the rains), so well, I wikied (yes, its now as much of a word as googled is) and apart from coming to know that the Samurai identify themselves with the dragonfly and so many other things that I don't want to bore you with, came across this beautiful Vietnamese saying -

"Chuồn chuồn bay thấp thì mưa, bay cao thì nắng, bay vừa thì râm"

What does it mean?

If Wikipedia is to be believed, "Vietnamese people have a traditional way to forecast rain by seeing dragonflies: "Chuồn chuồn bay thấp thì mưa, bay cao thì nắng, bay vừa thì râm" (Dragonflies fly at low level, it is rainy; dragonflies fly at high level, it is sunny; dragonflies fly at medium level, it is shadowy)."

Well, I think I need to get away soon and go farther than the Football Ground near Loyola Academy (or Shameerpet Lake, for that matter).

And find a lake / wetland where the dragonflies float around in thousands.....

About Me

My photo
Hello and welcome! I am someone who is passionate about poetry and motorcycling and I read and write a lot (writing, for me has been a calling, a release and a career). My debut collection of English poems, "Moving On" was published by Coucal Books in December 2009. It can be ordered here My second poetry collection, Ink Dries can be ordered here Leave a comment or do write to me at ahighwayman(at)gmail(dot)com.

Labels

Stopping By?