Works of RK

The stories that my mind weaves  For me to hold on to memories of you Are finely spun silken strands of time Crisscrossing through the ups and the downs Of our tumultuous universe. Here I find a wormhole and claw back to where we first met and there the gravity from a distant star Bounces me off the make believe ride And I lose you again It is not unlike a revolving door That opens And closes Into a room full of you.

It was her idea to visit the seashore. She rarely asks anything of me. At the break of dawn we were near the Jetty. Not many peop le around at this time. I looked at her closely as she looked at the waves splashing on to the wooden decks. There was the smell of dead and drying fish, and barnacles, and burnt diesel from the boats. I looked at her for a long while, expecting that she would say something to bridge the divide. Nothing. An hour later, when the crowd of morning walkers started increasing, I asked her: Shall we go? . A nod from her and we were back on the road. As I dropped her home, I looked at the house, the street, the gate with the postbox and the hedges and the weeds once more. I knew that if there is a next time, it will be a long time later.   You don't fall in love with the sea There is nothing from these shores That can fill her longing for the Oceans      

The day is getting shorter  The nights, longer.  Tired from all the shining All season long The Sun slowly gives way To the waiting Stars in the sky.  I can see so many more of them  The new ones Of the old ones Who did not have time enough  For their final goodbyes.  ----- In memory of the elderly who passed away during these pandemic times. Image © Jonathan McHugh 2020

For me you have been a traveler The one who rides the oceans and the big blue seas Seeking experiences That can be framed into postcards Of wonderful memories For a future  That is yet to unravel.  Your today's rush you Into your tomorrows  And in its wake Small boats likeme Would mostly sink Into long forgotten memories Of abandoned islands  Where you now live no more.  As I watch you sleep The glasses back on your face The little girl back in the rug The silent one yearning for a hug I feel you tug at my cuffs Ten more minutes,  you say Stay with me,  for ten more minutes... And then I am scared Of who you will be When you wake up.

It was a roller coaster life Until it was not fun anymore   Whirlwind tours Large, life changing projects Lots of love Lots of attention Until it was a party no more. When it rained And the grass was green again When it was springtime And the Vishu flowers Bloomed again I could sense her call In the increased longing Of my lines now gradually filling With pathos and loss I looked at the work-bay So antiseptically clean! The computer screen With a background That now had no new stories to tell! And I looked out of the window And saw a million cars Being driven To now meaningless places For now meaningless reasons. I closed my eyes and she spoke to me... Through the pollen and the petrichor Through the call of the fisherman And the song of the paddy field worker I could hear the evening drums from my village temple Now beat closer home than ever before The deity would visit me in my dream And ordain: Follow me home, follow me home, f

You appear more often in my dreams these days  Some really strange and some most inexplicable. Today, I saw you crossing A dark and lonesome wood Filled with translucent creepers  And monstrous trees with fangs And then the woods, they morphed And took on strange forms Of shapes I could not comprehend. And then there were other dreams. Here, I am holding you close, and there I find myself crying for you, as you suddenly turn into the wind and the rustling of the leaves and the fire from fireflies turning into dragons. Here I drown in your dark broody eyes, and there you look at me, from behind ancient ruins of broken homes and stairs that run into dungeons and mazes... And starless skies  And empty white spaces. I don't sleep well these days In me, you don't sleep well these days.

I read that there was a fire in Andover, near Boston. I pinged her and saw the double tick An hour later, a message, I am safe, don't worry. The heart beats in such distant places. People die long before they are dead.

Can I borrow you From a Feynman’s Future And hide you in my memory corridors Forever locked In blocks of eternal presentness? Can I be with you Without actually having to be For that would require of me To consume time Grow old and die I don’t want to fight Entropy I just want to be In space outside of time Just you and me

You live in those places in me From where memory is first born Where thoughts unfettered by fate And untouched by destiny Takes birth on its own free will And lives on with a single desire The desire to be one With you. Nothing else that matters Matter.

In the little moments of conscious clarity, between muddled minds, huddled bodies and cluttered spaces of my everyday living, I keep going back to the time we met last and said our last goodbyes. If I knew that you would move into the mist and be one with the fog and the darkening caves; If I knew that the somersaults of your mind would exile me into the realms of the unknown, and that you would take my place, my face and my being in you and consume it to an ancient memory … Maybe I would have held you back a little closer. Hugged you a little tighter, smelt you a little longer, allowed your entangled hairs to ease out of my fingers, a little slower. Maybe, just maybe, I would have gone for that one last kiss...

Why does it rain in little drizzles And not just pour it's heart out All at once and for all time, into all places Into the roads the canals and the drains Why does it not rain, like rain? Why not just roar And with a thunderous wail Cause a cloudburst Break a Dam Deluge a city Annihilate Why does it not rain like rain? If only I could think of you, Just once Instead of having to think In drizzles and drops and sobs And in between shadows And all this chaos If I could think of you For the last time, Like a cloudburst And then In one brilliant tragic flood Be washed away and be gone Forever, With all this slush And all this mud.   Listen to this poems here

Were you two really close once? I don't know. Never really thought about it that way. I always liked to believe that I was close to her. But then I will never really know, right? And now? And now I know that I am not. I am no longer a moon, and she no longer is my Sun. From where I live now, she is more like a distant star, and I, a satellite, unhinged.

As you move from being an institution in my mind to just another person, all those definitions and all those expectations, too, transition through time. You for me Are like an old world Talkie Where once, small town movies Played to uncouth rustic folks like me. I romanticize my pain And I glorify my losses. All movies that played here In my mind, Were blockbuster movies And all actors Were characters From my little life with you. Once we down the shutters For long enough in time Time would cure me Of my countryside memories Of whistling of the trains And the running in the rain. I will remember you Like I want to You will forget me Like you are wont to.

If a drop could color an Ocean You my dear, Would be that drop And my life an endless                                Expanse of you.

It was probably the moustache That attracted the fly This was probably the last time He would be buzzed And the first time That he would not know. There was a lot of white The drapes, the sarees, the cotton With which his toes and the thumbs Were tied. When you are dead I guess these things don't matter The color, the flies and the incense That invades the nostrils Until you feel heady With his death. When you are dead I guess you are Probably just dead And it's different From just not being alive.

You would not have walked with me Had the nights been not so scary And your nightmares All so real for you. I would not have held your hands Had the hands that I wished to hold Not left me out in the cold. Let us together, you and I Celebrate our togetherness Even as in our silences We cherish our separateness. Mar 7, 2015 First published in Indian Sahitya, Feb 2017 Issue on Contemporary Indian Poetry

I was on the table When a strand of your hair came calling. I could see you in the kitchen, Your face at once a storm and a breeze. I curled the single strand of loving you into imagined shapes And spoke to it of fascinating tales. And as it played on my fingers, Twirling, and curling I could hear the music from its silent songs. I had half the heart to carry it with me home And hide it in a book marked you. It smelt like July Flowers. It smelt so much of you. First published in Indian Sahitya, Feb 2017 Issue on Contemporary Indian Poetry

Thannare thana, thinna thannaram thaana....(II) I am not sure of the words of their songs I am not even sure if this is my language anymore. But as the rhythm beats It holds me in its serpentine sway. My soul strums up some ancient memories Of a life in the cradle of green fields Of grains and harvests and rainfall And pagan Gods. The beating of crude drums remind me Not to forget Where I come from. As the music fades into the distance I walk up to the little temple of my ancestors And light one more lamp in their memory. And as the wick sputters into a bright light I am once again my great-grandfather's thought of me, I am a continuum of His cosmic grace. First published in Indian Sahitya, Feb 2017 Issue on Contemporary Indian Poetry

From less of that "Thing" thing To more of that thing with thoughts of her own. From less of having to play the donkey To your grand-dad's ancestry To freedom and equal choices. From less of my shreiks Being stifled in my own womb To regaining ownership Of that which is naturally mine. You can be my hero And you need no armour Nor an Alpine account, as some would Want me to say.. I am not your equal Nor am I more, or a little less. I am different, So when you look at me The next time Look at me With a look That celebrates who I am Celebrates Me. (Celebrating women on International Women's Day today)

In the long innings of this life, we are like the stage where the drama unravels. The Plays change, the players too come and go. The audience is like the river of time that runs through us. There are bright lights and wonderful stories and some stories that run to empty seats. Whatever be your story this coming year, pray don't be enamoured by it, nor be bogged down. These are just stories. Stories change. But life as it is, is lived forever between the shows and the silences that follow when the curtains come down. You are the stage. While you may have a little say in the stories that play out in your life, I hope you learn to enjoy the successful ones, and forgive, or forget, or do both, to the ones that never really took off. This is not a new year wish. It is what I wish for you, every year of your life and for the lifetimes that are yet to come. Happy All Years.