Poems written in April2014

Contents

Souvenirs 1

Mist 2

Butterflies 4

Tree 5

In the eyes, the dream 7

Narration 8

Earth day 9

Cracked 10

Gold 11

Song 12

Turbans 13

Child’s inventory 14

Uncle 15

Old stories 16

Peristalsis 17

Torque 18

Tinsel 19

Inside Stuff 20

Physiognomy Of Death 21

Lamppost 22

Hand holding 23

Laundry 24

Outlines 25

Unplugging 26

Crowd 27

Decline and fall 28

1

Souvenirs

All the times we had passed throughStay embalmed and available, pickledSun- dried like meat pieces preservedFor all those unending vegetable days.

We have our passions still simmering.Fates are toothless to chew and clawFrom wizened faces, moonshine goneFrom our thin pates, now bald moons.

Lucky we had pickled earlier moonsAnd preserved them for a future use.And now we flaunt them as keepsakesSouvenirs to show bored neighboursWe had been there, fort ruins and all.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: souvenirs

2

Mist

I seem going down in my eyesAnd all your gestures are tryingTo match bodies with my own .Eye’s smiles are failing to matchYour mind with my phonetics.My lips drift away in the sandsBy wind sailing to differentiateThe sea from overhanging sky.

In the mist are vague contoursOf people and shrouds of themWalking towards me and awayLike wind that wanders in mistOr a rain that comes in walkingOn the road ,as gusts of a windAs people and daughters about,People and mine from a womb,And white robed figures in longTails hanging from their necks.

My mind recognises sovereigntyOf the foot, functioning on own.The fly does not walk its textureNor does the song set it tappingA ghost foot declaring rebellion,Preferring to join them in a mist,As if parts are wholes themselves.

4

Butterflies

A poet, before her dying, thoughtOf butterflies on mass migrationFrom where they wouldn’t return,Very natural thing for their wingsTo die and fall off from falling sky,That were monarchs of all survey.

All poets have butterflies in eyes.A full blown poetry book may yetLaunch them on the wings to fallInto waiting laps as beauty tokens.

Before a rich ripe uncle’s dyingBook might not see a day’s light.Wings are folded round a bodyOn way to a misty evening landFrom where will be a no returnAnd the wings will just drop offOn way, in the never ending sea.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: butterflies

5

Tree

We try to re-live our mom’sMemory over this very treeBending solicitously towardsThe neighbour’s house wall.It favours him by its richnessOf sap and fullness of fruitSo green it will turn yellowOr end up as pickle on tableBy when the cuckoo shall tireOf calling the rain from sky.

Back where she took to skyShe is a tree now full grownWith ripe mangoes drippingLike rain ,on soil freshly laidFor her to take roots and fly,Held by the earth and its sky.

So I believe as belief stoppedWhen she was river from boatAnd the quickly flowing boatDid not allow us to look backAnd find her in river’s eddies.So I believe she is now firmlyRooted to the earth’s eddiesWhere roots plummet deeperAnd deeper as memories fadeAnd then we are trees like her.

7

In the eyes, the dream

Rilke’s father had no moustacheThe brows touch,and in the eyesA dream, the youthful filial dreamBy a poet who looked for dreamsIn vintage photograph creatures.

Like Ariel spirit who sang for youTo vanish and be gone for everSinging of pearls that were eyesOf dreams that made his pearlsFive thousand rupees for a string,In a pearl bazaar of four towersFar from oyster hosting oceans.

We are looking for dream fathersWithout a moustache, their browsDuly touching and knit in thoughtsFrom far off space, soft to touchLike pearls solidified from dreamsFound in old photograph creatures.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: in the eyes, rilke'sfather, the dream

8

Narration

The grand narrative shall go onBriefly interrupted by an event.You see the narration resumesQuickly after the event ends.

The wooden posts that encloseThe festivities are pulled down,As temporary skies after event,Leaving maps of earth filled holes.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

9

Earth day

We are of the earth in a potThat will break in mid -riverWe do not look back to see,Speeding away to see piecesRe-form earth we have lostAnd regain in rivers of time.

Our earth-pots had watersThat smelled of the desertAnd a moon in our women.Earth pot had holes of lightFrom which the oceans fellAs sprinklers on day’s earthFor lugubrious trees to rise.

We are an earth that breaksIn shards of our gone timesTo be preserved in museumsAnd re-forms as tiny lampsHolding all our earth hopes ,A sun rising on a new earth.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: earth day

10

Cracked

Lest thirst should seek waterWe give much to future eyes.Water will flow in mud damsThe upstream flows drownedBy speeches,on long – routedRoads fleshed with rain mudThat smells like new monsoonComing from south-west hills.

We wear our palms on boardAnd lotuses smell fresh mud.This monsoon is treacherousOn cotton in the cracked land.Minds go cracked like the landAnd bodies disappear in fans.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: cracked

11

Gold

We like to think of the midnight sailAmid light sounds of a boat paddleOn night’s waters on gentle breezeAs a moment of eternity lost to timeWith some gold added to it as in love.

We do not like strokes in televisionWatching, staring at a clock fixationAs if smiling for ever, a frozen smileNot moving shadow on face ,flittingAs if a white cloud passing on a hillAnd soft sunset hue added for gold.Poets like to add gold everywhere.

Our stroke of luck does not happenAll the time ,in the television or out.This sort of a smile is just some ice,A frozen Arctic waste on mom’s face,Fixed for ever and there is no gold,A worn sunset with no talk of dawn.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: gold

12

Song

A creak cannot be a songUnless it be at a midnightWhen the arms of the treeCoalesce to belt out songA soft moony wooden dittyA painful friction,cat’s purrLove,with no subject-object.

Object is no love but wind.You get windy like doorsBanging shut for a nothingTheir stoppers stoppingShort of love expressions.

Words fall somewhat shortAll for sounds to take overIn crucial moments of loveLike death that is a sound.Death is an act of love saidWithout sound,just a poof.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

13

Turbans

From the sleepers I get up and goPast dreams by their inert bodiesCareful not to brush fragile wingedButterflies of their eyes enactingFierce war dramas behind the lidsTheir butterfly movements in syncAs in choruses of some tragedies.

Now I survey bodies and turn backTo remove their turbans as trophiesFor my own dearest sister who tookA private fancy for their many hues.

At dawn’s crack , bodies will get upAnd go, their colored turbans gone,And their swords drawn for a battleWith below- the- turban knowledgeThat dreams are gone with turbans.

(From a scene in the great Indian epic Mahabharata)

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: turbans

14

Child’s inventory

To know when to order new onesI must have their proper inventory.The stars shine up there endlesslyAnd have been, since I came here.I shall now make their inventoryNight after night,strewn like saltOn sea shore, left drying in pans.

Since I came , stars have changedA lot against the dark sky, behindThe well where the waters glistenAnd rope and pail wait out a nightReady to bring up the fallen onesShining by default in well watersDropped by somewhat loose sky.

My fingers are tiny , not that pointyFor the counting and I often forgetWhere I stop and where to resumeWhen I have to do my home work,In between and run up to the roof.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: child's inventory,inventory

15

Uncle

Time is to cease to be an uncleA lecturing dad , a senti brotherTo he who stares from a photo,In grayscale rolled shirtsleeves .

Uncle & nephew will jointly stareAt the bottom of the starry skyIn due course ,below the house.Nephew will join him by and by.

While uncle was at it ,in his lifeHe had bitten his sarcastic lipsAbout the world and its makerAnd you nephew were peculiar.

Nephew now asks uncle to waitTill he reaches a house bottomSo they will jointly stare at skyMaking fine sarcasm together.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: uncle

16

Old stories

They come back with a vigorSeeming new but old storiesThat happen again and again Just the language of thoughtFrôm old skulls, not very farWhen their seams come apart As if to admit starlight insideOr for geodesical knowledge.

We were there another time The old brick walls with mossA flower creeper in crack siredBy a bird’s chance droppingOr the terribly busy antlinesCrawling as if they were fate’sCalligraphy on our foreheadsAcross our skullplates, whereStories are writ to repetition.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

17

Peristalsis

This way our tunnel movesDown and further ,to gravityAnd against,this way our fateWills it through Its dark grief,Accidents of human history.

Inside is the dark tunnelingThat moves through our stuffA monster of thirst and hungerWhere everything is pushedLike a relentless juggernautA snake that slithers as body-A body to a daily conclusion.

When a daily conclusion failsThe snake is massive stone.It turns afraid in snake foldsOf final conclusion reachedToo soon,a logical dead endWhere the snake forgets tailIn a forked head,now a stone.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

18

Torque

Mostly are facts, a birthThat cannot be refutedOr wiped off from eternity.A creature became itselfIn the floatsome air fluid

To dance as the arc on seasTo bring a being into being

The fishtail would be gone.A tadpole would forget tailTo be a normal swimthing.A tube goes the way downMatters of mother’s gravity

But somewhere facts are twisted.Alphas are sigmoid,in beta version.A version stays permanently beta

In tortuous path to food and drinkThe tube’s sigma turns volvulousFacts are twisted to suit designerA making defect from perfect handOr a frivolous experiment to truth.Now can you undo a few birth facts?

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

19

Tinsel

This is how the mind conectsAfter the hard night’s bargainWith a sleep’s dreams in ragsNow mere recalled landscape.

Body finally connects thingsOf a mind,its bits of darknessIts interstices ,its pausebreaks,As body thinks itself to fever.

Bodies pause for their wholesAs noises go flat, turn smoothIn a new landscape of wordsThe poetry that does not real-Take place ,only sound tinsel,

Tinsel the sound is GodlawfulMany sounds and nightluminousA temporary fireworks in skyNot to be mistaken for all time.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

20

Inside Stuff

We can’t make all this publicThe inside stuff, a monologue.We speak under our breathAs tubes go long and deepInside a stomach and belowWhere speech dies in thirstAnd a breath air turns stickyAs monsoon of recent earth.

We are the insides of natureA sky’s overtures to the bodyThat has a sky and an earthBecome one in single breathInheritors of recent real man,A soul dying to be mere body,A body since changed to sky.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

21

Physiognomy Of Death

His death is difficult proposition for usIts countenance is our matter of space,Wedged between two chunks of timeA vast plenitude, a richness of texture.

We carry on discourse as if he is in roomSarcastic about other’s talk in the roomBelow window of an oppressive summer.

We pretend its ongoing through the longShadows of an April, the cruellest monthTo pretend otherwise ,breeding marigoldsFor eighty plus men, hanging their boots.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

22

Lamppost

I deserve all the respectDue to my advanced age.I bend slightly from ageAs light turns out heavyUnder the yellow floodI nightly garner to drownWalking people and dogsWho eat their shadows .

I have never disciminatedBetween man and beast,Susbstantial or a shadow,While distributing my light.One- night moths rise fromEarth to make wise halosRound me on rainy nights.

But this is between us two.I cant forgive the mongrelFor its utter lack of respectShown me , night after night.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: lamppost

23

Hand holding

Will you please hold my handsSaid she at the edge of the bedAs if it was her precipitous cliffAnd gravity was down pulling.

She would know ,as in her timeShe had done her handholdingFor others, locking their fingersIn hers, so they would not fall offThe edges , in their eerie dreams.

This time round , hands are notLocked in position, in a firm gripAnd it is now any time they willLoosen for gravity to do its work.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: hand holding

24

Laundry

We beat our common stonesJointly and severally owned.Our laundry washing spiritsAre completely perked up likeGoosebumps at a temporaryExcitement, recent feel-good.A rhythm of beat is the thing.

Detergents are freely mixed.They smell of fresh lemonsTaken off their trees to hangOn a sun drying clothesline.We have left all our currencyTo remain in the shirt pockets.That is for their nice laundry.

We are looking for our hangupsWe wear always on our sleeves.We shall give them a nice beatOnce they are off dirty sleeves.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

25

Outlines

I barely see the outlinesIn the darkness of trees.The sun caresses themThe nape of their necksErect in a stranglehoodOf his overflowing hair.Hair makes fine outlinesIn the dusktime of windWhen it removes tracesOf unique face identity.The faces shall disappearAfter they turn outlinesUnder a sun’s hegemony.The sun takes them awayAbolishes them quicklyIn the darkness of trees.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: outlines

27

Crowd

Crowd turns midnight tideFor politicians of many huesSubmerging minds like seaWhen the moon is high up.It breaks too, when it doesWith flotsam, against sandsDigging heels in crab holesAs moon is down in dumps.

The beauty of a crowd’s faceIs no longer in the ballgameWhen there is a moon in skyTurning ugly when it is down.It is in an electronic machineWhere all else is swiped offExcept the anger to shout no,A roar heard every five years.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: crowd

28

Decline and fall

After the decline has startedThe empire is a wooded black,Trees stopping to grow exceptTo shed tears of yellow leaves.

Old fool’s imperium declinesAnd falls, a false empire that isNever there, beyond the flickr,Past its outer circle of flame.

Flame’s dying fragrance mixesWith flowers on God’s imagesTheir smell is one with its dying,A decline is complete and fall.

Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: decline and fall