Poetry Website

I am moved by death in many stubborn ways:
some news, an obituary, an in memoriam; but it is moving,
a slow passing into dying deep embers,
where the wound is unhurt,
uncut, only in oblivion.

Words toss me
hassle me into
some writing, some thinking
and some meditation. But,
poetry is a sum total of all
and then words are reduced
to ashes which burn, at
mention of words.

I knew as a child how words were mesmeric
as I stood on stage to recite poems of rhythm,
poems which scanned mind
and brain, poems that I learnt by rote, poems that the Radiant Reader in school brought peace to soul, poems of dignity, indignity, poems that were balladic, epic, nomadic. Poems where words escaped mind’s eye wrought
into worlds of laughter, sadness, madness.
And then, words fleshed them into spin-offs.

Today is spring, someone
announced, I never knew it
had a date, or birth, or death I only know that fruits
of earth are sown here, mesmerized by an unflagging wind. Spirit of
dominance. And springtime’s cherries will open, wilderness of skies.

I must leave this
wilderness of thought
grass growing, head cracking
splintering forth,
a country is burning
the dead are buried long
ago, they will resurrect
only at the raucous bark
of a dog. I haven’t travelled enough to know
that the writing on the wall
is only a slur to all actions.
Shoot them out and twist
history into contorted truths.

This springtime reminds
of autumn’s wind
and decadent roads
will smell the tar once again
as roads need to be repaired
in this season only
with the brush of the rains
lacing them with wetness, muddy. I stand or walk
precariously as the roads
are prepared once again for torrid rains, the monsoon’s blues, and the fang-bearing winds.
In this hill town I breathe freely. Rustic.