Translations

1 1.

THE ILLUMINATED AUDITORIUM AND THE SHELLS OF SNAIL

The shells of snail washed ashore at the bank of the stream not waiting for the next rain do not know it . The glazed mirrors of this room perform a dance with flames in their heart while the broad-bladed swords discarded by the horsemen who flew to the sky dangle on the gulmohar trees and the dewdrops that scatter at the quivering of the hounds leaping on their front legs all around through the summer’s fire and the red mutiny descend on the poles to imprison the earth . As the feeble voice of the bird that had shaken the night off slides on the slanting rays of the sun the mridhangam tilted on the wall melts and unwraps its cover . Since the frozen flute and the organ in the wing of the bird

2

that had returned to its nest balance by waking up ahead the dance continues at the step made and the ‘mudra’ gestured . **********************************************

3

2..

ONLY THAT WAS LACKING

Only that was lacking . A blissful sea it was . Moreover that empire was running beneath the feet as a fruit of orange with none to hinder and not even broken by the bird’s voices . At day break it woke up all white in blooming ponds . As it set out , declining with no repulsion, though not looking for an omen the yellow sun stood silent caught in the entwined branches that remained like the evening contemplation of rainy trees . On that land , that day , the drenching was the beginning . The residue of the days brought in anticipation of a need flowered on the words that filled the pocket . Even the strings of sparklers were wet .

4 As sleeplessness practices swinging on the slackness of electrical wires today , there is blinding brightness in the knots of nerves . Despite little scope for redemption the words that lie scattered should be shaken off their slumber .

5

3.

ENCOUNTER

Darkness frequents the auditorium . Someday , the rainbow mingles with the melody of the strings . The earless , as they move, bring donkeys to one’s mind . At the moment of seeking vision from the fingers of the veena , the moment akin to the leap of a longing head for the fondling fingers of maternity , the feet get muddy. In the goblet of the folded hands the water of the Ganges . The torn voices of tin would stink in the mouths of buildings resembling unwashed faces . Yet , the pluck of a string would suffice . Tender shoots would sprout from the bleeding walls of the heart.

6

4.

AND NOW

At the melting of the mass of the stone statue , a birth anew . The softness of breeze at the infant’s tread . The withered dry leaves of yesterday would colour the water . As the taste changes , the waves won’t sleep too . Knock at the doors of the new springs at once . The flower given a while ago to the tender fingers would wither now . Substitute it with a fragrant fresh one . Allow the babe to walk in the streets that do not stretch beyond tomorrow . Let the path extend as the vision widens . Had there been one already – broken limbs , chisel , stone chips , tear , petals on the left breast ,

7 wheel , jostling crowd , trees , cars , carbon-monoxide , the chirpings of birds at dawn, let everything alike glow brightly – and give them all for the eyes to see always . ===============================================

8 5.

THE VOICE THAT BECKONED

The crescent moon would shine vainly across the woods of palmyra trees , where anything untoward would happen visited late in the evening ; and farther , beyond the widowed lands where the farm blooms . And away from the lonely pipal tree , that chatters to itself , that lies beyond the hillocks looking like hairless male chests , a faceless voice called . The dream tree in the semi-darkness at the turn of the alley that fondly beckoned with branches of human hands would be somewhere there . The journey continues in search of the voice despite the footwear wearing out and the wrist-watch getting discarded . An aeon would be needed to find the face out .

9

6.

LIVING ILLUSIONS

When time lay ruined the sea had come and gone . As the bare clothesline and the wardrobe witnessed there remained sand particles chucked by the feet on the doorstep . The saltiness settled on the lips as a trace of memory having dissolved in the air , doubt would descend , if the sea had come . Garments rumpled by the touch of a feminine physique emerge from the dark corners of the forgetful memory and wander in search of the body . The rustling of clothes everywhere . The yellow moon that walked alongside that day , in its attempt to copy the flame of the flesh chiselled sketches . As the chill long hands of the dead days elongate and fill up with oblivion ,

10 the forms remain alien even to imagination .

11 7.

POSITIONING

The hungry feet travelling everyday would long for a shorter distance . The trees along the roads would invite to have a nap in return for their shade . The spark of fire on the feet would kindle the horses’ neigh as a smoky fire into memory . The appetite unquenched even after consuming the shadow , the journey would continue with a branch improvised as an umbrella . The ensuing days would pass attaining immortality in the injuries inflicted by the severing done for the sake of memory . As the rootless feet go in pursuit of the blue horizon seen far beyond the buildings that burn to ashes in the scorching mirage the goosepimpled wayside trees would cover the path with chequered shade unaware of the permanence of the melodies they had begotten

12 8.

THE CAGES

The edge of my wing got trapped in the bars of an incomplete liberty as I leapt and flew with new destinations in mind . As I struggled to sever and flutter off from the semi-heaven , your memory descended weightless like a single feather. The words I had scattered to get you emancipated lay strewn and blocked the way instead of paving it . Even though I had fancied your target as just four steps ahead , your journey had commenced through the gap . Whereas , I had not imprinted a step forward in my path that transcends all measures of feet .

13 9. MONOLOGUE -- 2 Time that had become noiseless like clock submerged in water would remind its length as cormorants that fly with spread wings and sounds exploding and scattering the moment I leave you . Stroking my earlobe, I would then try to forget you in the bitterness of the red tea . And you too would focus your attention on the electric fan that slices the air as it rotates , write with the pen and go home, boarding a bus . My heart would wish , however , that you should reach there before darkness descends.

14 10 .

MONOLOGUE-3

Even those casual moments spent in your company tear the flesh of your memory as coloured stones grown with thorns . Feeble breaths howl in remembrance of storm . Even after having freed my fingers , tearing them apart , from the clutches of your hand , the droplets of blood that dribble in the mind refuse to remain witnesses and grow thorn trees . ============================================================

15

11 .

THE FALLS , THE SLIPS , THE DESCENTS

As the possibility of an objective desolation remained to my advantage , though not with dislike , I strive to set you aside . Ignorant of handling the twines of emotions , what the chap , who, snapping the kites and erasing the vistas and begging pardon , prostrating , articulates to you , who crosses the road like a child , is philosophy . To pass beyond what is attained and ask what remains further to transcend – As all noisily scatter dust and desilt the bank brimming ponds in your eyes , my shadow disfigures . I walk away , a stranger , losing my image .

16

12 .

26 MAY , ‘79

Though tied up in rags , unaware that dreams never cease , I promptly bought a bottle of Horlicks which lay on the lap like a child . Hailstones tore the tin back of the bus . Despite the wet back and dust filled eyes , besides ailment having made me too weak to walk , I have been searching you since the fairies had come to me . To your feet that alight the bus on reaching the destination the rain soaked mud would inform it .

17

13.

THAT WAS A RAAGA

You who sculpted darkness and stood to erect it on a rectangle and reject the illusion of light forgot hunger. Your voice which quenched the slogans of the bile alkaline fed the rains . The dust ,laden with the noice of the transport dissolved . The soul , now , is a fresh rose . To heal the mutilated nerves what it implored from you was the ‘raag’ Yadhukula Kaamboji . You lulled and melted me in Neelambari . As the hand could feel the frontiers of fantasy , the kiss of nipples

18

on the closed eyelids. My chariots would depart . Even the meal would’ve slept off by the time your shrunken stomach straightens up . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

19

14 .

RAMESWARAM

I was late because of the previous night’s sleeplessness. A grey cloud sideways had hidden the sun . The rows of anchored canoes stood unaware of the everlasting music of the waves . Whirled and whirled up above the throbbing motorboat flocks of cormorants resembling an umbrella of feathers . I was focussing through my camera’s viewfinder . The peeping rays of sun wove webs of gold on the retreating waves . Awaiting sunrise I shifted the vision from my camera . The fishermen were shitting squatting in a line . I was focussing my seaview as they shitted, with the camera devoid of humanism weighing heavy in my hands .

20 =========================================== 15 .

GOD IN A LEAP YEAR

God loves you . I don’t love Him . He opens the gates of the temple . I close them . As I open them uncleaned toilets are seen . Rilke surrenders : “ Hereafter it would come here and would search long for me and towards evening would fall on the hard lap of the have-nots . I am scared. What would you do ? Oh God !” I don’t offer refuge . I have concealed in my memory His burial and shrouding . Press the memory key of my cranium . On the very next day of God’s passing away

21 a koel sang love here in clear notes . In anonymous streets donkeys copulated . Warriors fell with bullet-pierced chests . Chums evacuated the friendly city. Dogs slept soundly in the 10 o’clock sunshine . In bookshops fashionable young women buying once more the already read Enid Blighton . I did not buy the book “ God is yet to die ” owing to disagreement over the conversion rate of the Indian rupee and the US dollar . The globe is said to dance around itself to celebrate the leap year .

22

16 . POETIC Won’t it be possible to paint a few blades of grass without mingling the ‘I’ ? will it be possible to compose a few lines of verse without dissolving ‘you’ ? Instead of questioning their ‘I’s, they would question what has been done with a tap on the back , and why ? What wheels would turn after the shedding of their ego ? Whichever ? Whoever ? in Whatever ? Who ? Why ? of Which ? Its ? The kicked balls . Wobbling voices of din and bustle . Which and which are those ? What means them to Whom ? Because in the whys of why how much are to which ? If all inclusive that that hasn’t ‘ you ’ that that hasn’t ‘ me ’ would mingle in the numbers that are infinite .

23

It is the ruin of the uninhabited space . Everything gets ruined when one claims that it is ‘I’.

24

17.

THE BUDDHA’S BEGGING BOWL

Vulva Flame Fifty-fifty Earth moon Human tree The middle Old age Disease The end The flame would die Supreme joy The flesh would flag The sun would break the skin of lake Unceasing journey The rotating wheel The tree as a stone The seed as a burden again shouldering and laughing shouldering and suffering shouldering and freezing into a statue and feeling proud .

25

The burden would vanish when the self remains idle . For Buddha whose third week would pass walking to and fro ‘Nirvana’, in the fourth . In the fifth week he sought shelter from the rain . Why ? Muchilandan will be able to reason it out . Will the cobra that had sought refuge inside the begging bowl of Buddha tell it ? ===========================================================

26

18 .

ART CHISEL SLEEP STONE

The song that you know The sea wave with moon’s magnetic pull You don’t listen to . You do not see the astounding painting that you understand . You have not comprehended the proximity of the golden-feet marvelous moment overwhelming moment in ecstasy . You don’t think of the critical accident in which art chisel sleep stone splintered the tranquility of tranquility the burden of burden the mind in the mind . =========================================================

27

19 .

WINTRY BRANCH

Later , later sprouted in another season that wintry branch . But it was raining and raining here . Wishing for an undrenched letter I was turning all wet within . But, you have written . It came dropping like an arrow spat by a bow . We have been torn apart into staring full parts , confessed the blue letter and died in my orange coloured dust bin . As the befores of what we have shared so far , the rocks stood huge that would get salvation by the cleansing of rain for ever and for ever . Hereafter , I have only myself to love . With the truth which I had all along been searching for finally within the reach , as a wound I would turn away . My affection My love . Mind in front of the mirror. The desert breath of the mind , wherein silence is suffocated is a sand painting and

28

conquers intoxication . This desert is a sea-shore turned prison of waves steadily moving from south to north . The dogs have severed their friendship. The thatched shed that has three snorting mongoose has therefore become home . The heart of all places will not groan and grumble for betrayals .

29

20 .

SEEKING WISDOM

The horse paces sans rider . The tree grows and splits the morgue . Banyan tree . The tree of Time . ****** The crocodile under water spits the very source of the world . The being that began with the vine creeping, flower blooming , the birds multiplying and copulating as a unicellular organism . Again a commencement . Wisdom will not dawn . ****** Gyrating inside circles . The centre alone is the truth . Everything else is illusion . ****** After you had gone in search of wisdom as a bird , as an animal , and , a human a tree here piercing open the earth and doing away with differences professed wisdom .

30 None was under the tree . Perplexed and frightened after a nightmare the truth-seeker of this century roams about in search of a dreamless sleep . ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

31

21.

HOW TO DREAM WITH EYES WIDE OPEN

Tell me how to dream with eyes wide open . Dispel the mouth gaping sleepiness . Dream the breakfast . The evening tea-time , with dull yellow sea surf and surf related arts . Tire and throw it on the table . At the experiment stage itself missiles dying with split heads . Universal dance . The ailment of birth . In the fraction of one in two hundredth of a second , in the fraction of one in six hundredth of a second , in the fraction of one in four thousandth of a second , the sprint of the pupil of the eye should merge . The recording of the dream depends on the infiltration of the inner space light . To rely on the computer for over 17999 times is still more a blunder . Not perceiving a dew drop from an uncompromising angle and retrieving it again from another by pressing the memory-key ptch … oh , the thread of dreaming would snap .

32

It was arranged for myself and a robot that could smell a flower to play chess on a synthetic grass-court . A wooden knight , a wooden king and a queen who had known him even then . The game was deferred because of ultra-violet rays . As I remain puzzled the robot laughs as to how to dream with eyes open the next day .

33

22 .

THE UTTERING WORD

Walking on and on , an unwearied distance becomes possible for the thighs . From remoteness comes vicinity . From the source is born raag Natabhairavi . A painting is drawn from movement . From the grass soaked in the moon the firefly gets its bioelectricity. The negation of your sufferings arises from you yourself . I come to myself to take my masks off . From afar comes a wick-flame . After having been in travel comes the corner of danger . From sorrow is distilled the essence of joy . I come to you . Your goes to him . Then go you to an invalid coin . The way through which I travelled on and on , thinking that it would take me to my destination ,

34

alas , turned out to be a blind alley . And I keep waiting with the hope that my living world would surely succeed .

35

23 .

THE SOLITUDE OF A LONG DISTANCE TRAVELLER

Either during the silent duration of a query, or at the shadowy moment , our walk began by sometime like that . After losing the look of hearing the conversation hesitated at the corners of auditorium and the frontiers of music . I did not delay to collect them before it would spill through the spores of memory . When the soft time of the snow melted and dissolved , it was season for the grass to bloom . Unable to be confirmed if it was a question that had its root cracked and split , it remained a flower blossomed on a headless trunk as seen in one of John Faust’s painting depicting nothing above the waist . Music , colour blend , slope , balanced spiralling , remote distance , all became the fire that gyrates

36

in a whirlpool . You were convinced that sound should its life be . Its presence you continued to reject . Then a shadow swayed in the illumination of the mind . If the shadow had started ringing for too long , the question’s question ought to have sounded despite its being faceless . You would have rather worn unhearing ears .

(To Renga )

37

24 .

LEAVING

Practising to inlay the answers to the whys of the beetle that bores through my life I had been staring at the printed letters forgetting the fringes of fate and burying myself into me . As a matter of consolation you are in love with someone . My conversation with the cormorants continued in the sea wailing shores . Despite the body-melting heat , surrendering to the ocean as the only refuge , I kept on standing and vascillated to seek shelter under the shadow of the drying fishing-net . The proclamation that safe haven could be sought in the flesh continued from you . With the stink of the passenger train compartments in which I and the fishermen boarded , travelled and got down , I left once again the nest supposed to be home .

38

25 .

A FEMALE VOICE

A female voice raises high , with wings spread , with the mind prison’s darkness dispersed . Why does the sandstorm gyrate ? Was it consequent to love having become lame ? The profound grief of the tempest sleeps in the morning’s nest . Her voice that would melt and dissolve me whose hair dishevels and gets tousled in the air and who remains alone shouting afar away from sea-surf breaking at the sea shore , imploring ,heart-rending , shedding all paradox , as a solid snow , as an open-eyed corpse , would merge into me as he and she would amalgamate into a Haran .*

* ( Haran is the other name of Shiva , the God of Destruction in Hindu

39 mythology.) 26 .

UNDERGROUND POEM

Did you write the underground poem on a bed of thorn , on a grassy river bed ? Did you sponge up that which dribbled from the tongue of flower ? Did you deliver to the words the written leftovers impressed by the footprints on dust ? Photographs ,static smiles , smoking aeroplane , the recorded-breath of the escaping contemporary deaths . Did it scream in your madness So as to be audible to 105 decibel human beings ? Listen to the story ,the poem of the story . Did you compile the silences that intervene silence ? Had you seen a storm were you in the middle of its eye ?

40

27 .

SOMEONE / SOMETHING / LIFE / 5 / 36 / 16 / 12

A green apple stares on the brick wall . A car stops in front of the sign post , puzzled about its destination . People who throb like a taxi engine press the fifth button of the lift . A man sits behind self-shutting doors , his brain unfastened , and given to a phonograph . Drawing him in an ocean of merciful munna are 36 violins , 16 violas , 12 cellos and a score of pianos . How would this music reach the hearts of men who have no ears ? Only then would happen an outer-space travel transcending this universe ? A message gets spat by light to you two and a half years later , after the death of stars that know not any pain , old age or poverty . While we keep dying , we take care , spending a lifetime , not to spend even a small change in excess .

41

28 . TOY GUNS AND AERIAL MESSENGERS ……………………… is it yet an unwinged bird inside the egg-shell ? Oh , the Tenth Muse who does not know a saintly man , The aerial messengers have taken wings in search of another milky way to protest the ozone depletion . Look here … now … the Concord plane - bound for Paris crossing the speed limit of sound and making reverberations. You are to lose even your potency for procreation . Why to have the nomenclature of ‘ father ’ ? What and to whom are we to bequeath ? Tell me . The hangman’s noose of our mental anguish ? Someone releases the doves ( those that remain ) to freedom prior to the exploding of the euro-missile . Fool , aren’t you aware that they are a vanishing species ? We are further sophisticating our technology , further . In the war of a mini , mini-era , the weapons could be put to use ; noiselessly moving helicopters to spray chemical mixture after ten o’ clock at night . Oh brute ! The huts would shrink and would strangle the throat . What an advancement ! A mask to protect from poisonous gases and become a ¾ th man . But you should take note . We are functioning within the limits of ethics . Payment for articles , whichever purchased ,

42

should be remitted only in dollars . Roubles should be accounted for . Though a toy-gun , how many pseudo-shots are we going to fire is more important .

43

29.

FROM AUROVILLE TO NARORA

Do you know ? The expanse of sky that extends from your telescope is a waste space . Oblivious . Not conscious of its ego . Would they have ever seen the milky way ? Your tears – The mastwood trees – The smile of mysteries – The benevolence – The cascade and the nascent present – The fish , the thorns , the pit and the sweet toddy – The woodcutters who fell trees for the untanned leather and their man-eaters who strip the bark ? Would imbeciles and brutes be aware that the black – holes of stars have become wearied and darkened wandering vaginas and mysteries of the earth ; and that time goes on sans sexual intercourse , unconscious of its gender classification ? Know : What has not been known : Not knowing what transcends that has been transcended . The other day the wax and wings of Icarus

44

attempted to touch the sun . Realised he his limitation by his two hands lost in radiation , and light lost in the green sea-water .

The challenge that prevailed again and again for the usefulness of utility knew itself before leaping above the earth’s stratosphere in broken sky crumbles boring the lives … Would flowers bloom from protons ? An Auroville in Narora ? You in the atom: I in the present . Yet , the fluttering of an eagle in the cranium . =======================================================

45

30 .

THE POEM OF A POEM

Dreaming a dream , chased by a dream , falling into a dream , opening the eyes and closing them , the walking and the moving and the crawling crumbled , and broke into a single noise . As the green shining eyes that had caught inside the closed eyes remained staring , I woke up as a poem within a poem . In the noon of the woken up eye , plant the poem that happened and passed the anti-anti-poem , the apoem , to the Z page of poetry , to the ‘n’ th power of poetry , the violation of poetry in a poster to the lie of poetry , the gamblers of poetry , the fans , the mirrors ,

46

your steps in front , your lenses in the rear , and your lines in the middle ,

*

====================================================

47

31 .

PERCEPTION AND COMPREHENSION

I am writing what I am writing . I am writing that I am writing . I write that which I consider as I am writing . I write what I am writing as I write what I write . I write because I write . You see because I am visible . The one who is seen is looked at . Is it clear ? The questioned becoming the question , the seen becoming the sight , the understood becoming the comprehension , the one who flowers becoming a mystery , layer after layer , shocking , the thinker becoming the complexity , the sculptor becoming the chisel , the painter becoming the vision , the complication becoming the convolution , the convolution becoming the contemplation , the flame turning into ash , the ash transforming into your bone , phosphorous becoming a day-dream ,

48

the day-dream turning into a grafted flower , that which flowered becoming a mystery , incomprehensible , as a fresh , new poem , one after the other , atom by atom , in the ripple , in the wave , cuddled up , and , cuddled together , and washed and dissolved body-like , remains the leg on the shore .

49

32.

THE GRAMAPHONE RECORDS OF A DEAD MAN

I . The dead man’s gramaphone records keep on running even after the machine had stopped . He laughs at the rotation . For a night , be an idiot to your daughter . That which remains forever is the first dimension , he maintains . A one-time dreamer and a choosy eater, yet was he scared of the crowd of thorn grown inside a fish . He asked again at something in a dry-leaf-tone what do they say ? They want to speak about life , that ; As if the living is not enough . About it they want to speak . The death won’t suffice for them . It should be talked about .

II . To the throbbing heart where the shadow dance mutiny would appear and sprout , wrath is a hindrance , break it . This is art ; this is art .

50 Stay fixed on this ; stay fixed . 33. MADNESS AND CREATION Unfinished dream , sprouting crescent moon , rope snake , the river Ganges , serpent gale , will not stir . The third eye would see with lids closed . Madness and balderdash . All poetry is Form of Wrath . An unhealing wound it is . And would stink always . ==================================

51

34 . THE RIVER OF FILTH AND THE ALUMINIUM MEN With the smell of grass grown with dew drops atop , time was embroidering my life in strings of violin . Just three notes had the flute practised so far . The quantum of coffee consumed had to be recompensed in terms of the sugar expended . Nothing has till now been said about the first stage night crows that had coughed like a tuberculosis patient who sleeps at the backseat of an abandoned taxi . Yet , this metropolis where lamps illumine the roads as if the streets had caught fire had swallowed me . The river of filth flows down into me – in the nudity of pavement children who see food in their dream in the colour of the crows that descend like aeroplanes in a row for the

52

crumbs of bread from a man’s hand seen on the woman’s face dented within polythene blankets with horse dung and dust settled like an apparel . The saliva that spills on the table gets mixed up with the tea driving the flies away that swarm round . The river of filth dribbles into me . In the railway station where aluminium men paint their colour unaware that the stench had gone up to the intestine , I stand , nibbling the tips of segmented days .

53

35 .

THE RESIDENCE LEFT BEHIND

The time when all the directions kept silent . The small words that pricked the bare body would tremble and come to position . The being rejected for want of accommodation by the metropolis would sniff the trails out and migrate places and would discern the subtle wrinkle gesture of kindness and would squat bending its forelegs imploring , ‘ when ? my mother ’ . Some stranger’s suggestive song had fizzled out in the appearance of a raga and had sculpted the beggar who entreats with a harmonium with tiny chisels on my body . The modernity of the world map which beguiles the vast surface as one residence gets frayed and alongside the fresh fragrance of flower plants , butterflies and grasshoppers gets mixed with the paper pulp . The smell of a lonely person’s room , the endless parley of the rainy night trees ,

54 the cost of the burdens shed off , as all get freezed , the moisturous muteness proclaims to the brain cells : March off towards the roofless , far-reaching street , To own it exclusively .

55

36 .

JOURNEY -- DOWN-WARDS

Why , You , I and all of us climb up only on one rung of a ladder . While climbing down , somehow , everyone of us descend swiftly in a lift or via mosaic stares , with the slippers pressing , or bare foot feeling the chillness , covering all the steps , or like boys sliding on the banister . The mud you had incubated will not withstand Your feet , and that , you are aware of . He knows the big halls , teak door , metal knobs , and in such places his having been laid down unknown . Even the one who had offered the poisonous gas chambers to the Jews would have thought for a second

56

about his down-ward journey . I , you and him would anyone have thought about the day when lives would pass away as water clogging the lungs breathless and endless – the day when plants would wilt ; the time when eyes would lose their pupils ; the day when your technology would turn towards you as a gun . ============================================================

57

37 . METROPOLIS HOOD Amidst flowering trees had sprouted your buildings . Net screens of windows to prevent flies in the dining hall . While leaving you behind , an elliptical ground for you to play . There the green grass would brush the ankle . Account kept , in the mind or the fingers , of the deer that stray there . A water source wherein strange birds land . Even though ten million glucose atoms rushed to your aid , your range of vision did not go beyond the concrete squares , at that split of a second when the top most ends of the rain-tree crouched . Oh my grown up child , I have only the sky squeezed by buildings for me when I look upward . The breath would suffocate more to see the aluminium branches of the television shoots on tops of houses . In my daily travel to win my bread , diesel locomotives would torment me everyday .

58 ==================================================== 38 . ANOTHER TOWN Two of my days were spent in self-exile in that city . The white stripes of a pair of dress had tanned . My walk has lost its aim and my vision , its target . The town began to hound me with the ferocity of mad dogs . Lodges refused a way in . Railway stations were not meant for sleeping . Having failed to take note of the commencement of summer rain one of my hands raised like an umbrella . The nascent rain drops that went through the hair that remained unwashed for weeks dribbled and tasted salty at lip ends . The wrath of wind halted the rain . They were amputating the limbs of the huge tree that had severed its relationship with the earth just then . They had forgotten the machine that keeps spread its monotonous hands which continue to grow despite being cut .

59 ========================================================= 39 . MEN WHO SUFFER ACHE This roof cracks up whenever it feels like . The left corner in particular . Ache . At times it gets stuck in and thrusts out with no forewarning like erect nail in the colour of fire and the vibrancy of red . Despite it being plucked out and the roof repaired to withstand further onslaught , it bores through the pain-killers and the hard pressings of the fingers . Time wears out in the process of repairing the roof . Tablets get exausted . The sweet resonance of strings slumbers . The pressure of fingers lessens . The crack of the roof widens more and more . Blue sky / pitch darkness

60 appears from there . The luminous pains of flickering stars come in view . Even the war planet reddens because of the dry winds of ache . Now one has to look up at the whole sky displacing the top layer of the roof in its entirety . Even then would be conspicuous , amidst one of the many crowds of stars , a sharp red hot nail . ============================================================

61

40 . MENDING The crows bade farewell to the cypress trees and remnants of night to go on their long voyage . In the process of scavenging the town lepers were spat out . The clean pedestrian path hesitated to accept the tin coins . The cleanliness of the tumour of the body operated upon sparkled in the blood drops discerned . Vehicles conversed with wireless phones . Undamaged tar-roads got restored . Distracted from work , some anonymous chap put his hand into the flux molten bitumen bucket . To me who does not know how to restore the hand-skin was visible his face and the backs of the passers-by .

62

41 . THE HUMAN DEATHS THAT NEED CONCERN . Having got rid of the tiger that roamed about , and the thornscape that had sprawled in your jungle , you had adapted yourself to the porridgephere of the hut pots , wringing the flame that lingered in the muscles . Your feet which had pierced through the enfolding aggressions of darkness were not accustomed to footwear . Amid the dry holy-grass and the creeping cow’s-thorn , oh man , you , who linked villages in tracks , went off , saying , “ Let us meet tomorrow ”. My gaze , unable to figure out that the uniformists would give an interpretation transcending language to your last words , had got fixed on your torn shirt collar . The weapon they had employed

63 bore the antiquity of time . Stones must have searched for the phosphates of your knees . They would have destroyed your atoms with a fluid sound . The meanness that would not have known the heights of the sky you reach would have added speed to their horse-shoes and torn your thighs . Not healing the wounds the government hospital turned you away with the freshness of bleeding . The electric crematorium that feared you would sprout even in a graveyard , burnt your body to ash , packed it in a polythene bag and gave it in my hands , who had come there to get a last glimpse .

64

42 .

ABOUT STATUES

The time has come for us to talk about statues . Our concern , now , is not for those who remain with the excreta of birds dribbled in lines on the face and the body and which do not know how to breath the salty wind of the sea . It is about the statue which is standing erect after the process of mixing and melting the lamps which had transcended generations with a tinge of green rust and the cutlery , small and big , bequeathed by the ancestors . Wall posters , head gears , diesel lorries and high-frequency telecommunication equipment , all stood surrounding , to see the statue face opened . The statue is a metal, said an elderly man .

65 No one would like to become a statue hereafter, endorsed an assistant . However , for the parade of hangers-on for food , that stood encircled in the smoke of beedi hidden within palms , someone was required to loiter alive and turn a statue . But it should not send out roots , branch out or talk . Nevertheless , the bronze statue was transmitting in a different wavelength , transcending all barriers of protection . =======================================================

66

43 . AMIDST THE SILENCES OF VILLAGES . The paintings he had left behind veiled my room’s wall cracks . From them always , rough men’s movement sloganeering , carrying flame spheres on their heads . The low guttural humming of a tune weaves a nest , like a yellow belly bird tearing the sugarcane blades , one for each direction . By the time the young ones hatch out , these walls would become alien to me . His pair of footwear would remain in the room corner . Spiders would weave cobwebs over them , which the mouse would remove in their play . Upside down remains the moda he had sat and left . Inside it are his belongings – books , rejected manuscripts , a pen with dried-up thick ink . Like a horse getting gooseflesh on its mane

67

and dashing off its shut doors and eggressing in the rain that blows like a salty sea wind eroding the steel-grills , he remains somewhere amidst the silences of villages .

68

44 . THE REALISM OF A HYPOTHETICAL HAPPENING Doors would be smashed . Fruits and dreams would submerge into water . Temporary walls would spring on streets . The day lascerating steel vehicles would stay . Nothing would remain as before . Leaves would wither . Branches would break . Lanes would suffocate in the smell of gunpowder. Children and voices would scream . All and sundry would merge . Nothing would remain as before . Men would lie , scorched , by the street like the bird’s meat broiled in fire . Amputated leg and scattered fingers would lie , quivering in the ditches . Nothing would remain as before . What gets sucked today , that would get shed that day , a few drops less – Human blood would clot and swarm cheaper than water . The buzzing of flies would not be singable by any .

69 The singers would then have the elongated sounds of shells as song . A crow would flutter its wings and rip apart the eye of an unclaimed corpse . Stones , bricks and walls would turn into a heap . A grand silence , like an interval between two musical notes . Stone , a chip of metal , gaping walls as wounds . In the crack would sprout a tiny grass in the colour of a parrot . On weary bodies , sweat would become diamond powder . Your skin would be removed like a shirt for examination . The presence of tuneful veins would be taken cognisance of . Not a place of safety . Not a flight ticket to any foreign country . Restrictedly two or three bullets would be shot below the neck .

70 Into the crevices of the ribs . 45 . ASCETICS STILL From now on till hunger , and from then on till resurrection , disturb me not . Tell a lie that I am sitting in meditation , with eyes closed and legs squat . String me not out like a worm who is spinning thread under a woollen blanket , after latching the door . Despite comprehending , seeing the flame is not possible . Owlishness has crept into daytime . Even after searching out a wall behind flowers and hiding with the books embraced , the noise has not died out . On the foreheads of men , nails would inscribe as “ Peace , peace ” , the misery of dogs dying in the mid-street . A brief moment’s silence , for the muscles having torn .

71

In the ditches stagnated from leakages in charters , the rotten lips of children would long for breast-feed . As the yoke-borne , fire-stored legs and hands blast out in smoke , effaced fonts of print would yawn and relax . The crowd would move , targeting tomorrow’s-bread its goal , wiping the spit dribbling over its face . I too , along with it . Penance safe in a bag . ===========================================================

72

46 . THE WHOLE OF THIS SONG . The dogs would frisk around , not to have intercourse , but rather whimsically . The foals would practise leap and would trip over . The memory’s grass-grown upland fields would settle as a water-colour painting in two dimensions . Love’s arrow with a poisonous tip , the algae washed by the moving stream , the ditch with a dog’s carcass rots and decomposes – all would be covered by metal ash . The cap on the head of the boy , who hones and sharpens the rusty tin and cuts the horse’s mane to size , would smell of the labour class . And so would the whole of this song .

73

47 . ANOTHER VIEW-POINT TO THE UTILITY-LITERARIAN Whatever it be , as per your wish , let us to pieces smash , the violin instruments that purr like cats ; let us exile the one who paints the ripened apples in blue , and the one who draws the burning yellow flames on branches of shivering trees . Let us synthesise parks anew , so as to make the flowers forget their aeon antiquity , by fertilising high-quality weedicides . The laughter of children could be Transformed into Siberian deserts . While erecting tall , elongated structures , the moon could be used as a platform to stamp foot on , leap and launch . Orders could be passed that none should enjoy its light . ‘ Whatever you now need is your job ’. Supposing , the day that humanism flowers

74 opens up , for you , for me and for them , on which pages would you stamp your feet ? From where would your culture get imported ? What would then survive , excepting the propaganda , reminding one of The granite stones with edges uncut ?

75

48 . THE LIE OF POETRY Proceed , decidedly . If coming back remains certain , sleep in the dust , with cheeks sunken , with the eyes wiped with no tears on , and return , seeking permission from the legs . Proceed on ! Seek the mental asylum , not wearing inner garments , with your skull drenched in the evil sun . Draw wheat fields , mature more and ripen , and lose yourself . Even after losing the power of hearing , merge compound voices and compose a final psalm , and smash the statues to pieces . Weary yourself by digging canals for food . Do not erect lie as poetry .

76

49 . ALWAYS , AND PRESENTLY ALL OF US . Splitting a night , with the help of a thread , into four , I gave it to him . Entering into the third stage , he reflected in the room , the shore-forgotten laughter of the seaside , in the colour of shell lime . The one who advises , ‘ .. but keep money in the pocket , keep money in the pocket ’ , he asked , was it Roderigo or Iago , the memory neurons stumble . I replied , ‘ Always , and presently , all of us . Bartering laughter , he crossed the fourth stage . Into my two skull-protruding glass-marbles , fell a face , having flaming pupils .

77

50 . THE RUSTING VOICE . A dark street , crossed through , love cured and then walked ahead . He who describes you , who is crossing 30 , as a tender- looking face . The resonance of the tambura , plucked prior to the singing . The brain of the infant yet to vibrate into you will get tuned . The sparrows would compete in rivalry and would scatter the fence flowers and shed their own feathers . You will be aware of it without even raising your head . His index finger would release the fly that would take courage to die in the remnants of the tea cups . The traits of things unavoidable would exhibit themselves on your face . The tambura would once again stand leaning at the room corner . Music would remain diffused in air . Your voice , on the other hand , Would wait to mature and rust .

78

51 . THE THIRD SONG . On a day of foetus ’ discomposure and miscarriage , during those moments load-lumps overhung the memory like folded hands , valleys , fragrance of anonymous trees , geometrical designs of wind that danced , encircling the grass – all called and shouted at you , again and again . You were not aware of that , as the song that had trickled , and been drawn , been sung feebly and loudly , and got expressed along with me in the gooseflesh of my hair roots . I realised , due to the water’s loud noise , your standing as a frozen stream in the mid-sky . Those which will not contain in your elongating thin fingers are my spectacles and ribs . Nevertheless , my heart asked who that was , who saw originally , the creepers of

79

your arm’s veins . The one reply in the positive Did not come from you now . When ? Then would I loiter as the blue-wind , that again dishevels and makes merry with your hair .

Thanks Before it reached the final stage, this anthology was entrusted to Mr. Nanjundan. After reading it, he suggested many a correction and idea. Though I did not carry out all his suggestions, the ones carried out have rendered some lucidity to the text that already existed. This has made reading easier. Getting rid of spelling errors has given the poems more clarity. Controversy exists on ‘editing’ poems. Some question the need of editing them. I don’t believe that all that a poet writes happen due to divine inspiration. Poems do not suffer damage when they are subjected to editing.