Oxbow Lake

Behind the Sun

2011-11-16T10:47:00.001-08:00

The child nuzzled in her chest,

its nose pressed against her collar bone,

so close that they become one.

The waves crashing into the walls of the room created music,

a symbolic symphony of harmony.

As the sky and sea fused,

even the sun glowed in their union.

The bird that sat atop the windowsill didn’t sing,

It stared at the child with tilted head, curiously.

She looked at the space next to her,

Bed unmade but empty.

His dream had come alive,

Where was he?

It was high tide,

Where was he?

The cold nip of the air bit her like a rabid dog,

Where was he?

Head bowed, hair flying,

She sighed and waited.

The pain was visible, her face wasn’t.

She looked up, blank.

The inevitability of the outcome stared her in the face.

She held the child, closer and closer,

Too close.

Then she tied her muffler around her neck,

Tighter and tighter,

Too tight.

They lay in bed, eyes closed.

Salt water splashed into the room,

Fell on the child’s face and trickled down,

Where a tear should have been.

The Harbinger

2011-11-16T10:45:00.001-08:00

Sahib had been so kind.

A whole week to spend in my village.

where nothing ever happened.

It stayed just the same.

Minute after minute,

day after day,

Year after year.

But sahib understood why I longed for home.

So he let me go.

Shadows danced in the sunlight,

the water breathed mist,

The mist hugged the trees.

The sky sang songs of love, separation, loss and magnanimity.

Honey dripped from the bee hives.

Little boys stood under the tree,

with their tongues sticking out,

eyes shut,

facing the sky.

That’s where I had met Bala.

She is with child now.

Her smile, so crooked, looking at me, making fun of me,

Whilst I stood in sweet protest

Waiting for just one drop of honey.

She married me when I had nothing.

No money, no job, nothing to give her.

She was probably waiting for me,

Her black and gold mangal sutra glinting,

Her kajal smudged, her bindi placed perfectly between her eyes.

I sat on the general class berth,

my bag neatly tucked under the seat.

Seats filled quickly around here.

I read the daily newspaper,

Sahib had taught me to read.

I earned extra money for reading to sahib’s blind grandfather.

He slipped me kheer now and then.

I told stories of the big city to the other passengers.

Bomkesh ji was shocked to hear the lyrics of the new songs people blared on their radios.

It disturbed no one in our gully

They slept through anything.

Even while I was talking,

I thought of Bala, her mangal sutra glinting,

Her smudged kajal and her perfectly placed bindi.

She was probably waiting for me.

Sahib had given me a saree for Bala and ma,

Sweets, and small sweaters for my child.

I had bought earrings and other trinkets.

It would be my first gift to her since we pledged holy matrimony.

I imagined the look on her face when she’d see it.

she married me when I had nothing to give her.

But I do now.

The train reached the station,

The engine whistling.

wheels screeching,

Coolies screaming,

Passengers hurrying,

Knees knocking against one another.

People waving at each other with delight.

The joining of parting souls after an eternity.

The sky sang songs of that too.

Waiting till the pushing stopped seemed best.

So I waited.

Hand ducked under the seat, it felt the air.

There was no bag.

No saree, no earrings.

A walk by the lake.

The sand is filled with all kinds of rubbish.

Ash from cremated bodies,

Dead fish, Bits of rotting wood broken off from boats,

Rotting piles of garbage,

Crows pecking at it.

I stared at the rippling water,

Feeling like I belonged inside, never to come out.

I had nothing to give anyone.

On my toes,

I was ready to take the leap that would change everything,

A drop of honey fell,

Landing on the tip of my nose.

Oh, Bala!

Her crooked smile.

Her laugh.

Her mangal sutra glinting,

Her smudged kajal and bindi placed perfectly between her eyes.

She was with child now.

Fists clenched, shoulders stooped,

Dragging feet,

sweat dripping from my beard,

I headed home.

The sky, haunted by a deepening gloom,

sang of disappointment.

It had all stayed the same.

shadows danced in the sunlight,

the water breathed mist,

The mist hugged the trees.

The sky sang songs of love, separation, loss and disappointment.

Honey dripped from the bee hives.

Bala was waiting for me,

Her mangal sutra glinting, her kajal smudged,

Her bindi placed perfectly between her eyes.

In the village where nothing changes,

Minute after minute, day after day,

Year after year.

Indeed nothing had changed.

I had nothing to give her then,

I have nothing to give her now.

Perhaps the man needed it more than I.

Perhaps there is justice in the world.

Perhaps one day the sky would sing for me, the harbinger of joy.

Perhaps.

Love and Shadows

2011-11-16T10:44:00.001-08:00

He was like sleep to her,

A blanket between her and the world,

A kaleidoscope of pain and despair.

Her eyes had the grace of tiny birds that hop around in shallow pools of water.

His smile was like the smell from an incense stick, it lingered.

Some cells were found

That grew relentlessly,

like their love, like cancer.

He looked at her when lying in bed,

Eyes locked,

feelings hung in the air like cigarette smoke on a lazy still afternoon.

Between the origin of a cataclysm,

And the mundane things that precede it in their innocence and purity

Is a small space, a breath of air, a fraction of time,

in which the world holds still, tense,

A motionless orb,

but bound by its very nature to shatter into a thousand pieces

The cracking open of time and soul, bit by tiny bit,

The pause between the first heart beat and the last

When the present seems as though everything is possible

And the future knows that nothing really is.

Fingers whispering words,

The long “beep” of the heart monitor,

Crash cart screeching, paramedics shouting,

Her, weeping.

Rocking back and forth in her arm-chair.

Blackened, decaying walls smelling of stale death.

Her companion, the moth.

The lights and memories that were dimmed by the dust of the past,

Blazed at her through the wings of the moth.

Her imagination flew like a gliding seagull,

Looking for a tomorrow,

In yesterday’s shadow.

Into a vortex,

A Dream,

That pulls,

That nudges.

Running through the translucence,

searching,

falling,

and breathing no more.

Vortex

2008-06-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

A Dream,
A Vortex,
That pulls,
That nudges.

Running through the transluscence,
searching,
falling,
and breathing no more.

Overview

2008-06-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

I look down from my balcony,
A sea of faces,
An ocean of bobbing heads,
And all ask the same question: "Why bother?"

"Do we need to?"
"Why does it have to be me who cares?"
come from the few
who even bother to look up.

They are wearing sunglasses,
There's a sheet of transparent glass
separating each from the other.
Protective gear,
and yet so vulnerable.

It prevents us/them from seeing the bleeding trees,
from hearing the screaming,
from seeing the pillars falling upon which our very foundation is,
under the weight of the flaws of society.

Their vulnerabilty makes them retreat further,
walking away from the trees, the grass, the mud,
into four walls of concrete.
Distancing them all the more.

It's disturbing.
The screaming, the bleeding and the concrete
and yet,
I choose to remain up here.

This was written on 24.07.2005.

Search

2008-06-16T23:50:00.000-07:00

Come find me,
I need to be found.
The sand from beneath my feet is being drained away,
My breath being sucked out.

Confusion and turmoil,
Real and Unreal,
Hope and despair,
All jammed into one small head.

The swing moving slowly,
Back........................ and forth
Back ........................and forth
Time ticking by.

This was written back in 2005.

Untitled

2008-06-16T23:24:00.000-07:00

The parched hands,
The rough skin,
The thin body,
and me, being able to count the ribs.

The clothes hanging loosely.
The feet bare, gripping the soil underneath them.
The ashen and wrinkled face,
speaking of sorrow and yet spelling out joy.

His son next to him,
wrapping his hands around his fathers legs.
With so much pride, as the father talks.
And me, the privileged one, watching, listening, sympathising.

The man, happy with what he has,
speaking of his condition while laughing,
just keeping enough to cater to his needs,
kissing his son on the forhead.

A smile playing on his lips,
He tells us of how little land he has,
of how it might not rain this year,
and how his training in masonry failed.

I might've been able to say something,
If the man had cried,
If he had expressed his sorrow.
Instead of smiling. Happily and calmly. Just smiling.

He has a family to feed but no food,
No clothes,
No proper home,
and me, envious.

Envious of the man's simple happiness,
Envious of that smile
Envious of the way he thanked us for coming,
Thanked the people who have to this condition of his.

This poem was actually written a couple of years ago.

Light

2008-06-14T05:04:00.000-07:00

The damp blackened walls,
Smelling of stale death.
The window shutter held tight by straw.
The crumbling fireplace that hadn't been alight for years.

Flashback

2008-06-14T04:52:00.000-07:00

As I lay near the window,
A sphere of helium sucking life out,
A small portal in bright colours,
getting wider.

Someone screaming next to me,
I think I can hear it.
Someone sobbing on my clothes,
I think I can feel the hot tears.

I see him, he's running across the tracks,
he's raising his hand in class,
leaning on the pillar, torchlight on his forhead.
I should've known school romances never last.

"Gone with the Wind" lying on my bed,
My mattress turned over
She's yelling...........
Why's she yelling?

The bloomed lotus outside our classroom;
Fading away.
The red flowers, losing their red,
And me looking out of the door.

I got my graph wrong that day.
Red ink splashed across the grid.
I see the portal now, dashed in blue.
I think it knows.

At the dinner table,
My parents sitting across from me.
All of us laughing over a bowl of custard.
The death toll in Iraq rising, and me so jocund.

The papers from my file are flying,
I'm strugging to gather them.
When did it all fall apart?
I realised too late i think,.

I'm running on a circular track.
Seemingly endless.
Maybe it will end.
Today.

The last sounds being the slight murmuring
of my mother in my ear.
Then the even more slight siren of
The Ambulance.

Shadow

2008-05-25T04:12:00.000-07:00

The gray flows into the blue,
The water rises to meet the sky,
The orchestra of sounds crashing into me,
The ship in pieces.

The waterlogged wood splitting,
The rain, washing everything away.

There's a lady crying, Holding her dead son's body.
A hungry puppy looking for it's mother.

A bullet has been shot somewhere,
we just heard it.

There's no light left.
And yet, I stand on the mast,
looking for a tomorrow
in yesterday's shadow.